COLUMN ONE - Blogger goes into 'the fields' - An attorney joins a growing blogosphere to take on the role once reserved for ministers: setting black agendas and shaping opinion.

Take the ex-con arguing with his ex-wife on a recent Tuesday afternoon in Bennett's office. "I understand both of your frustrations," Bennett interjects delicately. "But we're trying to focus on the support at hand right now. Obviously you're re-living some bad memories."

When Bennett gets home and starts blogging, however, an alter ego emerges: The Field Negro. On his website called field-negro.blogspot.com, he lashes out at commentator Bill O'Reilly as an "ignorant racist self-delusional buffoon." President Bush is "the frat boy," and "the man 'who doesn't care about black people' " -- a nod to rapper Kanye West's comments of 2005. Black activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton are "pimping the 'man' in the name of civil rights."

The blog, Bennett admits with a chuckle, is an expression of raw anger, and it has earned him a modest following: He says he gets about 1,200 hits per day, and this year, he won readers' choice for "Best Political/News Blog" in the Black Weblog Awards.

To white people, Bennett's musings are like kitchen-table talk from a kitchen they may otherwise never set foot in. To African Americans, he is part of a growing army of black Internet amateurs who have taken up the work once reserved for ministers and professional activists: the work of setting a black agenda, shaping black opinion and calling attention to the state of the nation's racial affairs.

"I am black, and what affects my race affects me," says Bennett, who also works part-time in criminal defense. "I feel that I am exposing things that people, black and white, try to hide. In my own way I am trying to force an honest debate and open dialogue."

His signature feature, a riff on a famous Malcolm X speech, categorizes the public figures of the day as either "field negroes" or "house negroes" -- the former being those who consistently fight on behalf of their race; the latter those who are self-serving, inauthentic, or out of touch with their people.

Sometimes he explains the distinctions in detail; other times, not so much. Mr. Clean once earned "honorary field negro" status, Bennett says, smiling, "just because he looks like a field negro to me."