It's clearly time Jackson steps aside

Jesse Jackson thinks Barack Obama talks down to black people?

By expressing some of his opinions that may be difficult for some black people to hear, Obama is just trying to give voice to some of the problems facing that community.

That is called leadership.

Had Jessie Jackson been expressing some of those opinions for the last 40 years, perhaps things would be different.

Instead, he has spent most of his life being an apologist for the ills of his constituents by blaming white society for most of their problems, rather than taking responsibility for them.

Jackson has always practiced plantation politics by excusing the shortcomings of the black community so that he could rally his troops to support boycotts against businesses which he targeted as racist, and then blackmail those businesses into giving his family and friends lucrative franchises and distributorships in return for his dialing back the heat.

To be sure, Jackson has done a lot of good things for Americans of all colors and race.

But now it's time for him to step down and be quiet, and let true leaders like Obama, and even his own son Jesse Jr. speak openly and frankly about the troubles of race that face all Americans and move towards solutions that can bring the country together for the betterment of everyone.

Straight talk and honest dialogue is the only way that can happen, even if it means making people of all colors uncomfortable with that conversation sometimes.

Ken Glassman

Arlington Heights