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Jesse Jackson made some remarks about Barack Obama that bear some scrutiny. It is fascinating to me that the basis of the Reverend Jackson's crude remarks is essentially that Barack does not have the positional prerogative to tell Black men to do a better job. I doubt that anyone who heard Jackson's comments was surprised by their off-color nature since that part of his character has been revealed in the past. What was interesting to me was that Jackson, who represents a significant number of Black people in this country, is saying that Barack should not rise up to make such suggestions to Black men.
Reverend Jackson in fact says the opposite. He states directly that he thinks Barack is talking down to Black people. This choice of language infers that Barack is apart from or perhaps thinks that he is above Black people.
It is a peculiar thing among people of poverty that they do not always approve of someone who rises up from their rank. While each one of them may aspire to rise, they do not want someone else to accomplish it before them. And they would often prefer that nobody rise if they personally cannot achieve it. Perhaps some of that is what drove Reverend Jackson to make his comments. Reverend Jackson has survived in his own rise because he never gave up the speech or the ideas or the ways of life of his peers. Despite his wealth and fame, Reverend Jackson maintained his common touch.
Barack Obama has arrived on the national scene with a very different message for Black people. His candidacy will not go the way of Jesse Jackson's because he thinks differently. He seeks to assist the poor in rising up, he does not rise up himself alone and then pretend to stoop back down among the poor as if their position was a place he never left or which he longed to return to. I do not know where Jesse Jackson lives but I sincerely doubt it is shabby.
I had a principal once who described the level of separation a teacher needed to maintain from students in order to effectively provide instruction. He said, "With them, not of them". In other words, the teacher had to hold high affinity with their students while still being in charge, while still setting an example, while still making demands, while leading them to a higher level of knowledge, skills and behavior.
It seems to me that this is the key distinction between the Reverend Jesse Jackson and Barack Obama. Jesse Jackson rose above the common Black person in wealth, fame and stature. He did not leverage that position to lead them effectively out of their own poverty.
Jesse Jackson was there in the beginnings of the civil rights movement but he never stopped leading a parade that ended decades ago. His vision had limits and his message grew stagnant. People he sought to help up now have to sidestep the Reverend Jackson in order to take advantage of the equality he helped to create. Reverend Jackson is among them, and he resents Barack Obama's new vision of leadership.
Reverend Jackson is a giant in the black community but he resists allowing others to stand on his shoulders to gain that elevated perspective. He insists rather that the lessons of the past were never learned and therefore the imagery of standing on the shoulders of a giant would not apply, rather he would insist that it is still a dwarf standing on the shoulders of dwarf. One must acknowledge the knowledge and success of previous learning in order to advance and Jackson is firmly rooted in the 1960's.
Reverend Jackson's resentment of Barack's rise and his separation from the victimized mindset and rhetoric spilled over publicly in ugly words and revealing sentiments. In so many words Jesse Jackson called Barack Obama an "uppity n_____r". It is obvious that Jackson feels that this young Harvard educated man has no position in the black community with those that feel that to be with us requires that you be among us. Barack is required to toe the party line, required to continue to admit that Black men are victims.
Jackson is threatened by what Barack is doing, by what Colin Powell did, by what Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas did, and by what so many other successful Black men have done and are doing. Jesse Jackson would require Barack to say that Black young men are capable of achieving but it's Ok if they don't, it's understandable, it's justified because of the residual racism of White America.
Barack Obama's message of responsibility is a clean break with tired old Black politics and rhetoric. His candidacy is demonstrating the changes in America in a public, brash way that Jesse Jackson could not have dreamed would happen when he fought for civil rights in the 60's. The fact that Jackson would suggest that he'd like to emasculate Barack for making statements about the responsibility of Black men should not shock us. Barack is encouraging Black men to take advantage of the very rights and opportunities Jackson helped create.
Jesse Jackson's weakness is that he does not know how to lead a Black America that is empowered. He only has the skills to lead the disenfranchised and he relies on the rhetoric of the past that represents his strength. His statements on Fox News demonstrate that the Reverend Jackson is threatened by his own success, that he is unable to transition to a new vision and that he is disconnected from the new American reality he helped to create.
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» left by Roschelle Nelson(585) Roschelle Nelson (92 days 17 hours ago.)
This is a good article. A can relate to what you are saying and it's definitely something to think about.
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