Explain the vitriol directed towards Jesse Jackson, please

Great Debates
81

Cite please. I can’t help getting the feeling that there is some criminal behaviour or at the least tortious behaviour that you are asserting here against the good reverend, but I am aware of no such lawsuit against him and nor am I aware of any criminal charges being filed in this context.

I remember someone defending a cite i provided once that implied that what i asserted to be true was in fact true, but of course you quite rightfully pointed out that implications that a situation exists are not proof, so please provide a cite that proves your assertions as to the “shaking down” of a Chicago corporation.

82

I have a big problem with the man’s basic hypocrisy-he (Jackson) rails about the alcoholic beverage industry 9and its bad effects upon the black community). At the same time, his sone is the prime distributor for Anheiser-Busch (beer, malt liquor) in St. Louis.

83

See my wiki link in post #60. Scroll down to the “Controversies”/“Budweiser Boycott” section.

Note both the St. Louis American and the Chicago Sun-Times made the allegations, which are somewhat more reputable sources than your average conspiracy theorists.

(I think suing the Reverend would take some serious nads, and serious cash…)

84

There was a reason that I joined the two phrases about “shaking down” and “demanding responsibility,” placing both in ironic quotation marks. Dr. Jackson has used threats of boycotts, threats of legal action, and tons of publicity to “encourage” note use, again, of ironic quotes various corporations to make changes to their business practices. Those actions have been viewed in different ways by different observers and I was noting that difference of viewpoint in my remarks.

For examples, you may look at the threatened Annheuser-Busch boycott mentioned on the first page of this thread. You can also review the varying perspectives different people hold regarding the Economic Covenants that are a hallmark of Rainbow Coalition-PUSH activities. (Early Covenants were established with Coca-Cola, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Burger King. Others have followed.) RPC’s Wall Street Project has received similar mixed views.
(I do note that many of the companies involved are actually outside Chciagoland, although, since the news reports are generally focused on RPC, the casual observer (and memories of ancient Mike Royko columns) tended to skew my impression of their focus.)

85

My problem is neither have evolved much. I understand an angry young man seeing events at a personal and racial level. But, M.L. King and Malcolm x were discovering they had much in common with the poor of all races. I have not seen enough of that from those two.True power will come when you gather as many people with common interests as possible, Delinating between black and white is conterproductive.

86

I would question how many “followers” either of them has. Shartpton really has no organization or followership behind him, other than the small groups he can assemble for the television cameras to chant “no justice, no peace” as necessary. Yes, he sometimes taps into (or more likely jumps in front of) an issue of genuine public concern which rallies people, but those people are there because of the issue, not his leadership.

I don’t know about Jackson’s organization as much, but my impression that it is similar at this time.

87

Actually I quite agree with your opinions regarding rev. jackson and I would have no trouble myself finding concurring opinios but i don’t understand the use of quotation marks to make a libelous statement ironic. Either he was shaking them down or he wasn’t, which is it? If he was, please provide a cite. If he wasn’t what in the world do you mean? It sounds like you mean that his son got a dealership as a result of Jessse’s threatened boycott. Is this what you mean? If it is, please provide a cite.

88

I am having trouble seeing the confusion.

One standard use for using ironic quotation marks is to indicate that the thing identified within them represents an opinion held by some people that is not necessarily shared by the author. Whether Rev. Jackson was calling on Annheuser-Busch to demand responsibility of that corporation or whether Rev. Jackson was calling on Annheuser-Busch to shake them down is a matter of perspective with different people holding those differing views of exactly the same action. The quotation marks simply set off those two views as opinions without indicating that either opinion was the true one or that I held either of them. (And the same observation would be true of Coca Cola, KFC, or any of dozens of other corporations approached by Jackson or RCP.)

(Your concern regarding the libelous nature of my remarks is touching, but I’m pretty sure that even if I were to actually accuse him of extortion in this medium, he would not have much of a case to successfully bring suit. It would be pretty difficult to establish that a single comment in an electronic conversation among fewer than 2,500 persons rose to the level of actually inflicting harm on him, particularly when the statement was a description of things said much more publicly in much “harder” venues:
SHAKEDOWN: Exposing The Real Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson’s Latest Shakedown
Dean’s World: Shakedown Jesse Gets Dissed
Letter Reveals Jesse Jackson’s ‘Shakedown’ Bid of GE, Critic Says
Jesse Jackson’s Latest Shakedown Targets BP, Group Says

Given that I gave equal weight to the alternative position that he was simply demanding responsibility of various corporations, I’m pretty sure I will be able to wait for his successful suits against all the preceding authors and publications before I have to worry about hiring a lawyer.)

89

here is my problem with your comment: the term “shaking down”
what does it mean? now if you go to all of these cites you mentioned you will find that two of them are written by the same author, whose background i have neither the time nor the interest to check, but he has written a book called as you know “Shakedown…” Another cite is a letter in a blog and another is a cite by an organization whose primary mission stems from its belief that the mainstream media has a distinctly liberal bias. They all use the term shakedown to describe situations where jackson asks for money or assistance in helping disadvantaged blacks to improve their participation in the mainstream economy. However my understanding of shakedown involves a “quid pro quo” and maybe that is not the universal understanding. In all of the mentioned articles there is the implication and insinuation that Jackson is doing something illegal, but there is no explanation of just what crime is being committed. they say things like “that is nothing more than extortion” and yet there is no complainant.
jackson appears in every case to be directing his efforts toward the betterment of blacks in america, more participation in business deals, greater hiring efforts etc. etc. In doing so he sometimes directs large corporations or companies to contact specific firms for information or assistance if they are unable to accomplish the desired goals on their own. at no time does he say the members of my organization are the only ones who are able to meet the goals set by our organization. he does not say use my investment bank or i will boycott. he says “i note that you have this big deal going on and there is no participation by black people, could you remedy this? i have people who can help if you don’t have any of your own people.”

The whole point is, jackson is providing entree into the coprorate world for the disadvantaged and unconnected but nevertheless competent minority businesses by introducing them to large corporations that have insufficient minority contact and contracts.

This is not a shakedown in my mind. It is a legitimate effort by a concerned black citizen to help the black economy. Now if you can show that the money donated to his various causes are sufficient to satisfy him, and that no actual hiring or interaction with minorities takes place and that the money benefits jackson personally and that actual economic harm to these giant corporations is the threat used to extort the money i will concede the use of the term shakedown is appropriate.

I never implied that jackson would waste his time suing you, only that the remark was libelous unless it can be proven. As far as you not indicating that you held one belief or another, the fact that you used his “shakedowns” in combination with his advive to young people regarding personal responsibility in order to explain your dislike of the man makes it quite clear that you believe such “shakedowns” occurred.

So maybe the problem is that a “shakedown” is not a shakedown, but it is a little difficult to determine from the post when the quotation marks are “ironic” and not simply an unattributed quote.

So again I would ask you to clarify your post. Is he simply doing something which has all the earmarks of being unethical or is he actually breaking a law, or do you just not know despite all of the various opinions being offered?

90

monstro is laying it down. Right on, sis.

Firstly, Jackson and Sharpton are media-appointed “black leaders” as much as they are self-appointed. When a racially-charged incident takes place, the first question the pundits ask is “What do Jesse and Al have to say about this?” They wouldn’t get the attention if the media outlets didn’t give it to them. Yes, the men may be media whores, but a whore is not a whore without a john. Yet, the media never gets criticized for what it does in all of this.

People seem to understand that it takes two to tango when Paris Hilton is the fame whore being discussed. Not so much when its JJ and AS.

Secondly, monstro is right on point when she says that even if Jackson and Sharpton had spotless records and impeccable integrity, they’d still be villified. It never fails to amuse me when I see MLK and even Malcom X (!!!) lauded and put on pedastals, but then see Jackson and Sharpton attacked as race-baiters and racists. In all likelihood, if MLK and Malcolm were still around they’d be getting the same exact treatment as JJ and AS, and maybe even worse. They were all “race-baiters”, they all were “divisive”, they were all “media whores”, and they were all “racists” (blue-eyed devils, anyone?). They all have been hated in their time, for the same daggone reasons. The fact that all four of these men were contemporaries of each other–were witnesses and victims of the same oppressive forces–is something that needs to be remembered. It’s not like JJ and AS are interlopers trying to ride on the coat tails of slain leaders from the past. They’ve been part of the struggle for a long time, standing at least somewhat shoulder to shoulder with the folks we treat as legends today.

Thirdly, and this is related to the second point, when blacks talk about racism they will always be attacked, belittled, or laughed at. Unfortunately, this treatment has been par the course since the beginning of time. Need a good recent example? David Chappelle. In this thread about Chappelle’s quitting, note the knee-jerk reactions to Chappelle’s explanation for leaving. In the article under discussion he didn’t even complain about racism, and yet it was alarming how quickly people slam him for saying that part of his dissatisfaction came from being a racial outsider. Suddenly, because he had the audacity to be unhappy as a black man in a predominantly white environment doing racial comedy that could easily be taken the wrong way, he was labled a jackass, a whiny victim, a racist, an anti-Semite, and insane. So the fact the same kind of blind, reactionary vitriol is heaped a-plenty on JJ and AS is of zero surprise to me.

That said, JJ and AS have enough flaws and obnoxious qualities that I don’t consider them my own personal heroes. But I do have a lot of respect for AS because he used his balls, brains, and charisma rather productivity in the last presidential campaign, and I hope to hear more from him in the next couple of years. I don’t pay much attention to Jesse, because he doesn’t strike me as being all that relevant. Which makes me think the scorn he receives is way out of step with anything that he is actually doing.

91

I’d just like to say I get (or at least got) this exact same reaciton in myself toward Jackson. Sharpton is a hair more greasy to me.

lately, I don’t dislike either one, however, as they seem to have mellowed as they aged.

92

Well, if it’s necessary to have a spokesman, I’m going to nominate Hippy :slight_smile: .

I agree with **Askia ** about Jackson, for the most part. Monstro makes a great point that it would be hard for *anyone * to take on certain causes without anyone whining or complaining about it though.

93

So what?

My initial post was sufficiently clear before you decided to take umbrage by deliberately misunderstandiong it.

Jackson has spent 30+ years going to various corporations in the U.S. and explaining how he would like them to change their behavior. This has been described, by other people as, alternatively, “shaking them down” or “demanding that they behave responsibly.” Rather than take sides on that issue, since my point was to contrast his well-known corporate interactions–regardless how they are described–with his less well-known activity within the black community, particularly among the youth, I referred to his corporate activities in passing using both contrasting opinions of the same action. I did this specifically so that I would not have posters challenging me that what he “really” did was the phrase I chose to not use. (Lot of good that attempt did me.)

I will type the following slowly:
Jackson has an ongoing interaction with corporations in the U.S.
Some people characterize those actions as demanding responsibility.
Some people characterize those actions as extortion.
My point was that he also engaged in activity (generally ignored by his detractors) to encourage or demand that black youth take responsibility for their own actions, educations, employment, etc.
I mentioned the corporate actions only to acknowledge that nearly everyone recognizes his participation.
I then made my explicit point that he was active in promoting responsibility within the black community because there are people (including posters in previous discussions) who have denied that.
I used both decriptions of his corporate interactions so that no one reading with comprehension would think I was favoring one description over the other and hijack the thread with claims that he was “really” doing something else.

94

And if one of them showed up at an event and began pontificating to a single reporter with a notepad while the cameras rolled on some other aspect of the event, there would be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth that the media was deliberately shutting out their participation.

The “media” did not run over to Jackson with microphones when the seven kids in Decatur got expelled. It was a local story with no legs until Jackson rushed out to Decatur to make the specious claim that the kids were being given draconian punishments for some mere horseplay.

The “media” did not run over to Sharpton to ask if he would go hang out around Brawley’s house and the courtthouse making unsupportable (and, eventually, false), claims about the indivcidual police and attorneys attempting to investigate Brawley’s lies.

Does the media participate, to an extent? Sure.
Would the media get excoriated for refusing to cater to their need to be in the spotlight? I suspect so.

95

If Jackson just organized protests against corporations to hire black firms in general, I would agree that it’s not ‘shaking down’. But two things make what Jackson does different: first, he presents lists of companies to corporations, and the charge is that to get on that list you have to give serious donations to Jackson’s various charities. That’s part of the ‘shakedown’. The second is that he has been accused of backing off on corporations at the expense of his clients if the corporation shows its ‘good faith’ by donating to one of Jackson’s charities.

96

I think people underestimate the role the media plays in keeping JJ and AS in the spotlight.

Are they famewhores? Yes. But if the media didn’t automatically go running over to them every time something of moderate newsworthiness happened, then their recognizability wouldn’t be maintained to the extent that it has. No one would come to their press conferences, and their quotes wouldn’t be immortalized in google, if the media wasn’t inordinately attracted to them. Consider it a viscious cycle.

What would happen if the media stopped overexposing these two? Sure there’d be complaints, but they’d largely be coming from them, since their job is to complain about things. Big friggin’ deal.

97

Two words: Tawana Brawley. Sharpton is, for the most part, an ass.

Jesse, I believe, means well, and would probably do a lot better if he weren’t such a publicity whore. But I think he’s a pretty good guy, just that he needs to chill, and stop hogging the spotlight so much. And yeah, he’s rather selfish. But I don’t loathe him like I do Sharpton, who tends to piss me off.
-White, leftist.

98

[QUOTE=tomndebb]
What is intersting to me, regarding Jackson, is that he spent a substantial portion of the 1970s and early 1980s preaching respnsibility to the black community of Chicago. While he was “shaking down” or “demanding responsibility” of corporations in Chicago, in the Loop and the suburbs, he was also going back into the projects and other neighborhoods and delivering a message very similar to the one that Bill Cosby has been delivering.

Mea culpa. I should have read your mind. You say that he was either “shaking down” or “demanding responsibility” but you don’t say that you are using terminology that is applied to the same activity by different groups. It reads to me as if you are describing two different activities. I now see what you meant from your subsequent posts.

99

Actually, the four men you mention were not all contemporaries. MLK Jr. (1929-1968) and Malcolm X (1925-1965) were contemporaries. Jackson (b. 1941) is a bit younger than those two, but certainly went through the heart of the Civil Rights movement.

Sharpton, on the other hand, is significantly younger. He was born in 1954, the year of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, and was barely a teenager when MLK was shot. He only came into prominence at all in connection with the 1987 Tawana Brawley case.

Although it might not be true about Jackson, I feel there is no question that Sharpton is an “interloper trying to ride on the coat tails of slain leaders from the past.”

100

I, for one, can not.

In turn, can you give an example of a well-known contemporary black person who has played down contemporary racism and has instead emphasized a message of personal responsibility and opportunity who has not been wildly vilified and dismissed as an Uncle Tom sellout?