Well, here we go again.

Yours Truly is a ''racist.''

Must be true. It said so right there in your favorite daily newspaper.

Last Friday, in a letter to the editor, a bleeding heart by the name of the Rev. John R. Beaty used the word seven times in 10 paragraphs.

He was absolutely appalled that I would write a column comparing a subculture of lawlessness to the days of the caveman, when survival of the fittest was the way of the world.

(Never mind that the most famous cavemen in contemporary America — the guys on the Geico commercial, who are so popular they got their own sitcom — are white.)

This is the same gentleman who phoned Cleveland's public radio station, WCPN (90.3-FM), while I was a guest and talked about what a swell, misunderstood guy Tyree Feaster is.

Feaster is the 17-year-old gang member who was given three years in jail for contempt of court because he wouldn't testify about what he saw on the night an 18-year-old Akron woman was shot in the back outside a nightclub.

(A black woman, by the way.)

Among the things the Rev. Beaty praised Tyree for: being a good athlete.

In response, I suggested that athleticism might not trump gun-toting as a way to evaluate someone's contribution to society.

The Rev. Beaty phoned me later, off the air, to tell me that the victim was not ''innocent,'' as I had termed her — as if anything less than 100 percent purity justifies a bullet in the back.

You want to know one of the reasons race relations are still this nation's biggest ongoing problem? Because so many people insist on looking at everything in black and white.

Why is it that the two people who have most fiercely accused me of being racist — Beaty and the youth's lawyer — are both white? Who elected them to speak for blacks?

Last Thursday, during a conversation about something else, a young African-American woman at the University of Akron told me she loved the column in question. ''It needed to be said,'' she commented.

The morning the column was published, an older black male called to ''thank and commend'' me, saying: ''People should understand there's a subculture that's sprouting up in these neighborhoods that we have to get a handle on before it's gone too far.''

In between those two comments — which came nine days apart — at least a dozen other African-Americans offered words of praise. But I guess none of them has the credibility of the Rev. Beaty, the self-appointed defender of all blacks.

The Rev. Beaty's letter suggested I write a column of apology to, among others, ''the African-American community.'' As if the African-American community is a monolith. Who's doing the stereotyping, Rev?

The retired Kenmore minister concluded his tirade by lumping this newspaper in with institutions ''that so often reflect and intensify the racism of the society they serve.''

Yeah, sure. We've been a driving force for racism. That's why we won a Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for our yearlong series about race relations. That's why we formed the Coming Together Project to provide a mechanism to bring people of different colors together in hopes of fostering more understanding and trust.

That's why just a year or so ago we had a black publisher,
a black editor and a black managing editor — the three highest positions in the entire news operation.

Those were the very people who gave me this column.

Look: Prejudice is still very much alive and well. People with the darkest skin still get the shaft more often than those with lighter skin. But we need to sift true prejudice from legitimate criticism.

I did not accuse young gang members of behaving like animals because they were black. I accused them of behaving like animals because they were behaving like animals.

The difference is huge.

The difference is everything.