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Getting Messy With Jesse Helps Obama

By Salim Muwakkil

Jackson understands his perverse value in this nation's political calculus: what displeases him pleases much of white America.

I find it hard to believe that the Rev. Jesse Jackson was unaware the Fox News mic was hot on July 6 when he broadcast his figurative castration of Sen. Barack Obama for “talking down to black people … telling niggers how to behave.” That particular critique of the Obama campaign had been echoing throughout much of the black community, particularly from activists.

Jackson’s public support for Obama’s presidential bid precluded him from openly expressing this critique, however, so he seemingly “leaked” it through a Fox microphone. The savvy Jackson, one of America’s most politically astute men, also understands his perverse value in this nation’s political calculus: what displeases him pleases much of white America.

For Jackson, it was a win-win: It solidified his activist credentials and aided the Obama campaign.

Avid Obama supporters are furious. And the corporate media are amplifying this tension to reinforce their notion that we are in the midst of a major shift in black America. Many media pundits claim we have arrived at a post-civil rights era embodied by Obama and bitterly resisted by the race-baiting Jackson. But they have it wrong.

The chagrin that many of Obama’s black supporters feel toward Jackson is not necessarily a rejection of the civil rights movement. Many African Americans are committed to the Obama campaign because of its historical significance. For them, the effort to elect a black president trumps all else. They contend that black Obama critics are raising issues that threaten to ruin this rare historical moment.

On the flip side, Obama’s black critics argue that such celebratory sentiments ignore the real costs of failing to demand accountability on issues of importance to African Americans. They see that failure in the way Obama panders to other constituencies but then patronizes the black base.

He told the NAACP, for example, “It doesn’t matter how much money we invest in our communities … or how many government programs we launch — none of it will make any difference if we don’t seize more responsibility in our own lives.” Obama won much media praise for the hard-hitting “truths” of his message.

But Maulana Karenga — a Cal State-Long Beach professor, black nationalist theorist and creator of Kwanzaa — wrote in a July 17 column in the Los Angeles Sentinel that there was nothing “new, startling or worthy of refutation” in Obama’s moral message to the black community.

Moreover, Karenga asked, “If we are going to praise white Americans for their strengths, why come to black people preaching and prattling about weaknesses and offering a litany for lost souls?”

In his appearances before predominately black audiences, Obama laces his speeches with condescending language about the need for more individual responsibility. He omits this focus on collective behavior when he appears before other groups, and this inconsistency reinforces the conventional wisdom (that behavioral deficits are the barriers to racial equity) about the black poor.

In a recent essay in BlackAgendaReport.com, Adolph Reed Jr., a University of Pennsylvania political scientist and political commentator, argues, “Public sacrifice of black poor people has been pro forma Democratic presidential strategy since Clinton ran on the pledge to ‘end welfare as we know it’. “

Reed argues that for many liberals, a vote for Obama offers an effortless way to demonstrate anti-racist sentiments, relieving them of any other responsibility to work for the post-racial society the candidate supposedly embodies.

Conservatives already are composing eulogies for affirmative action.

Ward Connerly, the black, anti-affirmative action crusader, is overflowing with a sense of vindication. “The primary rationale for affirmative action is that America is institutionally racist and institutionally sexist,” Connerly told the Associated Press at the conclusion of the hotly contested primary campaign. “That rationale is undercut in a major way when you look at the success of Sen. (Hillary) Clinton and Sen. Obama.”

The opinions of politicians along the political spectrum and many media pundits seemingly converge on the consensus that the civil rights model is passé and Obama’s prominence is proof. But there is confusion about this issue, even among Obama’s critics.

The motive of the civil rights movement that Jackson exemplifies is to promote racial justice and equity — still distant goals. Obama’s motive, by contrast, is to win the presidential election.

Salim Muwakkil is a senior editor of In These Times, where he has worked since 1983. He is currently a Crime and Communities Media Fellow of the Open Society Institute, examining the impact of ex-inmates and gang leaders in leadership positions in the black community.

More information about Salim Muwakkil

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  • Reader Comments

    Regardless of what Obama says or does, Black Americans who vote for him are going to tear him apart faster than any other constituency for not being able to turn this entire nation upside down in his first year in office.

    Posted by natashaes on Aug 14, 2008 at 9:10 PM

    Obama saying, “It doesn’t matter how much money we invest in our communities … or how many government programs we launch — none of it will make any difference if we don’t seize more responsibility in our own lives.” is no different than Farrakhan’s mantra “Do For Self”.  I don’t see how “black nationalist theorist and creator of Kwanzaa” Maulana Karenga could brush off Obama’s personal responsibility remarks when that sentiment is the basis of an honest argument for Black nationalism. 

    What I see happening is an acknowledgement in the Black community of the split between the schools of thought represented during the civil rights era by Martin and Malcolm.  While Martin’s success in manipulating the political process to pass voting, housing and anti-discriminatory legisation has led to huge beneficial changes for Black Americans over the last 40 years he was cut down before his campaign for economic equality could take root.  Had Martin been able to continue his last campaign its likely his rhetoric regarding economic issues would have evolved into a stance that self sufficiency is the best safeguard for maintaining the hard fought civil rights gains and attaining true equality and the full rights of citizenship.  While Martin may not have had nationalistic intentions he certainly understood that the racial cohesion required of a nationalistic agenda would have been/is needed to fulfull his ultimate goals.

    After Martin, the civil rights movement never picked up where he left off and it settled for affirmative action programs instead of legislation that would have a broader economic impact for all segments of Black communities, and tried to pass off advocating for welfare and other aid programs as addressing economic needs.  While I’m not against the concept of “affimative action”, it left most poor and uneducated Black Americans on the sidelines with few other alternatives than being dependent on government for handouts.  However I am against this Connerly person’s efforts because they are as short sighted as the old school civil rights desire to maintain the dependence status quo in that he doesn’t propose any alternatives in light of the obvious continued economic inequality visited on Black communities.

    Posted by theloneous on Aug 15, 2008 at 3:12 PM

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Appeared in the September 2008 Issue
Also by Salim Muwakkil
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