I’m a white, mostly liberal New Yorker.
I don’t really know much about Jesse Jackson’s history, but my understainding is that he came up within heart of the the Civil Rights struggle. He had an important role in the national political debate as the first credible Black major party Presidential candidate. The extent to which he was simply self-aggrandizing is debatable, but in his prime, there seemed to be some there there. Now he has faded into a cartoonish self-promoter without much substance, but for a time he was a true leading voice and force in Black politics.
Al Sharpton, on the other hand, I know all too much about. He first came to my attention with the Tawana Brawley mess as a “spokesman” for Ms. Brawley, wearing outlandish sweat-suits and an oversize medallion. From that point, has repeatedly appeared at virtually any event where there is a racial angle to be exploited and attached himself as a “spokesman” expressing the outrage of “the black community” whenever anyone didn’t throw him bodily off their porch. He could also reliably deliver up a couple of busloads of black protesters for enough time for the newscasts to tape them chanting on the front steps of the latest purported victimizer.
The improvement in Sharpton public persona from pure race-bating demagogue probably came in the 1992 New York Democratic Senate primaries. Running to challenge the incumbent Al D’Amato were three well-known and fairly evenly matched (white) New York politicians, state Attorney General Bob Abrams, former Congresswoman and Vice Presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro, and former Congresswoman and holder of numerous other offices Liz Holtzman. Also in the running with these heavyweights was Sharpton, who by this time had abandoned sweat suits for business suits. Unfortunately, the race became such a brutal, ugly, nasty fight between the major Democrats , that Sharpton looked reasonable and gentlemanly in contrast. A bloodied Abrams took the primary and was soundly trounced by D’Amato.
From that point, he has been treated by the media as at least a respectable voice on racial matters. He has courted this by appearing in front of any available camera and giving a quotable sound-bite. He has also repeatedly run for office despite having no possibility of winning, or even gaining credible support.
I won’t detail the several scandals he has been involved in, though his Wikipedia entry lists many of them. I find them highly troubling, particularly the Brawley mess by which he came into public view, but they aren’t really my main objection to him.
Instead, my serious problem with him is that his entire career and persona has been as a self-serving mouthpiece. Other than flapping his jaw he hasn’t done anything of substance to improve the lot of Blacks or anyone else. He hasn’t led any sustained effort to improve conditions, but rather has done little more than express outrage at the hot-button issue of the moment. Indeed, though he claims their mantle, he is an appalling caricature of the many of the accomplished civil rights leaders of the past.
