Jesse Jackson's "nuts" remark regarding Obama supposedly "talking down to black people" may well seal Jackson's fate as someone locked in the past and more concerned about his declining stardom in this presidential cycle.
Jackson represents the kind of HNIC politics that had become quite popular with some black leaders like himself, Al Sharpton and Farrakhan. These were self-appointed leaders who either ran presidential campaign that roused blacks and others, or brought them to numerous marches, but weren't serious about the one thing that politics is about: power.
Granted, Jackson's take on Obama talking down to black people could be read as a critique of the "personal responsibility" behavorist school that's been promoted by the conservatives for the last thirty years, and in which numerous promoters of such, Democrats and Republicans, have failed at, including Jackson.
But Jackson has talked down to blacks himself. When Bill Cosby was being roasted over "talkinhg down to blacks," Jackson said that he's had been saying that for years.
The essential problem with Jackson's remark is that established black leaders like himself never sought to deal with some of the social dysfunctions that characterized much of inner city life. For some odd reason they never devised a program, never mobilized the resources that blacks do have, to deal with institutional racism and the social dysfunction of black life that affects 25% of the black population.
This left a gaping hole for the right to expolit, and if you're an enterprising black conservative, you only have to follow the Shelby Steele and John McWhorter model, as noted by Houston Baker in his book about black intellectuals, "Betrayal." In other words, bash blacks for profit--which isn't Obama's motive.
Obama, to use Malcolm X' s apt phrase, is going to catch hell no matter what he says or does. Seen as not black enough by people like Jackson, he'll be suspect because he doesn't hewn to the black party line. He'll be under constant scrutiny by whites who'll suspect him because he is partially black and sat in Rev. Wright's pew for years, and has a funny name.
In the end, though, Jackson's remark may have done Obama a favor. In the eyes of some whites, if Jackson is talking about Obama like this, perhaps Obama can't be that bad?
Jackson represents the kind of HNIC politics that had become quite popular with some black leaders like himself, Al Sharpton and Farrakhan. These were self-appointed leaders who either ran presidential campaign that roused blacks and others, or brought them to numerous marches, but weren't serious about the one thing that politics is about: power.
Granted, Jackson's take on Obama talking down to black people could be read as a critique of the "personal responsibility" behavorist school that's been promoted by the conservatives for the last thirty years, and in which numerous promoters of such, Democrats and Republicans, have failed at, including Jackson.
But Jackson has talked down to blacks himself. When Bill Cosby was being roasted over "talkinhg down to blacks," Jackson said that he's had been saying that for years.
The essential problem with Jackson's remark is that established black leaders like himself never sought to deal with some of the social dysfunctions that characterized much of inner city life. For some odd reason they never devised a program, never mobilized the resources that blacks do have, to deal with institutional racism and the social dysfunction of black life that affects 25% of the black population.
This left a gaping hole for the right to expolit, and if you're an enterprising black conservative, you only have to follow the Shelby Steele and John McWhorter model, as noted by Houston Baker in his book about black intellectuals, "Betrayal." In other words, bash blacks for profit--which isn't Obama's motive.
Obama, to use Malcolm X' s apt phrase, is going to catch hell no matter what he says or does. Seen as not black enough by people like Jackson, he'll be suspect because he doesn't hewn to the black party line. He'll be under constant scrutiny by whites who'll suspect him because he is partially black and sat in Rev. Wright's pew for years, and has a funny name.
In the end, though, Jackson's remark may have done Obama a favor. In the eyes of some whites, if Jackson is talking about Obama like this, perhaps Obama can't be that bad?
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