*A plainly irritated Jesse Jackson obviously didn’t mean that he would cut Obama’s n…ts off.
The crude, salty street talk was simply an unguarded moment’s outburst from a frustrated Jackson at Obama’s recent political somersaults.
Jackson, of course, took much deserved heat from his son Jesse Jr. and just about everyone else who has an opinion on him, his language and Obama.
But what is lost in the leap to beat up on Jackson is this: Is he right to be frustrated by Obama, and is there anything new about his frustration with him?
Jackson has always had a mix of puzzlement, wariness, and frustration with and toward Obama from the moment he announced that he would run for the presidency. Jackson and the other old guard civil rights leaders and old line black Democrats didn’t know what to make of Obama.
But Jackson’s Obama problem is not solely the pique of an aging, and increasingly bypassed civil rights icon, who has had his day, and is envious of Obama for stealing the media and public limelight. The problem is the profound gap between Jackson and Obama over how civil rights and racial battles should be fought in America.
Obama doesn’t look, talk, or act like a black leader or civil rights activist should look, talk and act. He does not march, picket or protest racial wrongs and injustices in the streets. How could he? He wasn’t around in the 1960s when Jackson and company did. He talks political and racial moderation, conciliation, healing and harmony. But even more galling than the notion that he hasn’t paid his civil rights dues, is that he also talks about being multi-racial. This sent up the red flag that Obama’s adherence and allegiance to blackness is deeply suspect.
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Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).