THE clamor over the Marion Barry trial this summer reminded me of an embarassing incident from my senior year in high school.

On my way home one Friday night, I noticed ghastly sounds--then smoke--coming from the wheel well of my car. Realizing that I was driving with a flat tire, I nonetheless tried to ignore my car's hurking and jurking so I wouldn't have to stop and get help. Convinced that I could take my car to its very limits, I turned up the radio, sat back and even drove past a gas station.

I soon found myself stranded on a deserted road with a sunken car, a lump in my throat and a torn tire. My humiliation only deepened when I had to explain the whole incident to the mechanic at the gas station I had so cockily passed only minutes before.

I can now empathize with those leaders in the Black community who refuse to confront the serious problems tearing apart America's inner-cities. In the face of rampant crime, drug use and teen pregnancy, many Black leaders simply turn up the rhetoric and make excuses for these social diseases and--most recently--for Marion Barry. In doing so, they seem intent upon driving the Black underclass into further turmoil.

I'm not just talking about the likes of Minister Louis Farrakhan, the Rev. Al Sharpton and their brand of self-promoting demagogues. The crisis of Black leadership runs much deeper; even responsible activists and political officials have evaded the real issues underlying the Barry trial.

IN WASHINGTON this summer, Nation of Islam leader Farrakhan told an audience of 15,000 enthusiastic supporters, "There is no better example of crucifixion in the modern era than Marion Barry." He went on to declare, "Black politics is a threat to white racism. Could this be the reason for the attack upon our mayor?"

Yeah, of course, just like the prosecution of investors Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken were motivated by anti-Semitism.

Farrakhan conveniently failed to mention the mayor's friends and associates who detailed countless instances of Barry's drug abuse. Nor did he mention the damning video tape depicting the mayor's rendezvous with his mistress and crack cocaine. To Farrakhan and the rest of Barry's cheering section, these are irrelevant because the real culprit is "white racism."

Over the years, the public has come to expect that kind of desperate oratory from a charlatan like Farrakhan, who usually concludes his remonstrations by saying, "All white America could be asked to die to equal the score." But even more responsible Black leaders have fanned the flames of resentment with attempts to blame "whitey." Of course there are white racists in America, but they aren't running the justice department.

Even Jesse Jackson, who earned enormous respect by urging the ghetto poor to eschew drugs and take charge of their own destinies, has joined ranks of Barry's apologists. He compared the Barry investigation to Soviet police surveillance, saying the Black community is "threatened by what the government has done."

Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP, told his organization's annual conference, "At no time since Reconstruction has there been a comparable period of incessant harassment of Black elected officials."

From a legal standpoint, headline-happy prosecutors may have committed entrapment in their sting operation against the mayor. But to argue that that makes Barry an innocent victim is to miss the point entirely. The legal ramifications of the Barry trial are infinitely less important than the moral ones. A liar, an adulterer and a drug user, Barry sold out his constituents--particularly the children who so desperately need positive role models.

Farrakhan's raging and Jackson's sidestepping send the dismal message that Blacks in the ghetto need not take responsibility for their actions because the history of white oppression some-how excuses crime and moral decadence. In short, empowerment means ranting and revolting--but not reforming.

Although many thoughtful Blacks, including Washington Post reporter Juan Williams, have denounced such desperate antics, many prominent leaders continue to make excuses for the inexcusable. In Washington, a popular tee-shirt reads, "I saw the tape and...that Got damn [sic] `bitch' set Barry up."

In New York, protestors at the Central Park jogger trial followed Sharpton's lead and heckled the gang rape victim by calling her "slut" and "liar." Many prominent Black leaders--including some from the local NAACP--complained about the disproportionate media attention paid to the jogger, who is white. Only in the wake of public outrage did they denounce the savagery and lawlessness of the crime.

LET'S face it, the plight of the Black underclass grows more uncontrollable every day. What's worse, the most helpless victims of ghetto crime and violence are not white or middle-class, but Black and poor. Yet rather than confront this breakdown in civilized behavior, many Black leaders continue to search for an oppressor.

In Chicago, for example, Operation PUSH--Jackson's old civil rights organization--is busy organizing a boycott of Nike shoes because of that company's failure to appoint a Black to its board of directors. Seriously folks, the closest relationship between Nike and the problems of the underclass is the alarming frequency with which young teens are shot and stabbed for a $125 pair of Air Jordans.

At the Kennedy School last Friday, Virginia Gov. Douglas Wilder (who is Black) delivered a remarkable address about the need for fiscal responsibility. The specific topic of Wilder's address is less important than the underlying challenge he poses to Farrakhan and Jackson. Perhaps he will one day restore to Black leadership a sense of realism and purposefulness.

But until the current leadership vaccum is filled, we can expect more alibis and excuses at the top--and more violence and hopelessness in the ghettoes.