Jesse Jackson - will he get away with it

I am not going to repeat what can be rather easily read about his recent "hot mic" comments about Obama, but once and for all, I would like to see how this double standard plays out.

Don Imus (whom in my opinion is rather boring to begin with) was crucified for his Nappy Headed comment and fired in essence for it, yet now Jackson not only uses the dreaded "N" word he also references that Obama should have his balls cut off.

I am very interested in how he will get out of this one.

Jesse gets away with a lot, mostly becuase nobody can understand an f'ing word he says.

I'd be surprised if anything happened to Jackson, outside of a little embarassment that will be forgotten. A big reason will be the lack of a Reverand Al Sharpton firing up the masses, holding rallies and demanding action for his own political gain.

Besides, Obama doesnt seem like the kind of person to cry victim over verbal commentary that speaks more of Jesse Jackson's character.

I saw an interview with Reverand Al Sharpton this morning. His hair was not standing on end and he wasn't yelling. He said something to the effect of "Jesse should act better..." blah. blah, blah

Sharpton slicks his hair back. If Reverend Sharpton's hair was standing on end he wouldn't be Reverend Sharpton, he would be Don King.

The reason he will get away with it is because black people can not be racist. That is all there is too it.

Yeah, it's impossible for a black person to be a racist...at least in the public's perception.

Pharacon wrote:

The reason he will get away with it is because black people can not be racist. That is all there is too it.

ZaneRockfist wrote:

Yeah, it's impossible for a black person to be a racist...at least in the public's perception.

Racist:a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.

So apparently the public is racist then, since they are labelling one groups abilities by the color of their skin...um OK.

My problem is that the term Racist is so easily used. When Don Imus uttered the phrase "...nappy headed ho's..." he was a racist. When Michael Richards kept saying the dreaded "N" word at a comedy club, he was racist. Both of these may be true. Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton went on a national campaign to slaughter these two individuals. It was the only reason for their media existance for months.

When I watch Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphey, Chris Rock D.L. Hughley say the same thing, it is acceptable. Ok, fine I can deal with that.

But when we go back to the Don Imus comment, Sharpton and Jackson called for all but a public shooting of Imus, he should lose his job and never be on the air again.

If the comment is said in the forum of comedy, or thought provoking, or you're a (self labled) shock jock, I think we should toughen up a little and not cry racist if we dont like the word. There needs to be some context thought to what was said and how it was said and who you are voluntarily listening to.

But when Jackson says, with disdain mind you, that "...Obama should have his balls cut off...", and he uses the "N" word there should be some form of equal condemnation. Remember, Jackson and Sharpton were championing the whole death to the "N" word campaign not that long ago.

The owner of the comedy club that Richards went off on his tirade said there is now a fine for using the "N" word in a comedians act. He claims the actual comedians have been paying that fine. I read yesterday he wants Jackson to pay that same (albeit totally symbolic) fine (of $50.00). I am betting Jackson wont pony up on this one, regardless of the windmills he has tilted at in the past.

It wont happen. Jackson will have damaged himself more in his own community than we will ever know by disbaraging a leader of that community that has a very good shot at being the next president, so he ended his own career more than anyone else could force him to do.

As Morpheus said in Matrix "...fate is not without its own sense of irony..." (I probably got the quote wrong by the way) but you get the point.

But if Obama is the next president, somehow I think Jacksons words will secretly come back and haunt him in ways he will be able to do nothing about. And, they should.

As for Imus and Richards, if they are in fact racists, please send them to their grave with your silence and a cold shoulder turned to their acts, shows and ways they make a living. One of the most powerful things our culture allows is to ignore someone into obscurity.

it's a shame that there is such a double standard. I know chris rock did a bit about the very issue you are talking about, saying it is ok for black comedians but not for whites. I wish I could copy and paste the link on this damned iPhone.

The double standard is us paying for the sins of our ancestors. It just _is_ different when whites use that language, because it doesn't and _can't_ exist out of the context of subjugation that marked white and black relations in this country for hundreds of years.

People need to get over expecting three hundred and more years of racial intolerance to be forgotten in a few decades. It doesn't work like that.

There will not be the fireworks that surrounded Don Imus (from which he seems to have recovered fairly nicely), but he isn't going to 'get away with it'. This episode will only add to the rate of his declining relevance.

Booker T. Washington summed up characters like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton rather well, "There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do do not want to lose their jobs."

Jesse Jackson hates his people as much as he hates white people.

Elysium wrote:

The double standard is us paying for the sins of our ancestors. It just _is_ different when whites use that language, because it doesn't and _can't_ exist out of the context of subjugation that marked white and black relations in this country for hundreds of years.

People need to get over expecting three hundred and more years of racial intolerance to be forgotten in a few decades. It doesn't work like that.

It isn't any different. Racism is racism, period. What has happened in the past doesn't change that and it doesn't justify one group getting away with it while another doesn't. How do we possibly expect racism to be eliminated when one group feels justified in continuing it under the excuse of a history they've only heard about in textbooks?

Well, slavery is only one part of the problem. The institutionalized racial segregation is another. And it's far from being "textbooks only" stuff, as many could argue that it's legacy is still very much alive.

The reason this kind of stuff never gets resolved is that people love to jump in and point to some larger issue. What Jesse Jackson said was wrong, but we should really just leave it at that, just like in the case of Don Imus. Deal with them, and stop all this BS about whether or not blacks can be racist.

People are racist. It takes many forms, some of which are accepted, and some are not. What gets accepted or rejected changes, due to many different circumstances. But the people that step over the lines, are just people that stepped over the line. Why do blacks have to apologize for Jesse Jackson anymore than whites have to apologize for Don Imus?

I like Joe Rogan's philosophy. Two kinds of people in the world. Assholes, and people you can hang with. I don't care what race the asshole is, I just want to avoid the person.

I was not surprised at either Don Imus or Jesse Jackson's comments. They were already in the asshole category for me. Do I really need to spend time worrying if "they got away with it?"

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

Well, slavery is only one part of the problem. The institutionalized racial segregation is another. And it's far from being "textbooks only" stuff, as many could argue that it's legacy is still very much alive.

I do find it pathetic that some people want to act like a 25 year-old black man has never had to deal with racism, because the Civil War was over years ago. I have worked for too many racists to believe that crap. It was bad enough when I worked in city stores, but when I started working some of the suburbs, it got even more ugly. I then started to run into far more people that anyone would like to admit that were racist, and didn't hesitate to assume I was. There is a decent faction of people in St. Louis that views a lack of prejudice as a weakness.

One employee, trying to dig herself out after having dropped the N-word around me even went wit the ol' cliche that black kids in the suburbs are different than those kids in the city. I had to ask her if she was talking about the kids my daughter was going to school with in the city. Her school is 57% black.

Jayhawker wrote:

{snip}

I was not surprised at either Don Imus or Jesse Jackson's comments. They were already in the asshole category for me. Do I really need to spend time worrying if "they got away with it?"

If the assholes were set apart from the others, then I would agree. But the asshole and the cool dude (or chick, as the case may be) is too often forced to deal with the asshole point of few shoved down their throat.

The assholes stir up trouble, throw the holy hand grenade of antioch over the fence into the crowd just to create havoc. So getting away with it is more about stopping or attemping to curb the asshole's behavior. They are what they are, but we want to deal with less of them and more cool people.

Idealistic, I know.

I dont like the negative (and usually hidden) agenda of a few assholes, and I especially dont like having to hear how they can continue to create problems when there were none there before, or at a minimum fan the flames of a situation with gasoline for personal gain.

So in my world, I would like to see less assholes getting away with being assholes when they break their own rules (so to speak).

I think sooner or later, the scars of segregation, the civil war, and other institutionalized hurt that was done to a certain class of people needs to heal. When the assholes keep bringing up the issues, they are truly saying, I dont want them to heal, I want the "Us versus Them" to continue.

Well I want reparations for the invasion and subsequent continued annexation of Scotland and the killing of my clan by the English invaders, and I dont want it in Euros.

One employee, trying to dig herself out after having dropped the N-word around me even went wit the ol' cliche that black kids in the suburbs are different than those kids in the city. I had to ask her if she was talking about the kids my daughter was going to school with in the city. Her school is 57% black.

I was an exchange student in South Africa during apartheid and heard the variant on this that "American blacks are different from South African blacks." Hands down the number one explanation offered to me for apartheid.

And Bill Cosby tried to send to NAACP in a much blunter way before that.

I wonder what did Jesse Jackson mutter under his breath about that one back then.

Elysium wrote:

The double standard is us paying for the sins of our ancestors. It just _is_ different when whites use that language, because it doesn't and _can't_ exist out of the context of subjugation that marked white and black relations in this country for hundreds of years.

People need to get over expecting three hundred and more years of racial intolerance to be forgotten in a few decades. It doesn't work like that.

My ancestors outlawed slavery back in the 15th century, but I still get lumped in with the rest of the whites because of my skin color. I don't think that most of the current generation are hard core racists anymore, most of the ones that were are dying off from old age. There are always going to be some outlaying individuals whom are a few SD outside the norm, but if we take them as being the representatives for the entire set any statements about the set are going to be virtually meaningless.

Elysium wrote:

The double standard is us paying for the sins of our ancestors. It just _is_ different when whites use that language, because it doesn't and _can't_ exist out of the context of subjugation that marked white and black relations in this country for hundreds of years.

People need to get over expecting three hundred and more years of racial intolerance to be forgotten in a few decades. It doesn't work like that.

I have no expectation that racial tension and racism will disappear in my generation but I think both communities have a responsibility to work towards that end. I think that media whores like Sharpton and Jackson have done more harm to race relations than they've done to help. Reversing the polarity of racism doesn't make it go away, it just changes its direction. To make the argument that there is a double standard and that it's ok is just perpetuating the problem. The black community simply cannot continue to refer to themselves and "{racist slur}s" and "ho's" then turn around and scream about it when a white person does the same. I think this is exactly the message that Obama is trying to send but in a much more polished way.

People can be racist. I tend to lump it in with people being stupid. (Say what you will about anything else, but thinking you can tell something about someone from the color of their skin is hands down the dumbest thing I have _ever_ heard.)

Now, bear in mind that I think people that are racist really do need the stupid beaten out of them with this rant.

But I am damn tired of everyone blaming the white man, when anything is wrong. Anymore, the race card is pulled out as a cop out. I live near Omaha. You know what's happening in north Omaha right about now? Odds are, someone is being stupid with a firearm as I write this. Last night, two girls were shot walking on the sidewalk, because they were mistaken for someone else. Last month, a bullet went through someone's wall, and hit a 6 year old sleeping on the couch. North Omaha is a warzone.

And there's no white man there. There's no new police brutality crap. Just people being stupid. If all of that was happening in a white neighborhood, odds are that it would be exactly the same. The police have a good response time, a serious presence, and still, nothing is changing. And the rumbles of it somehow being "the white man is keeping us down" are starting.

So, who exactly is the "white man" this time? The black police chief? The mayor who has made it a priority to fix it? I'm quite curious. In Lincoln and Omaha, racism is actually at a fairly low level. You get other forms of discrimination, sure. I wear Tripp pants, and a smartass t-shirt most of the time, and the last time I managed to get through a store without being accosted by some loss-prevention asshat was.... two months ago. When I was wearing my work clothes.

But yet, I'm assumed to have some innate advantage, because I'm white. Recent changes in fortune aside, for the last 5 years, I've been really, really freaking poor. You know, questionable utilities poor, most of the time. The last three years, we have been staying with my grandpa, and he payed the bills. All we've been able to afford were groceries and gas. Barely. Now, things have changed somewhat now (Mom's SSD), but not due to any race advantage. Patience and a f#ckton of determination, but that's a human trait, not a racial one.

In fact, the only advantage I have, is reasonable intelligence, that I am determined and patient, and I learn from my mistakes. (Also, not being stupid. But that really should be more common than it is.). You can't even try the "good schools" thing with me. Every school I went to in my whirlwind tour was crap. Crap schools in florida, 3 of them. Crap schools in Colorado, two of them. Crap schools in Nebraska, 4 of them. I just took my GED and was done with it.

See, crap school isn't a disadvantage. Not caring to learn, is a disadvantage. But a fixable one. Even the crappy public libraries here are incredibly useful. As far as college goes, community colleges are amazingly lenient in their admission standards. (My school record was.... horrible. To say the very least.) Money isn't really that much of an issue either. (Pell grants are amazing things.)

So really, the problem I see in places like North Omaha, are stupid people being stupid. The amount of melatonin they produce is irrelevant.

As an aside, the "white man's government" f*cks me just as much they do everyone else. Besides, isn't judging people by the color of their skin raci.... wait, I forgot, they can't be, because they're a minority. Fate has a sense of sarcasm.