Democrats still taking black voters for granted?

Erin Aubry Kaplan takes a look at the DNC and notices the prominent role played by African-Americans there as well as the reluctance to address some long-simmering issues with the party in that community (in LA Weekly: News: Bringin' Da Funk):

The biggest elephant under the Boston big top, almost bigger than the economy and Iraq, was Florida. The Florida vote theft that turned into the national-election theft in 2000 was the first great crime of the century. But the Democrats dared not pursue the crime or the criminals, because it overwhelmingly involved black voters and was therefore too racial for comfort or political expediency. Yet Florida cost the Democrats everything - the presidency, for starters - and Florida is precisely why Bush is in office now and screwing things up all over the world at an astonishing rate, and why everybody’s blood was boiling last week. But it was boiling only in hindsight, which meant Democrats could not talk about Florida without talking about their complicity in the crime by keeping silent. Only in the midst of iterating anti-Republican peeves did convention talking heads raise the Florida issue, and then somewhat gingerly; besides being generally avoided as a black thing, it was surely too "negative" and potentially divisive to pass muster with DNC officials and scriptwriters, who were determined to stay on that message about a united front.

(via the Media conf on the Well)

Somewhat related: I seem to recall a lot of African-Americans - on the stage at least - at the last RNC. Will we be seeing that again? (I'm heading to New York in September to cover the RNC, although I haven't, thus far, been credentialed to cover it as a blogger. Perhaps some news organization would like to credential me?)