Obama Election Watch

During a break in a Fox News Channel interview this past week, the Reverend Jesse Jackson committed a widely publicized gaffe. Believing his microphone was turned off, Jackson was heard to say, “Barack’s been talking down to black people — telling niggers how to behave. I want to cut his nuts off.”

The Jesse Jackson insult has been largely interpreted as good news for Obama. It shows white voters — particularly those sitting on the political fence — that Obama is not a black activist that white voters have had cause to fear. Probably, too, the Jackson remark goes a long way to neutralize Obama’s Reverend Wright problem.

However impolitic and crude, Jackson made an important point. When Obama tells young blacks to pull up their socks and get a job, he tends to be faulted by many in the black civil rights leadership for “blaming the victim.” When Obama openly speaks of the failings of young black men he is sometimes charged with taking whites off the hook for 200 years of race discrimination and oppression.

Recently Obama told African-American students that they must stop dreaming of becoming rap artists or basketball players and stay in school. Okay, this is good advice. Yet Jesse Jackson’s generation of black leaders may resent a young black Obama from Harvard Law School, who never went through the hells of Birmingham, Selma, or Montgomery, talking down to black people as irresponsible children who, maybe, have themselves to blame.

In his “tough love” message to African Americans, Obama is playing a dangerous game.

At issue here are some black votes that could drift away from Obama as well as a loss of support of many whites who explain black inequalities as a consequence of segregation and race discrimination.

How does Obama deal with this dilemma, that telling the truth does not necessarily mix well with successful politics?

Professor Ron Walters of the University of Maryland, possibly the most astute observer of black politics, says that Obama must introduce more balance into his remarks in order to maintain and gain a high level of black support. This makes good sense.

In fact, Obama did win the hearts of both groups of blacks when he spoke this past Monday at the recent NAACP in Cincinnati. He made a clear statement that his personal success rested on the shoulders of the giants of the civil rights movement whom he named. At the same time, he won thunderous applause when he reminded the audience of 8,000 African Americans that, 51 years ago, nine children did not walk through a schoolhouse door in Little Rock so that we could stand by and let our children drop out of school and turn to gangs for support.

It is time now for Obama to make more appearances with the legends of the civil rights movement such as Fred Shuttlesworth, John Lewis, Andrew Young, and Julian Bond. This would reinforce his image as a leader of blacks of all ages and persuasions and demonstrate how much he honors and owes to the contributions of those black leaders who came before him.

When Obama speaks before black audiences there must be greater emphasis, too, on his dedication to the traditional black agenda for alleviating poverty, economic development in urban areas, improved education in inner-city schools, and a commitment of equal opportunity and justice for all Americans.