Umm, Rev. Jackson, that microphone is still on

I've never worked on TV, but it seems to me to be a little dubious. They aired it because it made Obama look bad or at least created the perception of a controversy. If Jesse had said "Obama will someday be the fifth head on Rushmore," I don't think the comment would have made the air.

 

I swear, Al Sharptons name must be macroed on your comp. 

Either way, Jesse has a point about Barack talking down to African Americans.

He had his sista souljah moment with his Father's Day speech, and many in the media and non-black community like to believe that Barack's "Just stop it" speech is in short supply in the Black community. 

Personally, I'm tired of hearing the same old rants about absentee fatherhood in the black community.  Those talks aren't new, and goes back to an old African American saying of "we raise our daughters, but love our sons" speaking of our failures in raising responsible black men. 


It's been 5 years into the "Cosby's right" movement.  The Juan Williams, Cosbys, Barack of the world are not saying anything new, and the common theme amongst them is the absense of a plan for the African American community to follow through with, much like the Million Man march and other things that get people swept up to say "he's right" but nothing else.

Too bad a self serving clown with the baggage of Jesse Jackson is saying it.

 

News channels do this all the time. Doesn't mean it's not questionable but it's certainly industry standard.

 

Seems like these things happen a handful of times every election, right? I doubt Fox News is behind all of them.

And of course they wouldn't have aired it had he said great things about Obama. That wouldn't have come as any kind of a surprise, thus not news. JJ saying he wants to cut his nuts off, however, did.

 

I think the term "African-American" is mostly silly, sorry.

Most black folks have absolutely nothing in common with people in the West African nations they mostly have roots in, nothing at all, well other than black skin.

I say the same thing about those who refer to themselves as "Italian-Americans" or "Irish-Americans".

We're Americans, that's our culture, that's who we are and we are unique, just like Africans are unique and Italians are unique.

This incessant need to find ways to hyphenate ourselves, hundreds of years after we all landed on Plymouth Rock, is really an annoying habit among some groups.

 

Way to go there Mr. Thread derailment.

Glad to know you feel that way, but it doesn't change the fact that these "Cosby, Juan Williams, Barack's Right!!!" have done nothing for the Afr....black community (is that ok?) other than give middle and upper class blacks a chance to say "at least we're not like them."

 

We didn't all land on Plymouth Rock. Some arrived on slave ships. Some were here to begin with. We are a diverse nation with a diverse history and many proud cultures. Of course, that annoys the authoritarian impulse toward cultural uniformity.

Back on topic, the Cosby/Williams line of thinking has a valid core of truth, even though, as Chee points out, some well-off blacks have used the "responsibility" stance as a way to worsen, rather than heal, divisions within that community.

 

I bow at the altar of Zagshoe for that one. I don't run around screaming I'm Croatian-American. I am American. Period.

 

Good for you. But I seriously doubt as a man you'd enter a woman's bathroom shouting "I'm an American just like you" as if it makes you one and the same as other women who happen to be Americans.

 

That made zero sense, Chee.

 

It makes perfect sense. Although we're all Americans, we have clear differences between us while under that umbrella. You yourself see those differences between men and women. While we might be all Americans, you acknowledge those differences yourself. Yet when blacks acknowledge those differences, people like you with your perverted thinking tie it to being un-american and divisive.

It's called reality.