July 17, 2008
New Jackson Gaffe Raises Question Of Political Correctness In The Media
This year's presidential race has been a national dialogue on what matters to Americans at this point in our nation's history. But it's also been a sometimes difficult debate on the very real gender, ethnic and racial tensions that lie just underneath our country's perception of itself.
A week after Jesse Jackson apologized to Barack Obama for vulgar remarks made to a colleague when he thought his microphone was turned off, new footage reveals that Jackson referred to blacks as "niggers". In a scene that has been played out repeatedly this election cycle, Obama publicly accepted the apology. But as the media scrambled to report the comment that Jackson believed was private, a new set of questions has emerged. What role does the media play in reporting an event like this, and how should language that many people find offensive, if not repulsive, be reported? Is the language the story? Or is the bigger, (and unreported story) the context of the statement: Jesse Jackson talking as if he made Obama into who he is today? Does the so-called Old Guard of the civil rights movement get to claim a figure like Obama as their own, even as he breaks new ground? And how do Americans (regardless of race) respond to statements like Jackson's?
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Blacks using the n word about their own race is not exactly news to anyone. HOHUM
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It's news because Jesse has been advocating for black people to stop using the n-word at all. When will Jesse finally get taken down for his "do as a i say not as a i do" way of life?
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As soon as you guys get off his dick. Same can be said for all media whores, Rush or whoever...
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Can we have a conversation about what Jesse Jackson was actually trying to get at?
Yea he screwed up in how he said it, (not that any one has publicized the full context of the remarks- heaven forbid) but it certainly was IMPORTANT enough for Georgetown professor Dr. Michael Eric Dyson to write a book the subject entitled "Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?"
Princeton Professor Dr. Cornel West has written and spoke out on the issue, but for mainstream America its not important enough to have a serious conversation about, as opposed to spending more time wallowing in the shock value of the words and of course Jesse's deeply flawed personality.
Ya Red Eye Reading Morons!
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I don't get what you're saying Spook...Jesse is accusing Barack of talking down to black people, which is what Cosby has also been accused of. They're both saying the same thing. Jesse doesn't like that Barack is talking down to black people, so he throws down the n-word and wnats to cut Barack's nuts off. Good stuff, way to keep the dialogue fresh and on the level. Jesse doesn't care about anything except attention. He issued an apology before anyone even knew what he'd said. You know why? Because he wants attention. He's an attention whore, emphasis on whore because like a whore he'll do anything for money or some sort of status. The Barbershop controversy? Guess what happens on the sequel, Jesse gets to be a paid consultant. Imagine that! Of course it's an important issue, but Jesse is not the one who should be tackling it because he's a horrible human being, he's a leech, a self-involved ass who is constantly out to ruin people's lives and careers while doing and saying whatever he wants, no matter how much he contradicts himself. Jesse always calls for people to resign, to be fired, to lose their jobs, but that can never be turned on him...he has no job to lose or resign from. Leeches don't have their own, they just take what they need and leave their victims a little less whole.
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Spook - are you defending or dismissing Dyson? I ask because Dyson is often a Jackson apologist.
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This isn't really news, but I think the media generally likes to report on cases of hypocrisy by those in the public eye (e.g. conservative Larry Craig and the airport bathroom incident, uber-green Al Gore and his energy hogging mansion, etc.)
It's not that Jesse said "nigger" or not, but that he would be the first one to jump all over anyone else who used it in any context whatsoever. There would be protests and demands for resignations and boycotts. A simple apology would never be sufficient to get others off the hook after saying such things. There would be hell to pay....
Sadly, I doubt Jesse will be banished from the airwaves or anywhere else for this.
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Was Barack lecturing wall street, fanny and freddie, bear stearns, telco bosses, The Bush admin and fucking etc. etc. about personal responsibility and accountability? No of course not.
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I hope the next politically incorrect term of the week is "white trash".
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Hey working class and poor Americans it's *you* who needs to change ©........not us!
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Jaws of Death. I'm defending Dyson on this very complicated issue that again he took the time to WRITE a book about.
Just like I defend Dyson when HE calls Jesse Jackson onto the carpet on numerous issues. Dyson has been a vocal critic of Jackson, just like I have been. But in order to know that means trying to “know” Dyson. Are you game for that Jaws of Death?
People have always hated Jackson even when he was doing good. And on occasion he still does good, which makes the bad all the more tragic.
It’s about being able to be "nuanced" instead of looking at every thing one sided. But that takes the discipline to actually care enough to investigate an issue. I guess that would be un-American right? To actually investigate, read, etc, etc
This is why these posts go on forever, with no body (mostly) saying nothing. Like Mike Thoms! he's got no idea what Dyson has said about Jackson. Yet he's more than willing to comment from ignorance, instead of reading any thing Dyson wrote! He’s got no idea of the real conversation outside of what he hears on Fox News. So to discuss this any more with is a waste of time.
By Navin asks the pressing question so let me repeat it..... "Was Barack lecturing wall street, fanny and freddie, bear stearns, telco bosses, The Bush admin and fucking etc. etc. about personal responsibility and accountability? No of course not."
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Obama is to busy getting money from wall street, fannie freddie and corprote america. 52 million in one month now we know why he lied about taking public financing of his campaign.
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And lets not forget about Daley or Emile Jones or the two African Americans who run ComEd and People's Gas!
But he sho aint too busy enough to talk about what Pookie and Peaches aint doing.
Why can't he talk them all?
Why single one group out?
That's the question and what does it mean when no one has a problem with it?
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here's my sort of unrelated point on this one ... kudos to mss2400 -- i don't understand why people just don't come out and say the word nigger when they are denouncing the use of it. to me, there is hardly a more striking and harsh way to show people how terrible and harmful and ugly that word is.
saying "the n-word" all the time just reduces it to something your grandma would say in an effort to get you not to swear or something ... "johnny, we don't say the blank-word in my house." huh? it's like trying to talk about the "f-word." are we in 7th grade?
i just think that no one should be calling anyone a nigger, but in thinking that, i'm going to use the actual word that i'm opposed to, not some weird phrase meant not to offend. the word nigger IS terribly offensive and loaded and carries the weight of years of darkness on its shoulders. it's about time we acknowledge that, instead of making it out to be some weird unnameable thing -- the voldemort of epithets.
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I think O'Bama using the Ronald Reagan play book to win midwest conservative support is more offensive than saying Nigga. Frankly the whole anti Nigga campaign started by Jesse Jackson was a waste of time as well. But its alot easier to go against a world than actually deal with the racism and self hate behind it.
And actually I respect the way a certain group of hated and abused people were able to co-opt and appropriate aspects of evilness and inhumanity thrown on them constantly, like the world Nigger, and turn it into a word( Nigga) of love, personal bonding and then generously shared it with cultures that feel and are disenfranchised and marginalized
And if you Bitches
are interested check out the book
"Nigger - The Strange Career of a Troublesome Word"
by Randall Kennedy