It was offensive and disgusting that Vice President Dick Cheney did not know how horribly the scourge of HIV/AIDS is preying on black women in America, but it couldn’t have been surprising.

This administration doesn’t seem to know Shinola about blacks, period – men, women or children. One can only surmise is because it doesn’t care.

For if it did, George W. Bush could not fix his mouth to talk about job recovery and brag about an unemployment rate in the single digits. What about black unemployment, which is consistently, invariably and disgracefully double that of white unemployment – in fact, four times as high among young black men?

If the administration counted us in, it would know that Osama bin Laden is a Johnny-Come-Lately on the terrorism front. Poverty and despair have been stalking and hunting and killing black people since 1619, when the first Africans came ashore in Jamestown, Va.

Why did it take the destruction of two gleaming towers and nearly 3,000 hapless citizens to sound the alarm? Why does the demise of black youth not matter? The constant parade of undersized caskets throughout black America should have been enough to make a responsible man do something – though Bush is hardly alone in this one.

If the Bush folks were thinking of us, they would be hesitant to exalt an “ownership society,” which the president has prophesized for his second term, should he get lucky again. Just yesterday, the Pew Hispanic Center released a report that shows the infamous wealth gap between whites and non-whites is turning into a canyon. Since 1996, median white household wealth has grown by more than $13,000 while Hispanic household piggy banks grew by $1,000. The median black household had $1,000 less than in 1996.

And, speaking of those households: More than half of us can’t really claim them because more than half of us are renters or freeloaders. Fewer than half of blacks and Hispanics are homeowners while nearly 75 percent of whites have a deed. 

Then, too, there are those gaping racial disparities in health care insurance coverage, college enrollment and retirement readiness – all with black Americans on the short end. And don’t get me started about the differences in incarceration rates. Lord, have mercy.

Think Bush, Cheney and the rest are thinking about these facts when they’re out gripping and grinning in hopes of four more years? As Bush shoves up his shirt sleeves and takes to yet another friendly stage in yet another battleground state, strutting like a body-builder, do you think he ever pauses to think about the millions of his black countrymen who are not only being bypassed by the American mainstream but are drowning in an undertow of neglect and, when they are noticed, resentment?

If we mattered, Bush would never have snubbed the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the country, the NAACP, as he did in the summer, without at least trying to massage the situation. He didn’t even bother with spin.

Nor would he have ignored the Congressional Black Caucus, as he has repeatedly done. Two meetings in four years – and both of those were under duress – does not a relationship make.

One can only conclude that Bush and his administration do not include blacks in their great “we.” And why would they? Our circumstances skew the pretty numbers.

No, black America is not a factor for Bush. But don’t bother trying to raise his consciousness. He doesn’t think he needs it. After all, he’s got Condoleezza Rice in his corner.