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He won’t be stereotyped

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Who’s afraid of Herman Cain?

Hollywood loathes him. Academia abhors him. And the country’s leftist establishment is shaking in its boots.

Sorry, folks. He’s not going anywhere.

Cain is a wildly successful pizza man, raised dirt poor in the segregated South by a mom who cleaned houses and a dad who worked three jobs. Incredibly (some lefties would say irresponsibly), he blames no one for his hardscrabble upbringing.

He is plain-spoken, articulate and a Tea Party conservative. And, in a state of affairs that drives the thought police nuts, Cain, 65, the Republican presidential front-runner, is also black. This makes him the biggest threat to the left since the fall of communism.

Diversity — of thought — be damned.

Academia fears and despises Cain. That’s because his heartfelt belief that race is no longer a major factor in holding back people of color challenges the bedrock notion of a permanent black underclass. The ivory tower in charge of shaping young minds and, by extension, government policy, has been selling the idea of minority victimhood to America for decades.

This is what Princeton University professor Cornel West said about Cain last week:

“I think he needs to get off the symbolic crack pipe and acknowledge that the evidence [of racism] is overwhelming.’’

Incredible.

“Can you imagine if he said that about Marion Barry?’’ asked New York-based Tea Party 365 founder David Webb, who is also black. And conservative. And reviled by the left for the combination.

Those in power, he said, are addicted to black failure, which makes Cain’s upbeat message threatening to their very existence.

“They need African-Americans to stay right where they belong,’’ said Webb. “Think of all the money brought in by congressmen and women and the bureaucracies that maintain the entitle-ment control of a segment of the population.

“This is a racket! It’s a cultural criminal enterprise. And yes — I think it’s racism. Racism is big business for these guys.’’

Hollywood wants to crush Cain like a bug because he challenges the shibboleth it’s been selling to America since birth — that African-Americans are forever barred from the table.

Actor Morgan Freeman called Tea Party members, such as Cain, racist for challenging President Obama. “Screw the country, we’re going to do whatever we can to get this black man out of here. It’s a racist thing,’’ Freeman said. And I thought dissent was American.

Calypso crooner Harry Belafonte went so far as to doubt Cain’s blackness.

“Well, you know, it’s very hard to comment on somebody who is so denied intelligence,’’ he told Joy Behar.

“The Republican Party, the Tea Party, all those forces to the extreme right have consistently tried to come up with representations for what they call black, what they call the real Negroes,’’ Belafonte actually said. “Herman Cain is just the latest incarnation of what is totally false for the needs of our community and the needs of our nation. I think he’s a bad apple.’’

It doesn’t end. The Rev. Al Sharpton challenged Cain’s black cred. “How could anyone in their right mind — they grew up in the South and saw what they saw — and act like everyone that is unemployed and that is not rich did it to themselves?” Sharpton said.

MSNBC talker Lawrence O’Donnell attacked Cain for “sitting on the sidelines during the civil-rights movement.’’

His colleague Martin Bashir outrageously presumed to get into Cain’s head on the issue of equality: “He probably feels obliged to reassure [Republicans] that he’s no angry black man fighting for the rights of minorities.’’

My pal to the right, Trish Whitehead, told me, “The left hates Herman Cain because he won’t play their game.

“The left, as you know, has built their power platform using the victimhood of African-Americans. As Herman said himself, the left ‘does not want black people to wake up and think for themselves … but a lot of them are waking up.’ And yes, I think it’s racist.’’

Cain infuriated folks by saying African-Americans were “brainwashed’’ — “accurately,’’ said Webb — into rejecting conservatism.

A color-blind society does not rip a man because of his political beliefs.

This is America, isn’t it?

Feeling the pain of media ridicule

She’ll gladly dish out a wicked spanking. But one thing ex-prosecutor and dominatrix Alisha Smith will not do is allow the worms who grovel at her feet to worship her toes.

“I’m not a foot person,’’ Smith, who goes by the nom de
dom Alisha Spark, said Monday at a wacky Midtown press conference thrown by lawyer Gloria Allred. The sultry smacker declined a videographer’s request to remove her “Jimmy Choo kitten heels.’’

Smith abruptly quit her $78,825 job as a securities-fraud prosecutor for the state attorney general Monday. She’d been suspended without pay since last month after bosses learned from The Post that the Type-A gal had a thing for dishing out pain.

When she walked, the AG was investigating a claim from within the S&M world that Smith was paid for her fetish fondness, in violation of an executive order. But Smith insists no dough changed hands.

What’s an unemployed dominatrix to do? Whatever she wants. Don’t hurt me.

Times taxes our patience again

The New York Times, a newspaper that never saw a tax it didn’t love, began a supposedly unbiased article with a nasal whine:

“Even as Occupy Wall Street stokes debate over income inequality, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo dug in his heels on Monday against extending a so-called millionaires’ tax on high-earning New Yorkers . . .’’

Much later, the paper revealed that the tax actually targets people earning $200,000 — nice, but hardly Bloombergian. But why should the Times care if these hardworking folks head for New York’s exits? The unions love taxes, too!

Time for The Paper of Record to turn into The Paper of Occupy Wall Street. Wait. It already is.

A victory for evil

The life of one brave Israeli soldier is worth 1,027 Palestinian terrorists. And I’m thrilled beyond words that Israeli Staff Sgt. Gilad Shalit is home with his family after five years held captive by Hamas.

But the price is steep.

After Shalit was swapped for the first group of prisoners, an agreement endorsed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who’d vowed never to negotiate with terrorists — Gaza and Ramallah celebrated the liberation of the scum of the earth. These are murderers who’ve cost perhaps 588 innocent lives, most of them civilian. Many blown up in cafes.

Hamas is emboldened by victory. A terrifying sign of things to come.

Eat and forget the cheat

Looking more like a Halloween skeleton than a babe of 48, Demi Moore showed up, solo, at the New York premiere of her movie, “Margin Call.” Demi’s drastic weight loss followed endless reports that hubby Ashton Kutcher, 33, had an unsafe one-nighter with a 22-year-old. Demi, please! Have a sandwich. He’s so not worth it.