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Ron Jackson's Perspective
The Sunday Journal
Kankakee, Illinois
July 13, 2008
Jesse's comment
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Obama doesn't need 'friends' like Jackson
Like an old quarterback past his marginal prime, the Rev. Jesse Jackson needs to
fade away. Fast. His latest slip of the mostly unintelligible lip
confirms his inability to realize there is a new “Somebothay” in
town.
For the second time in less than a year, Jackson has made
disparaging remarks with racial overtones about
Barack Obama. Last September,
Jackson accused Obama of “acting like he’s white” because Obama
refused to join the Jena Six circus. His latest remark is more
disgraceful than that. His sort of apology is even worse.
Unaware that his microphone was still activated, Jackson was
recorded voicing his displeasure with Obama for talking down to
black people and churches. Taking exception to Obama’s charge that
blacks should assume more personal responsibility, Jackson was
recorded saying he wanted to cut off the senator’s private parts.
Everyone has a right to disagree with political agendas. As
part of our democratic process, we are also allowed to criticize our
government; but to make even rhetorical threats of violence is
shameful and should be illegal. In the “hood,” or black community,
what Jackson does is called the crab syndrome. This is how it
works. If you resent a black person struggling but succeeding in
climbing out of the bucket, reach up and pull him or her back down.
Jackson ’s resentment of Obama’s success is evident.
Obama has gone where no black man has gone before. Obama is
living Jesse Jackson’s fantasy, and
he is doing it without Jackson’s tutelage. Unfortunately, it was
the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that paved the way for
Jackson to achieve notoriety.
Fortunately, it is someone like Obama who is paving over his
divisive influence. Obama is empowering and influencing a younger,
less bitter, more enlightened generation. Jesse and his longtime,
over-60, resentful, payback mentality worshippers are past their
prime. Their outdated tactics of threats of boycotts and buyouts to
avoid being labeled a racist are useless. Somehow they missed the
memo that America has changed and so has its headliners.
As part of his apology, which was not really an apology,
Jackson said his issue with Obama was that he was not holding the
government and its policies accountable for the problems of the
black community. That old woe-is-black-me-let-the government-fix-it
ideology is what doomed Jackson’s political aspirations. Jackson
failed because he has always made race a national issue; Obama is
succeeding because he refuses to make race an issue.
Say what you will about Barack’s quasi-socialist agenda, but he
has never succumbed to the rhetoric that our government is
responsible for the plight of black Americans. To his credit and
fault, his message has been too much universal government support of
every American demographic.
I respect how Obama handled the Jackson issue. If given the
chance to advise him, though, I would suggest that before he
requires Americans to learn Spanish, he should make sure we all
speak English. And start with Jesse Jackson.
Jackson said he is sorry “for any hurt or harm that this hot
microphone private conversation may have caused.”
He added, “My support for Senator
Obama’s campaign is wide and deep, and unequivocal.” With
that type of support, Obama doesn’t need enemies.
This kind of public stupidity, especially from someone who has
enjoyed and benefited from public persona, is baffling. Certainly
makes one wonder. What if Don Imus or any white man had
whisperingly wished to “de-man” Obama? Would he have been allowed
to use the “hot microphone” or “it was meant to be private” excuse?
And why hasn’t Al Sharpton demanded Jesse Jackson be fired? |
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