Email this Print

Jackson finds it difficult on the second team

Ed Pratt

Posted: 07.15.2008 / 6:18 AM EDT

Back in the old days of black leadership in America, many years B.B. (Before Barack), Jesse Jackson was THE MAN.

 

In today’s lingo, he had the street cred. He walked and risked his life with the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. He marched. He spoke out. His speeches made people leap to their feet.

 

His rhetoric inspired the old and the young.

  “We must not measure greatness from the mansion down, but from the manger up.” “Your children need your presence more than your presents.”“If my mind can conceive it, and my heart can believe it, I know I can achieve it.” 

That’s good stuff. Jackson made black America proud to have a courageous man who could give a speech that made you go “Wow, that brother knows what he is talking about.”

 

But, to many young and middle-age folk in the African-American community, his day in the sun has passed. He has had his season. His cruel remarks about Barack Obama were divisive and unwarranted, even if they were meant to be whispered off mike.

 

This is the same black leader (by the way I hate that terminology) who has said, “It is time for us to turn to each other, not on each other.”  

 

Suggesting, as he did on the hot mike, that Obama talks down to black people is complete nonsense. No African American seeking national office is going to win with Jackson’s mantra that government and everybody else is the cause and remedy of everything wrong in the black community.

 

And, it’s tiresome to hear all of the Jackson apologists and opponents try to say what Jackson meant. He said exactly what he meant. There are no deep layered cryptic messages in his statement. It’s there for everyone to hear and digest. “I want to cut his nuts out,” Jackson said of Obama. Okay, what’s the deeper meaning?

 

As a young 30-something African-American woman said over the weekend to her friend at a lunch table near me, “Jesse needs to go home with that stuff.”

 

The question becomes how does it affect Obama’s campaign? For what it’s worth, Jackson’s folly won’t be remembered. At best, it gives the lazy news starved network pundits something to talk about for a week or two.

 

Some have said it helps Obama with white voters to see that he has essentially shed Jackson and those like him. Those people were apparently late to the party. Obama long ago pushed away from Jackson and his 60’s and 70’s brand of politicking.

 

The lion’s share of Obama’s supporters is sadly “Generation Little Clue About The Struggle.” And, more than that, they don’t really care to know. They would prefer to watch the movie. But that’s who they are.

 

 They view Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton as professional opportunists, who have used black victim hood to gain political power and financial riches.

 

To be true to the Jacksons and Sharptons of the world, they must be commended for being brave enough to stand on the American stage and shout from the rooftops about indignities inflicted on African Americans and all people of color. America is not a safe for place for that kind of talk from African Americans and especially from African American men.

 

They have long since cashed in on their fame, lost their street cred and become deaf to sounds of change. Jackson is still a leader; he’s just not on the first team anymore.

 He would do well to ponder another one of his great quotes. “Our dreams must be stronger than our memories. We must be pulled by our dreams, rather than pushed by our memories.” 

These are the days of Obama’s dreams, not Jackson’s memories.