US elections: Jackson comments revive race as campaign issue for Obama (222 hits)
Hello All,
I am sure you all have heard about the recent berrating of Barack Obama by once affluent and reputable leader for the Black community, Jesse Jackson. I found this article online and feel that it brings forth some interesting points about both Mr. Jackson and Obama's campaign. I would be VERY interested to know what you all think about some of the opinions and sentiments offered here. I have my own but I am not here to take sides or force anyone to the left, right or "center", but I feel it should provoke some rather intereting thoughts and conversations.
By now, rotated on countless television broadcasts, the image is indelible: Jesse Jackson, once America's most influential African-American leader angrily jabbing his right arm and muttering about Barack Obama across a television microphone that he thought was turned off.
"I want to cut his nuts out," Jackson said to his fellow guest during a broadcasting break. "Barack, he is talking down to black people."
After being rebuked by his own son, Jesse Jackson Jr, who is a co-chair of the Obama campaign, the chastened clergyman spent a second day apologising for his crude remarks yesterday. He told reporters in Chicago: "His campaign represents the redemption of our country."
But for all Jackson's efforts to make amends, his remarks yesterday seemed to in broader questions. What has happened to Barack Obama since winning the Democratic nomination? Has the candidate promising change a new kind of politics turned into a politician like any other? How much will race continue to be a factor for his campaign?
Jackson's comments, though crude and incendiary, come at a time when Obama is accused of reversing his stand on the Iraq war, campaign finance, gun control, the death penalty, abortion and wiretapping without court oversight as he tries to position himself for the election against the Republican, John McCain.
Such rows are potentially damaging to any candidate claiming to have broken with the divisive politics of the past - as Obama has. But Obama has the additional challenge of trying to avoid divisions about race in his quest to become the first African-American in the White House. "There is no benefit to him of reviving the race issue," said one Democratic strategist.
Jackson's outburst did exactly that, revisiting the issue of Obama's place in the African-American community and his views on race only weeks after the controversy surrounding his former pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright.
The clergyman's remarks also exposed the divisions in the African-American leadership about how Obama is conducting his campaign.
"His comments were a combination of personal ego and ideological dispute," said Clarence Page, a prominent columnist for the Chicago Tribune who has been covering Jackson for nearly 40 years.
The substance of the argument between Obama and Jackson involves the apportionment of responsibility for the breakdown of some African-American families. Obama in a speech last month on Father's Day suggested that African-American fathers needed to take more responsibility for their children - a point made by the entertainer Bill Cosby and others.
That line of argument has rankled those on the left including Jackson, who want to more strongly hold government policies to account for the impoverishment of African-American families.
Some commentators said Obama made matters even worse by delivering his speech on fatherhood from a church only days after breaking his own church of nearly 20 years and repudiating his pastor, the Reverend Jeremiah Wright, for making controversial remarks.
"By choosing that moment to castigate black fathers, some worry that Obama gave public voice to what white people whisper about Blacks in their living rooms and cemented his image as a post-racial saviour at the expense of Black men," wrote blogger Eric Easter at EbonyJet.com. "Rightly or wrongly, some black progressives are deeply suspicious of the change in white America that has led to Obama's position. Specifically that white people don't just want political change, they want a change in the racial dynamic. And hearing about black problems does not fit into their idea of this new America that will be created when Obama becomes president."
For Jackson, there was a personal element to that ideological debate. He was the leader of the left of the Democratic party in the 1980s when he made two runs for the White House. "Now he is having his primacy challenged by the rising Barack Obama who is more of a centrist Democrat," said Page. "This is a downfall of the primacy that he had in the 1980s when he was the leader of black America. This is the lion in winter."
It remains unclear how the divide between Jackson and Obama will more broadly affect his campaign - especially among African-American voters.
Obama is counting on high African-American turnout in battleground states.
Michael Feldman, who was an adviser to Al Gore during his run for the White House, argued that Obama limited the potential damage to his campaign by his response to Jackson.
"We all try to script and manage campaigns but they are inherently unmanageable. You end up talking about x when want to talk about y," said Feldman. "The question is how gracefully do you do that and I think he has been very graceful."
Larry Sabato, an expert on politics at the University of Virginia, argues the rift is unlikely to diminish enthusiasm about Obama's candidacy in the African-American community.
In 1989, when Douglas Wilder was running in Virginia to become the first African-American to be elected governor of a US state, he did not ask Jackson to campaign on his behalf - even though the clergyman was then at the height of his influence.
Despite that slight, Wilder won a record 97% of the African-American vote, and turnout among the black community was the highest on record.
"This won't affect African Americans in the slightest," said Sabato. "They sense history in the making and they understand that Obama has to do what he has to do, and remember Jackson's own son delivered the knife in his back."
A similar calculation by the Obama campaign is underway regarding his shift to the centre. Jackson's outburst on Wednesday were mirrored on the blogosphere in an outpouring of anger against Obama's vote in favour of a bill sought by the White House that would expand the government's powers to spy on US citizens.
The Democratic candidate had previously opposed the bill. Yesterday's vote in favour was the most visible example of a series of policy shifts by Obama as he tries to expand his support beyond core Democratic voter to the centre ground of American politics.
Obama's support for the wiretapping bill was seen on the left as a betrayal - a charge made on his own campaign website by leftwing bloggers.
"I am just so disappointed in general and Barack Obama in particular," wrote Donald S of Nashville, Tennessee on the campaign website today. "This was a chance for him to show some real leadership on a very important issue and he clearly ducked it."
Another blogger on Obama's website said that if they had known he would shift so quickly to the centre they would have voted for Hillary Clinton.
But other commentators point out that Obama has to occupy the middle ground if he is to win against McCain. And if he has lost some of the shine he enjoyed during the primaries, well, that is just part of the normal process of politics. "For months obama was put on a pedestal as a symbol while now he is just a pol which is what he really is," said Sabato. "That is actually healthy."
"Sometimes as Black people we have more enemies inside our own community than from the outside. " So True....So Sad.
Friday, July 11th 2008 at 8:13AM
LaTika Tillis
