Thursday, July 10, 2008

Jesse on Barack. Was Mike Fisher Right?

Explaining his comments, Jackson said: "I was in a conversation with a fellow guest on Sunday. He asked about Barack's speeches lately at the black churches. I said he comes down as speaking down to black people." On Father's Day this year, Obama, speaking at a church in Chicago, called on black fathers to get fully engaged with their children, saying they are "missing from too many lives and too many homes."

"It was very private," Jackson said. A spokesman for the Obama campaign said that the Illinois senator accepts Jackson's apology.

Jackson's son, however, was less kind. "I'm deeply outraged and disappointed in Reverend Jackson's reckless statements," Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. said.

Denmark Vesey said ...
1) Jesse's comments were the products of, for all intents and purposes, a wiretap. They were private.

2) I submit the substance of Jesse's comments is not all that outrageous. The implied meaning of Obama's soundbites, (at a black church, on national television, where he singles out "black men" as uniquely representative of bad fathers) are a legitimate question.

3) I find the response to Jesse Jackson disproportionately vitriolic. It is becoming common to publicly scorn people who dare express an opinion not held by the majority. "The overwhelming sentiment (Distributed by the media) is that "Jesse Should Shut Up!" or "Jesse Is Jealous!"

Political discourse has been reduced to the level of reality TV show.

Barack's words were not consumed by Rashid and LeQuesha only. In fact, 80% of the people who consumed those soundbites were not black. His words were consumed by Fred and Ethel, Jorge and Marisol, Anthony Kim and Suzy Kim, Abe Gold and Sarah Firestein.

I submit these soundbites were carefully chosen words of propaganda ... designed to demonstrate support for a very dangerous and innacurate meme: BLACK MEN AINT SHIT AS FATHERS.

I'm here to say:
1) Black Men, are the greatest fathers the world has ever seen.
2) Perpetuating the myth that black men are uniquely bad fathers is part of a larger propaganda effort designed to alienate men from the family. Weakening the authority of fathers over families makes weak families. Weak families make weak people. Weak people are easily controlled.
3) Less-than-great fathers come in all colors. This morning somewhere in America a white father is sniffin' meth and having sex with his daughter.
4) The problem of Inadequate Parentage is a system wide American problem. Not a "Black Man" problem.

The "statistics" are misleading. When a For-Profit Prison System incarcerates 1,000,000 black fathers is it really any wonder Black men can't score in the Fatherhood stats? One man's "Dead Beat Dad" is another man's "Victim of Globalism".

Notice how so many black people have been duped into not only buying into the myth of the "bad black father" ... notice how energetically and self-righteously they defend it.

28 comments:

Wesley Gibson said...

Old niggas are dumb.

Anonymous said...

LMAO @ Wesley's comment!

Anonymous said...

LOL @ Wesley!

JJ is a hater. He basically just feels like him and Al shold be the only voices of the Black community. I really don't understand why some black folks have a problem with someone shining a mirror in our faces telling us to get our ish together.

This isn't some white dude telling us to do that...this is a brotha who shares our collective experience.

Anonymous said...

Jesse got caught hatin. I think he just put the last nail in he and Al's collective casket.

Plus, Barack dont care, he wasnt fuckin' with these niggas anyway. Now he'll have just cause to completely remove them from the equation. Like he intended to do anyway.

Anonymous said...

Of course "Rev" JJ was offended.

Because he fit Obama's criticism to a T!

Rev. Jesse Jackson fathered a child out of wedlock with an aide, Karin Stanford, and used money from his nonprofit Rainbow/PUSH Coalition to pay the woman $40,000 in "moving expenses,"

"Rev" JJ is not obviously going to call out this r-game behavior in the Black community, as he is guilty of it himself. In fact, very few Black men will, as most silently condone it. They know it will alienate too many Black r-gaming playas amongst their constituency.

The very few that do - Cosby, Farrakhan or Obama - either get ostracized for it or aer hypocrites (Cosby was a cheater too...).

Anonymous said...

Obama has made that speech countless times; this is just the first time the media picked it up.

Jesse Jackson is experienced enough to know that his mic may have been live. And this isn't the first anti-Obama statement he has made.

And, lastly, I don't know too many white baby daddies. We don't have time to sit around and act like absentee fatherhood in the black community isn't a castrophy. By saying "white boys are bad fathers too," you essentially do what civil rights negroes do - cast problems in terms white people. To hell with what anyone else does, we need to fix our own house.

Anonymous said...

Notice how the only time you support "handkerchief head civil rights negro" Jesse Jackson as 'facilitating political discourse' is when he agrees with you. All other times, he's out of touch and old guard.

You need to quit.

Anonymous said...

Rev. Jesse Jackson fathered a child out of wedlock with an aide, Karin Stanford, and used money from his nonprofit Rainbow/PUSH Coalition to pay the woman $40,000 in "moving expenses,"

Sure did. Moved her a few doors down from my mom in The Dons.

Anonymous said...

Well said J & rjesq.,
Lets stop acting like this situation isn't a catastrophic issue that affects us.

Who cares if it is affecting other people too? That does not make it a non-issue for us.

We don't have to go to far to prove this case. If we surveyed black folk on this board right now, if they were raised with their fathers in their lives I bet that less than half would say they were...should we test that theory out?

Anonymous said...

Well said J & rjesq.,
Lets stop acting like this situation isn't a catastrophic issue that affects us.

Who cares if it is affecting other people too? That does not make it a non-issue for us.

We don't have to go to far to prove this case. If we surveyed black folk on this board right now, if they were raised with their fathers in their lives I bet that less than half would say they were...should we test that theory out?

Anonymous said...

sorry for the double post...it seems to be doing that to me lately

Michael Fisher said...

Jesse Jr. should get his nuts cut off for disrespecting his pops.

Denmark Vesey said...

Robyn,

Aight with the "first you said ... den you said" moot court routine.

"when he agrees with you. All other times, he's out of touch and old guard." Robyn

Exactly.

When you come across someone who promotes the opinions of those who disagree with him ... drop a link.

That's how media works, young lady.

Including the media that's stuffing Jesse's Obama comments down our collective throats ... and managing the perceived reaction to Jesse.

I'd like to see you address the substance of THIS piece:

1) Are plantation Negros sniping at Jesse Jackson for addressing a legitimate issue ... at the prompting of the Plantation Media?

and

2) Black fathers are just as good as any fathers in the world. Was Barack's promotion of the bad black father meme pandering to those who wish to think of black father's as uniquely unfit?

(How was jury duty? Get picked? Interesting case?)

Wesley Gibson said...

DV,

I understand your point, especially insofar as perception dictates reality and buying into the meme that blacks are bad fathers perpetuates the same unreality that Network TV crime dramas seem to want us to believe about ourselves.

However, I stand by my earlier proposition: Old niggas are dumb. We've basically reached a paradigm shift in social and economic evolution whereby the experience of more provincial times means exactly diddly. This part of the reason McCain and those who want to vote for him are so anachronistically dangerous. The same maliase and general blindness to patently obvious modern reality that makes McCain such a relic goes about tripple for old niggas. Its not their fault, they spent their entire lives getting punked and denied their full opportunity to grow so they ended up trending toward "social gospel" and extreme risk aversion. Cool. I don't care. Even the ones that made it seem luckier than good. Fine. I don't blame them, I just never ever want to hear their myopic and unnuanced opinions. Never ever.

The differences between Obama and Cosby on black fatherhood are probably subtle to Old niggas and white people, but to everyone else it couldn't be more clear. Cosby engages in base reptilian generational warfare. Despite the fact that he made his cash being a pleasant coon, he seems to think that telling young niggas to pull their pants up and stop trying to be funny is a public service announcement. Cosby damns an entire youth culture. Obama says:

"You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Lil' Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school,"

In one sentence he acknowledges the validity of rap as an artform, endorses weezy as credible artist and then makes a statistical argument about how hard it is to be wayne.

Obama is trying to discourage kids from throwing their eggs in winner take all markets and Cosby is an ignant old nigga that needs to sit down, meanwhile somehow I never heard Rev. Jackson threaten Cos's coogi wrinkled package. Both of them niggas need a puddin pop and a seat.

Denmark Vesey said...

"And, lastly, I don't know too many white baby daddies." Big J

Umm umm um.

Amazing what they can do to the mind of a black man with just a little bit of propaganda -

Halle Barry's babies father - the male model.

Super bowl quarterback Tom Brady.

Elizabeth Hurley's babby daddy Steve Bing.

Lisa Bonder's baby daddy Steve Bing.

Larry Bird.

60% of white male Trailer Park residents.

90% of white male prison inmates.

A little bite of education is a dangerous thing.

They've got you Negros thinking an American issue is "uh Bwak ishyah!"

"Bwak menz need tah be sing-gulled out! Cuz deh espeshuhly triflin'!!"

Denmark Vesey said...

"Majority of births will soon be out of wedlock"

By Jonathan Petre,

Times

Half of all babies will be born to unmarried mothers by 2012 if present trends continue, says new research that suggests the rapid erosion of moral and religious taboos.

Moreover, fewer than half of families will consist of married couples and up to a third could be lone parents, said Dr Peter Brierley, a former Government statistician now specializing in religious trends.

Dr Brierley's projections followed the publication of official figures yesterday showing that the number of births outside marriage has almost quadrupled in recent decades.

The Office for National Statistics' Social Trends report, an annual snapshot said that the figure rose to 42.3 per cent last year.

In 1994, the figure was 32 per cent and in the early 1970s it was less than 10 per cent.

Denmark Vesey said...

soteria said.. "Lets stop acting like this situation isn't a catastrophic issue"

Sista Soteria,

Help me to better understand.

When you say "this situation" - to which situation do you refer, exactly?

Anonymous said...

Try that shit if you want to.

Occassionally, as you did today, you talk out of both sides of your mouth. And as justification, you liken yourself to the very media with which you routinely take issue.

You surprise me.

Regarding the substance of the issue, I think you give Jesse too much credit. "Cut his nuts out" is hardly the utterance of a man offering substantive commentary on the state, or perceived state of, our community.

Jealous haters sit around looking to "cut folks nuts out."

Folk desperately trying to stay relevant remark that someone should have their "nuts cut out."

If Reverend Jesse had anything trailblazing to say at that time, he would have been saying it to the show's host or to Obama, and not whispering it in his boy's ear like an ugly broad after someone like me walks in the room.

But I know, I know.

Rule of Engagement, #4.5b on DenmarkVesey.com: Never let a inconsistent statement yesterday, get in the way of a good post today.

And finally, regarding Black dead beat dads, certainly your not suggesting they do not exist. Whether the condition is present in equal proportions in all communities is, frankly, beside the point. Who gives a damn about the problems in white folks' houses if our own is ready to cave in?

Just as your heralding of lovely light-skinned chicks should not be taken as an attack on dark skinned women, the condemnation of absent Black fathers should not be taken as an affront to those Black men who are at the heads of in tact families.

What did you say before...."an appreciation of one, is not a rejection of the other."

Oh, my bad, your position on that issue may have changed since the wind is now blowing east and not west.

Anonymous said...

On another note, jury duty sucked!! Apparently, there were no trials being conducted in the entire courthouse yesterday. So all 200 people on jury duty had the pleasure of sitting amongst one another in the jury assembly room from 8am until 4pm.

Big Man said...

Robyn gets down. She is keeping track of your ass.

But, I still enjoy the site homie.

And I'm going to have to check out wesleygibson's blog if he has one.

Denmark Vesey said...

"Whether the condition is present in equal proportions in all communities is, frankly, beside the point. "

ffffffBOOOOMM!

That crashing sound is the vehicle of Robyn's argument skidding on an icy patch of short-term analysis.

All the self-righteous indignation and dramatic revelations of "contradictory" commentary in the world do not disguise ... you are missing the point.

The reason the relative wealth of black people has not improved since the Civil Rights Movement, is that the movement was the idiotic application of race solutions to class problems.

Characterizing the issue of broken families in the African-American community as "a problem of Black Men" is an arrogantly ignorant application of race to a systemic problem of class.

Read that paragraph again Robyn.

Notice the Religious Like conviction of the people who repeat the "Black Men Aint Shit" mantra.

They come off like: "How Dare You Even Question The Shitty Nature of Black Men As Fathers?!?!?"

"How Dare You Interpret This As A Systemic Problem That Affects All Men!

"Who Do You Think You Are?!"

"Come Onnnnnn Deeeee Veeeeee! You Know Niggas Aint Shiiiiiiiiitttttt!!!!!"

Obama might be a prophet. But fuck that.

Pound for pound. Toe to Toe.

Black Men Are The Greatest Fathers The World Has Ever Seen.

If Jews can criticize Obama for what he says about Israel, black Fathers can express their concerns about how black men are portrayed in the National Media - by a black Presidential candidate.

That's some backwards ass shit right there.

Anonymous said...

Whatever on those sound effects.

You aint made no startling revelation by offering that absentee fathers are concentrated among the lower class.

Nigga and?

Who didnt know that?

That doesnt change one thing I said previously.

Denmark Vesey said...

Nigga and?

and this.

Take my muhfuggin word for it.

I know shit you don't understand yet.

Fuck all this arguin'.

Michael Fisher said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Michael Fisher said...

How about a nice little lecture about how black mothers ain't shit on mother's day?

Would that be appropriate?

Wesley Gibson said...

Lmao @ Mike Fisher. But seriously, under the "truth to light" theory all this black woman pillar / pedestal holding needs to be dashed for some exposing too. Hell, somebody is on that pole...

Anonymous said...

Why did this become an argument about how Black men are being blamed exclusively for a problem? Yes there are other factors involved and I suppose by sheer population more white men could potentially be not in the picture. I don't think people who come here care about white men and their fatherhood unless they are sharing parentage with one. They still should be held accountable.

Anonymous said...

hmmm.......

sound like the hit dog's hollerin'