From the "I'm still skeptical" file:

Why is it that the only black people we've heard about when it comes to Harvard University are people who get arrested?

First, Henry Louis Gates gets pinched for basically telling a cop off while in his own home. Now, there's a more serious case involving a senior from Harlem who has been charged in connection with a drug-related homicide on the Ivy League school's campus.

Brittany Smith, 22, has been indicted as an accessory to the cover up of the 2009 murder of Justin Cosby from Cambridge, Mass. She pleaded not guilty to the six charges against her. Police say Smith, who was denied her diploma, was the girlfriend of Jabari Copney, one of three men being questioned in the case.

She's accused of giving Copney the key card to her dorm where he, Blayn Jiggets, 19, and Jason Aquino, 23, planned to rob Cosby in a drug shakedown, police said. The robbery went awry, resulting in Cosby's death. After the shooting, she allegedly hid the firearm under a friend's bed and lied to authorities about it.

Ha! Take that, Glenn Beck!

Just when you thought ACORN suffered its death blow by populist nonsensical cable network bufoonery, a Brooklyn, N.Y., judge lets everyone know that Congress had no business punishing the group before any guilt had been determined.

Thank goodness we have something in this country called "rule of law/" and America's actually getting better at it. That means you really can only be punished if you've done something wrong, and that's what U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon ruled on Wednesday, regarding a government request that funding to ACORN be blocked.

At a house party one time, I saw a honey-colored, really cute sista. In between swigs of wine, as friendly introductions were being made among party-goers, I attempted to introduce myself to her:

"How you doin', sweetheart," I said as I smiled my winning party smile and extended my hand to shake hers in a gentlemanly way

Her response: "How you doin', what?"

I repeated: "How you doin' sweetheart?

Her response (this time with her lips parsed and her nose turned up): "How you doin', what?"

By this point, the soft grasp I had of her hand became a clawing Kimbo Slice-style grip she had conjured to show that she resented the way I made my introduction. After repeating the futile exchange once more just to see if this woman was for real, I dropped it, refusing to apologize for being friendly at a social function.

But I did get her point: Shaking her hand softly and calling her "sweetheart" was apparently an attempt to turn back years of women's lib, and I needed to be tarred and feathered - sexist pig that I was.

Looking back, I'm sure that if I ran in to her now, "sweetheart" would probably not be on the list of things I'd call her.

Still, as I read through the pages of Cleveland-based journalist and The Root commentator Jimi Izrael's new book "The Denzel Principle: Why Black Women Can't Find Good Black Men," I couldn't help but think of this and other incidents, where I had to be the bad black guy for being at the wrong place at the right time around the wrong sista.

The one thing I love about neo-cons is the frequency in which they get their panties wound up in a knot, realize they've eaten one too many chili dogs and then wind up constipated. It happened when they thought Sarah Palin actually had a shot at being vice-president; it happened when they tried to prove President Barack Obama was born in Kenya (some still beliieve it); and now it's happening again as they try to attack poor and working class people for trying to do things on their own.

It turns out, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office has found that the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) didn't commit any crimes when two fruitcake conservatives tried to entrap them on video.

While trumpets were blaring and Mardi Gras beads were being tossed after the Saints' monumental Super Bowl victory, revelers were asking "who dat?" But urban politics had already given its latest answer.

Earlier this month, voters in the Big Easy chose Mitch Landrieu as mayor, making him the first white mayor of the city since his father held the office more than 30 years prior. But the election signifies something very different: a change in the voting tastes in cities with large black populations.

The mysterious billboard in Wyoming, Minn., with a picture depicting former President George W. Bush asking, "Miss me yet?" has caused quite a stir, with many asking where it came from and what it's supposed to mean.

The ad towers over Interstate 35, which winds through rural Minnesota and features Prez 43 seemingly chuckling as if he were saying, "I told you so." But he really isn't. According to NPR, it turns out the mystery is solved.

The billboard was purchased and placed by a group of local small business owners who feel that Washington "is against them." The whole thing seems to have viral potential too. Already bumper stickers and T-shirts are popping up all over the country. It probably won't be too long before guitar-strummed country songs with the same title and theme pop up all over YouTube a la "Pants on the Ground."

But since the billboard poses a question, I'm happy to answer it: HELL !@#%ing, NO. I DON'T MISS YOU!

As was expected, director Lee Daniels' "Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire," garnered Academy Award nominations in every category it could, led by the powerful performances of comedienne Mo'Nique and newcomer Gabourey Sidibe, who take us in to a world of urban strife, grief (and eventually) fractured triumph.

But as enjoyable as many agree the film was, there's another school of thought I keep hearing about from those uncomfortable with yet another movie about "po' black people," a perspective that expounds the frustration with black folks "showin' their teeth." Many argue that "Precious" does little more than further perpetuate negative stereotypes about lower income blacks, particularly black women.

And it's a great discussion to have. I mean, once a generation, there's always the Negro intelligentsia argument over a particular piece of film or television, featuring black folk, that it doesn't show us in the best light. In the '50s, it was "Amos and Andy," in the '70s it was "Good Times," and now after the turn of the century, it's "Precious."

But my question is this: who anointed a Black Knights of Standards and Practices to determine what is suitable for black consumption?