# Ugly racist UL (or true story) about Jesse Jackson? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 30, 2002, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596 "2002-07-30T21:26:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/1 "2002-07-30T21:26:54Z")
Wow! The rumor that Jessie controls all internet content MUST ve true! He’s erased the OP! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 9:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/2 "2002-07-30T21:30:18Z")
Missing OP alert. In general, [Snopes](http://www.snopes2.com) is one’s best source of information concerning possible urban legends, but searching for “Jesse Jackson”, I don’t find anything that looks like a racist UL told about him. There are a few there derogatory to JJ, but in a non-race-specific way, and there’s one version of the [stranger in an elevator](http://www.snopes.com/racial/mistaken/hitfloor.htm) myth featuring him, where a character is presented as racist, but that character is mistaken. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/3 "2002-07-30T22:12:39Z")
Well, your post didn’t show up, but if you mean the story about his referring to Jews as “Heimies,” it’s true; I remember it coming up during his 1984 presidential campaign, and he admitted it and apologized (sort of). If you’re referring to the story about his spitting in the food of white people as a waiter, such stories cite the November 21, 1969 Life magazine. I don’t know where to find that, but I’ve seen relatively lengthy quotes from relatively evenhanded people. Let’s call it “iffy.” ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/4 "2002-07-30T22:41:17Z")
Yes, he really did say in the Life interview that when he was a young man working as a waiter, he used to spit in the white folks’ food. I looked it up at the library and read it, for a thread last year sometime. **BobT** says he read it, too, in that thread… …which I STILL can’t find in the Archives. I was looking for it, for [this](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119407) earlier thread, last June, and it wasn’t there. I’m beginning to think that it got lost in the December Meltdown last year. :mad: ---
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/5 "2002-07-30T23:17:51Z")
I saved it, I sensed a hamster attack…PRETEND THIS IS THE OP! Some people (usually on the right or racists) discredit Jesse Jackson by claiming he once boasted in an interview in the 1970’s that when he was young he worked as a cook, and spat in the food of white customers. Most of the alleged quotes are pretty lurid – I won’t repeat them here, but they are sickening enough to make my BS detector go off. Someone I am arguing with no uses that story essentially to discredit the entire Civil Rights movement…as if all the did was wage “spit ins”. Besides, one could come up with much more recent material to discredit Jackson. Is this nasty story just some racist imagination running wild? I am afraid if I do the internet search I’d just get 1,000 versions of that story on ‘hate sites’. I want something reliable before I say anything about that. ---
**Author:** ![Sofa\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/58956e/32.png) [@Sofa\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sofa_King)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2002, 11:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/6 "2002-07-30T23:41:37Z")
Um, when I was a cook at Hardee’s, I spit in white peoples’ food, too. I’m sorry, but in these enlightened times I just had to confess this. I wouldn’t do it today. ---
**Author:** ![stockton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@stockton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stockton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 12:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/7 "2002-07-31T00:41:51Z")
Wow. I get to refer a cite to **DDG** , instead of the other way around! Here’s the thread you mentioned: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119407](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=119407) Yup, true story. ---
**Author:** ![stockton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@stockton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stockton)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/8 "2002-07-31T00:44:35Z")
Awshit. THAT was the link **DDG** posted. I thought it was the one she referenced. I’ll crawl back into my hole now. Ooops… ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/9 "2002-07-31T00:46:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Um, when I was a cook at Hardee’s, I spit in white peoples’ food, too. It could have only _improved_ the taste of their burgers. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/10 "2002-07-31T06:54:18Z")
And if you read Life magazine for the date, Jackson’s comments would still be in print too! ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/11 "2002-07-31T17:07:20Z")
Didn’t they also identify Jackson as a Black Panther-which he was not? (Nor is he). ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/50afbb/32.png) [@Duck\_Duck\_Goose](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Duck_Goose)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2002, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ugly-racist-ul-or-true-story-about-jesse-jackson/121596/12 "2002-07-31T21:51:18Z")
Okay, one more time, for posterity and the Fight Against Ignorance…(I was at the library anyway). I located and xeroxed off the relevant part of the Life article, and here it is. It’s titled “Black Hope, White Hope”, by John Perkannen. He is taking notes while Jesse speaks to the audience of 4,000 who are present for the weekly broadcast of Operation Breadbasket. There’s a gospel band, a choir, and then Jesse gives an opening prayer. > [@](#): > > Then he preaches–often on the economic disparity between rich and poor and what may be required to end it… > > Jesse talks about himself at these meetings. Once he told of his days as a waiter at the Jack Tar Hotel in his home town of Greenville, S.C. Just before leaving the kitchen he would spit into the food of white patrons he hated and then smilingly serve it to them. He did this, he said, “because it gave me psychological gratification.” It was something everybody in the audience understood. So he did say it. And somehow I don’t feel like going back to look to see whether he was also referred to as a “Black Panther”. Maybe some other time…