At what point does it beccome unacceptable for black leaders to use the N word? Do they get a pass along with the rappers?
I thought Jesse Jackson was against the word nigger in rap music? Didn’t he have some kind of campaign to try to discourage rappers from using it?
I’m very surprised to read this. I never liked Jesse Jackson but I would never expect him to use that word.
This is almost on-topic.
A couple of years ago I was in the DC area when Mike Tyson (he lived locally) was arrested for some darn thing or another. They interviewed the imam of his mosque, who explained, “Oh, we don’t tell out members how to live their lives.”
My sort of mosque.
I guess maybe it could be argued he’s not an entertainer…
But regardless, this accusation comes from FOX news. Before passing judgment, I’d like to hear from a more reliable source. Like, say, the random coincidentally word-sounding gurglings of my lower digestive systems after I eat habanero burritos.
Who cares if he did say it? So what?
Really? Cite? Where have you found that Fox News itself is making this “accusation” rather than a third party source? (“TVNewser”, not that I’ve ever heard of them.)
I look forward to hearing you apologize to Fox News 
Moving thread from IMHO to Great Debates.
Is this the same thing as what they showed on The Daily Show? Jesse Jackson said that he wanted to cut Obama’s nuts off because he was talking down to black folks. It was picked up on a hot mic by Fox News. You can watch the video via this link and see that, IMO, Rev. Jackson was not joking, esp. with that little “mmm!” and gesture after the castration threat.
I have to wonder if Jackson is going senile or something. He says this in a FOX NEWS studio? With a mic on? Bad enough, but to say it at all, when he claims he supports Obama… I don’t know about you, but I don’t joke about cutting my friend’s nuts off if my support for him is “wide, deep, and unequivocal.” A little unclear about the meaning of “unequivocal,” Rev. Jackson?
Personally, I don’t care what Jesse Jackson thinks of Barack Obama. I think it makes Jackson look like an asshole, though, and I have to wonder how closely Obama will want to work with him after this.
I think it’s a bit of an echo of Rev. Wright: hurt pride, and maybe a bit of fear, because this young fellow doesn’t genuflect before the political and cultural totems that have kept them in business for so long. Hearing about guys like Wright and Jackson make me think of some the older black antagonists in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man.
It’s the same video, but Fox claims to have edited out the N-word part.
Guys talk like that all the time with and about their friends. “I’m gonna cut his nuts off” is actually kind of mild. I don’t know what their relationship is like, but I know that a comment like that is not enough to judge it by. Guys use some very strong and hyperbolic language with each other. To me, that comment sounded like the kind of remark an older mentor would say about or to someone he was trying to advise or coach.
Would you say it while mic’ed at a Fox News studio while your buddy was running for President? Seems totally idiotic to me. Jackson should know better. I think less of him, having seen that. What is wrong with him?
I agree. I think Jesse Jackson and Julian Bond and other Black leaders from the 60’s are all kind of pissed off that Obama has basically ignored them from day one. They seem to think they should be treated as wise elders and included into Obama’s inner circle…and Jesse has shown exactly why Obama has made sure that proverbial 10 foot pole does not touch any of them.
I think Jesse Jackson has just sealed his fate as a footnote in the Civil Rights Movement and might as well open a fast food restaurant somewhere and disappear. His comments will not soon be forgotten. It is going to be hard to find even a Black church that wants to hear him speak after this dumbass debacle, let alone a wider audience. Even Jesse Jackson’s own son practically dis-owned his father after those comments.
Jackson didn’t say he wanted to cut Obama’s nuts off. He said that he expects Obama will get his nuts cut off, meaning that he’s alienating his most loyal voter base.
Having seen the video, I’d have to disagree with you on that interpretation.
All in all, it was unethical for Fox to leak the footage. I have decided I will never appear on Fox and Friends because of this. I hope you will join me in my boycott.
Far be it from me to defend Jackson, but there is a difference between using a word knowingly publicly (which this wasn’t even though it was idiotic of him not to realize that it actually was) and in private conversation. I don’t count this as hypocrisy, just stupidity.
Mosier hard to imagine how you can say that if you’ve actually seen the clip. “I wanna cut his nuts off.” … and the hand gesture at the time is priceless.
First sentence of the link in the OP.
I admit I was overly harsh in my criticism of FOX though, if I had to bet money I’d bet the transcript was accurate.
This controversy came up long ago (in primary terms) when Obama was merely one of many contenders and none of the traditional black leaders were lining up to endorse him. Why not? One commenter on Salon noted, and I think this is probably right, that Obama got where he got without owing the black political establishment anything. You can characterize it as jealousy over burgeoning irrelevance, but people like Jesse Jackson got where they are playing in a political environment based on favors and clout, and in that environment they carried on a decades-long struggle to shoulder open the doors for people like Obama. You could call that a debt Obama owes to them, but he doesn’t owe them anything in the sense of the favors that work a political machine, and he doesn’t seem interested in getting caught in that machine either.
Furthermore, distance between Obama and the traditional black leadership has improved his chances, because many voters still have bone-deep grudges against that institution from back in the 80’s for reasons they can’t remember but will swear up-and-down had nothing to do with being racists. Obama does need to cut that ballast, but Jackson et al. still have the ear and not the antipathy of black voters.
That’s most of my reaction. “An elderly black man used the word ‘niggers,’ un-disparagingly, in taliing about black people? Holy shit, get me my pitchfork, torch and my good rioting pants!”
It’s exceptionally stupid of Jackson to have said this around a live microphone, and especially one that said Fox News. I mean, holy crap- it’s hard to imagine a more textbook example of something you shouldn’t do. And it does make Jackson something of a minor hypocrite, but he’s done worse there. And if you read between the lines, it was already clear he wasn’t Obama’s biggest fan, even if he does support him. This doesn’t change that at all.
Since I think this is a non-issue that is going to get attention only as today’s excuse to rehash all the old racial issues in this election, I have a different question: Why did Fox keep this quiet? It only would have amplified the story. Were they planning to hush it up entirely? If so, why? And if not, were they planning to use it this way and drag the story out a little longer? I just don’t get it.
I think maybe they really did think it was irrelevant and really didn’t want to make things worse than necessary, but then O’Reilly had to defeat that whole intention by opening his mouth and saying, in the most disingenuous way possible, “He said even WORSE stuff but we’re not going to run it because we don’t want to hurt him.”
I think maybe Fox really was going to keep it under their hat, but O’Reilly, being the loud mouthed idiot that he is…