Behind Jackson's remarks: another test for Obama

Jesse Jackson's vulgarity and carelessness grabbed the headlines.

But a look at the basic complaint behind Jackson's crude words caught by open microphone is revealing: Barack Obama is treading yet another racial fault line.

Jackson, for years considered the very voice of black activism, accused the Democratic nominee, 20 years his junior, of "talking down to black people." Jackson complained that Obama focuses too much on calls for personal accountability among black fathers and too little on solutions for ongoing problems - unemployment, housing woes, incarceration rates - that continue to afflict black America disproportionately.

Jackson and some other blacks worry that Obama's emphasis, displayed in a Father's Day address to a predominantly black Chicago church, will prompt white Americans to conclude and declare that the time to worry about racism and all its implications is past.

As Eric Easter, writing for ebonyjet.com, said in an online piece Thursday: "Rightly or wrongly, some Black progressives are deeply suspicious of the change in white America that has led to Obama's position. Specifically that white people don't just want political change, they want a change in the racial dynamic. And hearing about black problems does not fit into their idea of this new America that will be created when Obama becomes president."

Easter predicted, for instance, that an Obama inauguration soon would be followed by aggressive legal challenges to affirmative action. He said critics who long have chafed under such policies will point to an Obama presidency as proof that they no longer are needed.

Andra Gillespie, an assistant professor of political science at Emory University in Atlanta, agrees with Easter - conditionally.

"You see that concern among the black elite: intellectuals, academics and other sorts of traditional opinion leaders in the African-American community. I don't think it has necessarily trickled down to the masses in the African-American community," said Gillespie, whose academic research and polling focus on race, politics and generational differences.

"African Americans aren't averse to the sort of challenges Obama issued," Gillespie said. "But they don't want to do it by embracing paternalistic language that doesn't take systemic racism into account.

"Everybody understands that poverty is an issue. That lack of education is an issue. That high illegitimacy rates and low marriage rates are a problem. But nobody knows how to say that in a way that doesn't start blaming victims."

Finding that way, Gillespie said, is Obama's challenge with many black voters.

Easter, in a telephone interview Thursday, said some blacks are not so much worried by Obama's focus as they are simply uncertain about how to interpret vast changes in the political landscape that give Obama a better-than-even chance to become the nation's first black president.

"Obviously, a lot of white people have changed in order for Obama to get this far in the process," Easter said. "What does that mean to people who have been using race as leverage to push their issues? What if the world really is changing? What if the life you've wanted for your children really comes true? What then? How do you act? People are uncomfortable with that, and reasonably so. Is it something to be suspicious of or something to embrace?"

The Rev. Jimmie Daniels, a Hoffman Estates resident and former national leader of Jackson's Operation PUSH, thinks Obama's agenda merits embrace.

"Barack is not pandering to white voters. He's saying the right things," Daniels said. "Barack should stay the course (on personal responsibility). It's not a black or white issue; it's just the right thing. Rev. Jackson and Al Sharpton have not pushed that agenda enough. They've been spending so much time dealing with what people have or have not done for us, rather than what people ought to do for themselves."

While blacks may hold divergent views on Obama's motives, many observers think a greater emphasis on personal responsibility than on residual racism or government programs for minorities can only boost the Democratic nominee's stock among white voters, particularly, perhaps, working-class whites whose votes largely eluded him during the primaries.

Michael Mezey, a DePaul University political science professor, said: "One of my first reactions (to Jackson saying he would like to cut off Obama's testicles) was that this was going to help Obama, because it's an opportunity to distinguish further, for white voters, Obama from Jackson and all the movement African Americans."

Mezey said Obama isn't likely to damage his standing with black voters no matter where he places his emphasis in discussing race.

African-American voters, Mezey said, already answered the early question of whether Obama is "black enough" by backing him in record numbers throughout the primaries.

"This kind of thing," Mezey said, referring to the nuances of Obama's speeches on race, "is certainly not going to suppress voters and certainly not going to create any McCain voters out of the African-American community."