That’s Pronounced, “White Nationalism Is What Put You In Bondage. Pirate And Vampires Like Columbus, Morgan And Darwin.”

This story is starting to sound like a really bad Paul Haggis screenplay:

Autum Ashante, a 7-year-old black girl who caused a stir at two Westchester schools by reciting a poem she wrote about white nationalism, received support from some New York City leaders on Tuesday.

First, she stood on the City Hall steps with Councilman Charles Barron, who denounced what he described as attacks and harassment since Autum spoke last month at a middle and high school. Barron said he planned to ask Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s office to look into whether the girl’s free speech rights were violated.

Later, she had an appearance scheduled with the Rev. Al Sharpton.

On Feb. 28, Autum delivered a poem titled “White Nationalism Put U In Bondage,” in which Christopher Columbus and Charles Darwin are likened to pirates and vampires. She also asked students to stand and recite the “Black Child’s Pledge,” an oath of responsibility and black pride.

When white students at the Peekskill High School assembly stood with black students, Autum told them to sit down, the school district’s superintendent said. The Peekskill City School District then sent recorded messages to parents of its 3,000 students apologizing to anyone who was offended.

Barron said he couldn’t understand why anyone would be offended. He characterized the girl as “brave” and “outspoken in telling the truth,” and he defended her 162-word poem, praising it as evoking “peace, power and pride about her heritage.”

. . .

On the steps of City Hall, Autum recited the poem and pledge, drawing yelps of “Tell it!” and “Hallelujah!” from Barron’s staff and others in the small crowd.

Then she took questions, cautioning a reporter to use the term “African” instead of “African-American.”

Asked how she felt about some white students and parents being upset, she said, “I feel bad, but I know it was the right thing to do.”

When asked how much help she received to write the poem, she replied, “My dad helped with spelling and pronunciation.”

The Problem With Community Boards

Are that many people actually concerned that the powder used in the Phagwah Parade could be anthrax? Ask the community board that “raised concerns” about it:

Anthrax fears have forced organizers of the Phagwah Parade in Queens to curtail the use of powder and water during the festive Hindu celebration in Richmond Hill.

The joyous tradition of parade participants and many spectators squirting colored water and dousing one another’s heads and faces with red or white powder has triggered complaints, according to officials of Community Board 10, which expressed those concerns to police and organizers of the March 19 event.

Betty Braton, chairwoman of Community Board 10, which covers part of Richmond Hill, said she has received “numerous” complaints about the use of powder. Among those complaining, Braton said, were sanitation workers and Parks Department employees concerned that someone could mix anthrax with the harmless powder or slip into the parade crowd, which numbered 10,000 last year, and throw anthrax itself.

Parade organizers encouraged participants to refrain from using powder during the 2002 parade in the wake of the post-Sept. 11 anthrax scare, but have not felt the need to issue such a warning since then. Organizers reluctantly agreed to the board’s request this year.

Pandit Chandrica Persaud, a Hindu priest with the Phagwah Parade & Festival Committee, said the request to halt the use of powder was misguided.

“That is absolutely out of order because they use the powder on the float, they don’t go and throw it on people who don’t want it [thrown on them]; but as usual, the community boards are making all the problems,” Persaud said. “But we have to carry out our religious activities.”

. . .

The use of powder and water are symbolic practices that date back thousands of years to religious observances in India.

Braton said she understands the symbolism, but cautioned that health and security comes first. She suggested the practice be moved indoors, where it would be easier to guarantee only celebrants would be present.

“Everyone has an absolute right to observe their religion, but no one has an absolute right to do it in a setting where someone else could have a problem from it,” Braton said. “For example, if there is an asthmatic standing on the street — no one’s religious observances has a right to put that person into harm.”

He Kicked Them In The Pickles — Get It? “Pickles” . . .

What kind of idiot tries to rob a pickle store? The Post piles on:

A pair of ski-masked Peter Pipers picked on the wrong Lower East Side pickler yesterday, landing one of them a whole peck of trouble.

The bumbling thugs entered The Pickle Guys shop on Essex Street at around 8:30 a.m. as owner Alan Kaufman was preparing to open for business. One pointed a gun at the veteran cucumber curer, but the less-than-dynamic duo got more than they bargained for when he fought back — kicking the gunman right in the “pickles.”

. . .

Kaufman said he was sweeping the floor when the two men, wearing ski masks and latex gloves, lifted the metal grate and walked in.

“What are you doin’?” Kaufman asked — but the crooks shut him up with an angry “never mind!”

Hip to the fact he was about to be robbed, the Pickle Guy started jabbing at the would-be bandits with his broom.

One of the robbers pulled a gun — but rather than recoil, the brave Pickle Guy dove at him.

“I grabbed his hand, trying to get [the gun] away from him,” Kaufman said, adding that the scuffle caused the two attackers to fall.

That’s when, Kaufman said, he executed his prized move — “I kicked him in the pickles,” he said, referring to the gunman’s testicles.

Deep Pockets?

Don’t restaurants have slim profit margins? Apparently some don’t think so:

A Manhattan Realtor claims she got a nasty surprise at Jean Georges Vongerichten’s swank three-star restaurant in Columbus Circle when she bit into a blackberry and chomped down hard on a small black pebble.

Joanna Cutler claims she bit the berry hard enough to shatter a bridge during the meal on Feb. 5, 2003.

Cutler — whose suit describes the pebble as a “pit” — claims she had to undergo emergency oral surgery and get dental implants.

“I have good taste, perhaps not in dessert,” said Cutler, who runs Joanna Cutler Real Estate.

In her lawsuit, filed Jan. 19 in state Supreme Court in Manhattan, Cutler accuses Jean Georges restaurant, the crown jewel in Vongerichten’s culinary empire, of serving her the bad berry in a fruit plate. She is seeking $500,000 — a hefty tab, even for the famed French culinary master.

“It’s a big claim for a $16 dessert,” Vongerichten told The Post.

Actor Stephen Baldwin Is My Shepherd, Or What Would McManus Do?

Stephen Baldwin responds to the question What Would Jesus Do? with the obvious answer — photograph sodomites’ license plates and run the pictures in the local newspaper:

Actor Stephen Baldwin has his shorts in a bunch over a sex shop opening near his estate in Rockland County — so much so, he plans to destroy the lives of its patrons.

The least-known of the Baldwins, Stephen, a born-again Christian, parked himself outside the store’s Route 59 location in Nyack on Friday and took snapshots of construction workers walking in and out of the building.

Once the smut shop opens in a few months, the 39-year-old star of “The Usual Suspects” plans to photograph patrons’ license plates and run their names in the local newspaper to shame them from ever returning.

. . .

In addition to selling sex toys and porn, the shop will also feature video booths where patrons can watch hardcore flicks in total privacy.

“These guys want to do this business, God bless ’em. That’s between them and God. They’ll have to deal with that for eternity. But the people of Nyack do not want this location where it is,” Baldwin said.

Thank goodness — sorry, thank God — Stephen Baldwin is there to right Nyack’s moral compass, protecting them like a shepherd guarding his flock:

At the Jiffy Lube across the street, workers weren’t impressed by the anti-porn campaign.

“Honestly, they should put a strip club there. We wouldn’t mind,” oil-changer Kevin Lair, 28, told The Post.

“I don’t even know why they want to put an adult book store here. There’s already a good one up the road.”