During the Bush administration, this one ran a kind of relay race with Tho. Sowell and "Dr." Bill Cosby, invidious conservative polemic about 'black bloc' duplicity being the baton. The subject of this particular essay caught my attention, however, because it might be an entirely accidental tribute to Frank Snowdon's research into Blacks in Antiquity (1970), of which "Early Christian Attitude toward Ethiopians" (Gregory, Jerome, Origen, Homiliae un Canticum Canticorum, thesis and antithesis).

Moreover we ask in what way is she black and in what way fair without whiteness. She has repented of her sins; conversion has bestowed beauty upon her and hence she is sung as 'beautiful.' But because she is not yet cleansed of all the uncleanness of her sins nor washed unto salvation, she is said to be 'black' but does not remain in her black color -- she becomes white. ....If, moreover, you do not repent, take heed lest your soul be called black and disgraceful and lest you be stained by a double foulness -- black on account of your past sins; disgraceful because you continue in these same faults. But if you repent, your soul will be black because of your former sins, but because of your penitence your soul will have something of what I may call an Ethiopian beauty.