When I worked as a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in the 1970s, Macler Shepard, a race man and a community activist, often said that some Blacks use race as a crutch so often that they forget how to walk. I thought about Shepard’s comment when a controversy developed recently over what happened after Rep. Cynthia McKinney tried to walk past Capitol Hill police.

The Georgia Democrat acknowledges that she wasn’t wearing her Congressional lapel pin that allows her to sidestep normal screening procedures. McKinney’s version is that shortly before 9 A.M. on March 29, she was headed to a Budget Committee meeting in the Longworth House Building when she got into a scuffle with a Capitol Police officer.

“I was rushing to my meeting when a white officer yelled to me,” she said in a written statement. “He approached me, bodyblocked me, physically touching me. I used my arm to get him off of me. I told him not to touch me several times. He asked for my ID and I showed it to him. He then let me go and I proceeded to my meeting and I assume that the Police Officer resumed his duties.”

The Capitol Police version is that an officer failed to recognize McKinney and ordered her to stop. When McKinney refused, the officer tried to physically restrain her and she hit him in the chest with a cellphone.

The United States Capitol Police has referred the case to the U.S. Attorney for possible prosecution.

McKinney recently changed her hairstyle. In an appearance on the CBS “Early Show,” she said: “This has become much ado about a hairdo.”

In subsequent days, McKinney has attempted to frame the issue in different terms.

“This whole incident was instigated by the inappropriate touching and stopping of me, a female Black congresswoman,” she said at a news conference. Her attorney, James Myart, added, “Ms. McKinney is just a victim of being in Congress while Black….”

Let’s not confuse the issue. McKinney was stopped from bypassing the metal detector because she was not wearing her Congressional pin identifying her as a lawmaker. Of course, regular Hill cops should be able to recognize members of Congress. But when they fail to do so, it is not a capital offense.

Cynthia McKinney learned a long time ago that many African-Americans will give you a pass if you merely scream racism, regardless of whether it’s true. I am fed up with public officials yelling racism merely to deflect attention away from their own misbehavior. Discrimination is still rampant in this society. And if the specter of racism is raised when it does not apply, my fear is that when genuine cases arise, they will be discounted because of previous false claims.

If McKinney felt she was being racially profiled, she should have noted the officer’s name and badge number and taken the matter up with his supervisor or in Congressional hearings.

Did you notice that after Ms. Super Black charged racism at a news conference, she walked off hand-in-hand with her White lawyer? Washington, D.C. has no shortage of talented Black lawyers. And if Cynthia McKinney wants us to think that she’s so pro-Black, it seems only natural that Ms. Super Black would have hired a Black lawyer. Of course, she can hire whomever she likes, but she can’t have it both ways.

Even one of McKinney’s news releases was disingenuous. After stating, “…Honestly, this incident is not about wearing a Congressional pin or changing my hairstyle,” she proceeded to talk about – you guessed it – her Congressional pin and her hairstyle.

“I have agreed to try to remember to wear my pin and notify Capitol Hill police every time I change my hairstyle,” she said in a statement. “…It is, however, a shame that while I conduct the country’s business, I have to stop and call the police to tell them that I’ve changed my hairstyle so that I’m not harassed at work.”

Harassed? Asking someone entering a federal building for ID in this post-9/11 era does not constitute harassment.

Contrary to her assertion that this is “much ado about a hairdo,” McKinney asked in a statement, “Do I have to contact the police every time I change my hairstyle? How do we account for the fact that when I wore my braids every day for 11 years, I still faced this problem, primarily from certain police officers.”

If that’s true -- and it’s hard to know what’s true in this case – then this “ado” is not about her hairdo.

McKinney’s conflicting assertions do not mean there aren’t deep-seated racial problems within the U.S. Capitol Police. Others have complained of ill treatment and Blacks on the force have filed racial discrimination lawsuits against the agency, some of them still pending. If the agency is found guilty, it should be assessed the stiffest possible punishment.

In the meantime, if we confuse racial discrimination with bad judgment, we may forget how to walk.