(Long Island, NY) If you had told me back in 1999 that Jesse Jackson would be apologizing nearly ten years later for remarks that apparently include using the “n-word”, I’d have hurt myself laughing. In 1999, I found myself interviewing Jackson during a refueling stop in Iceland; Jackson was on his mission to secure the release of three American soldiers captured by the Yugoslav Army. Jackson and his delegation were successful. My interview with him, at Naval Air Station Keflavik, was a bit surreal–nowhere near as surreal as seeing the recent news stories claiming Jackson used the “n-word” while lambasting Barack Obama for “talking down to black people.”
I’ve always had mixed feelings about Jackson. Part of me has always believed him to be a shameless opportunist, while another part of me has to give him credit for results including the release of the three soldiers from their Yugoslav captors. Before I interviewed him in 1999, I wasn’t really sure what to believe.
Granted, I only spent about 10 or 15 minutes with the man, but based on that brief meeting, I felt I had enough to realize most of my suspicions were correct. One thing we journalists despise more than anything else is the carefully rehearsed answer. The non-answer answer. The reply which comes, not as a result of having thought about your question for a single second, but rather from a prepared statement meant to be delivered no matter WHAT you asked.
When I asked my questions, Jackson dived right into his mental cue cards and delivered answers so completely pre-fabricated that I thought for a moment that I was standing in front of an animatronic puppet of Jesse Jackson at Disney World instead of trying to get answers from a real live human being. If it had been Hunter S. Thompson standing there firing the questions, he would have gone back to his Woody Creek retreat in Colorado and carved Jackson a new orifice in one of his screeds. I think Thompson would have labeled Jesse Jackson as a self-serving, two-dimensional water-head with delusions of grandeur.
For better or worse, I am not Hunter Thompson.
That said, I came away from my meeting with Jackson feeling like he wasn’t quite on the same planet as I was. Perhaps it was fatigue, jet lag, or disorientation that sometimes comes from too much air travel. Call that me giving him the benefit of the doubt. In light of Jesse Jackson’s pronouncements about Barack Obama’s nuts and his apparent use of the n-word, I now tend to believe that I gave the benefit of the doubt far too easily.
Jackson has two sides of his mouth, and he apparently isn’t afraid to use them. Was it not Jesse Jackson who led the protest against Don Imus in the wake of the “nappy-headed hos” comment? Imus actually turned his mike on for that one, but Jackson’s gaffe seems somehow much worse because he thought nobody else was listening. That old saying seems to apply best here. You know the one–about who you are when the lights are out being the person you truly are?
Jesse Jackson hasn’t single-handedly turned back the clock on all the progress made for civil rights–no more than any gangsta rapper on the charts for the last ten years. But now, Jackson can’t really take the high road anymore, can he?
We will, in time, forget that Jackson said these things. But I will say this–while Jackson has apologized twice now for his statements, he has one more apology to make. I don’t expect it to EVER happen, but in light of what’s come out of Jackson’s mouth when he thought nobody was listening, I think he owes Don Imus a few very contrite words. Imus–for all his brain-dead comments–actually had the guts to air his opinions ON PURPOSE. Jackson, on the other hand, whispered his true feelings in secret or so he thought. Of the two, Imus actually has more honor. I am no fan of either one of these gents, but Don Imus is at least man enough to wear his ignorance on his sleeve for the world to see. Not so with Jesse Jackson, who hides behind a cheap facade of PO-faced concern. The grim, stilted pose of the so-called serious intellectual.
Jesse Jackson is in damage control mode now. It would be lovely if we never heard from him again, or at the very least had his comments relegated to being taken with a level of seriousness usually reserved for Leslie Nielsen. Some will read some kind of non-existent racism into what I am saying, but I leave you with this;
Of the two candidates, Barack Obama is this country’s best hope for change. Not because he has the experience to do the job, or the ability to pull us out of a slump and fix the national debt like a Bill Clinton. Barack Obama is this country’s best hope because he has the cajones to run a presidential campaign against the nay-saying of people like Jesse Jackson–people who support him with one hand and try to undermine him with the other. People who should be supporting him 100%, but can’t see past their own agendas long enough to work for a greater good. I will vote for Obama in November and hope he lives up to his promise. If that’s racist, so be it.
