Posted by
Patrick Henry on Friday, November 27, 2009 10:22:45 AM
Jesse Jackson recently commented that "you can't call yourself a black man if you don't vote for the
healthcare bill" now pending before congress. This below-the-belt comment was clearly aimed at Arthur
Davis (D-AL) who broke with many of his Democratic colleagues and voted against the House version of
the bill that passed by a razor thin 220-215 vote. While namecalling and race baiting are nothing new for
the irreverent Jackson, there is more to this particular smear than meets the eye.
For decades black American leaders have operated from a "you owe us" mentality, holding out hope
that they could extort monetary reparations from modern day white Americans for the travesty of pre-
civil war slavery and years of racial discrimination. They have supported every welfare and entitlement
giveaway and become willing dupes of liberal Democrats who lavishly dole out such favors only to take
them back through exhorbitant taxation. They have made common cause with groups like the now infamous
ACORN in trying to blackmail and extort businesses, banks and mortgage lenders to extend to African
Americans terms, conditions and favors not available on the same basis to whites. They have continued
to champion affirmative action, with its insidious hrring and school admissions quotas that deprive the
most qualified in favor of racial minorities. Their pandering has become so embarrassing that other blacks
like Bill Cosby, Alan Keys and yes, even Barack Obama, have said it's time for blacks to assume the
burden of responsibility for their own lives.
Jackson's enthusiastic support for Obamacare is hardly surprising, for it is the most grandiose entitlement
program ever proposed. It will provide subsidies for the poor, whom Jackson assumes to be predominanatly
black, so that they can "afford" health insurance. If it's free, and Jackson thinks it will benefit blacks above
other ethnic groups, then he's all for it. The thought that well-to-do whites (and eventually middle class
whites AND blacks) will foot the bill for this boondoggle makes it seem even sweeter to Jackson, who was
hawking wealth redistribution when Obama was a coke-snorting collegian.
Now, in order to attain this giveaway-of-all-giveaways, he has chosen to challenge the blackness and the
manhood of a man (Davis) who had the guts to buck his party and actually vote his conscience based on
what he thought was best for the constituency he serves. While this cowardly attack ranks well up on the
how-low-can-you-go meter. it is also more a commentary on the manhood, AND the blackness of Jesse
"Race Card" Jackson, than on Davis.
American blacks stand today on the verge of a new frontier in which, by their own strength of character,
ingenuity and sweat equity they are forging themselves into a force majeure in the American economy as
entrepreneurs and businessmen/women in nearly every venue of commerce. In so doing they have availed
themselves of the same kinds of resources available to all Americans. Certainly, they have gotten some extra
help along the way, but they didn't blackmail or extort anyone to get it. They are claiming the equality of
opportunity and expression that is theirs under the constitution, and they are shaping their own destinies. To
these progressive African Americans the Jesse Jacksons and Maxine Waters are increasingly dinosaurs of
a bygone era. Jackson, though crass, is not as stupid as he looks, and he despareately wants (1) to be needed,
and (2) to sustain the "you owe us" giveaway-sucking mentality that would make the people he wants to
represent slaves all over again.
If there's a fake black man out there it's certainly not Arthur Davis. But more and more the shoe fits Jesse
jackson. Dependency, victimization and self-pity are the arch enemy of black Americans. But they are the
fuel that drives Jesse Jackson's engine. Now that engine is running on empty, and he's resorting to desperate
measures like the attack on Arthur Davis to jump start his has been hegemony. It won't work.
But what kind of a man makes his capital out of dependency, victimization and self-pity? What kind of
leader can only grab headlines by playing the race card? What kind of man champions reliance by a whole
racial group upon entitlements from an increasingly bankrupt government instead of applauding and lifting
up the accomplishments of those who have chosen a different path and taken their destiny in their own hands?
When you look it that way, it would be fair to say that it's Jesse Jackson who "isn't muvh of a black man." In
fact, it's not much of a stretch to argue that Jesse Jackson's not much of a man at all.