Reason 8,00,000 Jesse Jackson is a blackmailer

Somone bringing up Obama Barack as their idea of a civil rights leader makes an interesting point to me. I don't think of Obama as "civil rights" leader. I think of him as a U.S. Senator (a very bright man, too) who happens to be a black guy. It's sort of the way I look at a lot of black people I know who are successful at what they do. And I think the point it makes is that this country has changed a great deal for the better over the last 40 years.

I am not arguing this country is color-blind. It isn't. But this is no longer the 1950s and 1960s. Men like Martin Luther King, Jr.. Ralth Abernathy, Malcon X, Bobby Seale (whether you think any or all of them were leaders), etc. were a product of their time. This is why there are no Martin Luther King Jrs. today. There are no longer Jim Crow laws. And while bigotry surely still exists in this country (in more subtle way), we have really come a long ways since the days when true "civil rights leaders" were fighting for basic civil liberties and dignities.

 

Two separate issues, FB. This administration may be threatening certain civil liberties with some of its actions, but even so I am not quite as alarmist as you are. Our country is very resilient and our constitution very strong. I used to get really alarmed by things I'd see and at a certain point I realized that throughout history there have always been instances of some patently "un-Amierican" things done in the name of protecting America--beginning probably with the Alien & Sedition Acts, which was shocking in that they were enacted during the time the framers of the constitution were still around. I honestly believe that if this country could survive Richard Nixon, it can survive just about anything. George Bush pales in comparison.

As for civil rights for blacks, which is a separate issue, I don't see these times doing anything in particular to erode the gains that have been made. I have too many college-educated, fairly affluent black friends whose parents grew up without the opportunities they have had to believe that we haven't made great strides and that the playing field continues to level. Black-white issues nowadays are less "equality of opportunity" issues than they are class issues. More blacks live in poverty--the result no doubt of where we were even 25 or 30 years ago in terms of the lack of opportunities. The best thing you can do to lift people out of poverty, though, is to give them opportunity, and in that department, I go back to what I said earlier--this country has progressed, which is one reason why you don't see the kinds of civil unrest and the types of leaders you saw in the 1960s.