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. (Click Here to Read More)
Many white voters fear that an African-American president will promote black progress at the expense of struggling whites. In stating his vision for fairness and opportunity for all groups, Obama could now use the convention to calm white apprehensions over a black man holding the massive executive powers of the United States.
On Monday, July 14, Barack Obama will address the NAACP annual convention in Cincinnati. John McCain will address the gathering two days later.
Some commentators believe that Obama will use the NAACP platform to make his so-called Bill Cosby lecture to African Americans. This message, which Obama has delivered before, calls for young African Americans to stay in school, shun gang activity, and to avoid drugs. It urges black men to take responsibility for the children they father that they may build stronger families in the black community.
But this lecture to young blacks seems unwise when the audience at the NAACP convention will be made up mostly of older blacks for whom the “Cosby” message is neither intended nor relevant. To be said, too, Obama should not risk offending a core group that is in large measure responsible for his nomination to head the Democratic ticket.
One thing is certain. Unlike all presidential candidates before him, Obama’s address will not carry the standard litany on how African Americans will benefit from his administration. A sound plan, we suggest, would be that he use this important forum to express his program of outreach to all Americans. (Click Here to Read More)
