Negroes, puh-leeze.

What’s with all this Obamamania that seems to be running rampant through black America? After Illinois Sen. Barack Obama scored a victory in the Iowa caucuses last week and came in a strong second to Sen. Hillary Clinton in the New Hampshire presidential primary this week, it seems quite a few black folks are hopping on the Obama bandwagon.

But I’ve got news for them: They should know that when push comes to shove, black folks are gonna vote for Clinton. They know how we love that white woman --- and her husband.

Obama’s black supporters need to think about why he made such formidable showings in two overwhelmingly white states. Much of his support is coming from young whites, who, unlike their elders, apparently never got the memo saying they weren’t supposed to vote for a black presidential candidate.

That’s the reason some observers have said that Obama’s candidacy “transcends race,” a phrase that drives commentator Tavis Smiley absolutely batty.

“I am sick and tired of hearing this phrase, ‘He transcends race,’” Smiley said of Obama in a commentary this week on "The Tom Joyner Morning Show." “We want him to transform racial politics.”

Specifically, Smiley wanted Obama -- and the other presidential candidates -- to address what he called the racial disparity in Iowa’s prisons.

“Iowa is the fifth whitest state in the nation, but leads the nation in black incarceration,” Smiley noted. “That issue just didn’t come up all throughout the Iowa caucuses.”

That’s because the subject of Iowa’s disproportionate incarceration of blacks should rightfully and logically come up in that state’s gubernatorial campaign, not a presidential campaign. What the presidential candidates should address -- and they can do it in any state primary or caucus -- is what they would do about the case of Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, formerly known as H. Rap Brown.

Al-Amin received a life term in federal prison for a 2000 shooting in Atlanta that left one deputy sheriff dead and another wounded. He’s proclaimed his innocence, and his supporters claim the case just doesn’t pass the smell test. Only a president can pardon Al-Amin, or at least move him from that American gulag in Colorado where he’s currently being held.

Or if Smiley really wants presidential candidates to speak on the issue of disproportionate black incarceration, he might want to start with Clinton, not Obama. It was when Clinton’s husband was president that the nation saw a sharp increase in the number of blacks locked away in federal prisons.

But if Smiley brings that subject up before a black audience, he’d better be sure his car is just outside the door and has a chauffeur in it with the motor running. He may need a quick escape route. I’ve said it before in this column, and I’ll say it again: We love that white woman and her husband.

It’s part of this belief black folks seem to have that we need a president -- specifically a white one -- who will “do something” for us (Since Obama’s technically half white and half black, does that mean he’ll “do something” only for half of us, or “do something” for us only half the time? And will it be his white half or his black half “doing something” for us?).

We’re the only racial and ethnic group in the country who believes our fate is entirely linked to whatever white man -- or woman -- is sitting in the White House. That’s not so surprising when you consider that we’re also the only ones who believe the decisions of one man -- Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas -- determine the fate of black America.

That disproportionate incarceration rate of black folks -- especially young black men -- that Smiley was fretting about has been linked to the number of black homes that don’t have fathers. That percentage is 69 percent, and I’m betting that Thomas ain’t the daddy of all those young black men in jail or prison.

That situation won’t change even if Thomas somehow manages to change into the late Thurgood Marshall overnight. Obama couldn’t change it if he became president.

That white woman’s husband couldn’t do it when he was president, and it’s a safe bet she can’t either.