Jesse and Barack

Jesse Jackson's recent comments about Barack Obama made me re-read one of my posts from a while ago. Here is a video showing Jesse's comments and some commentary by Juan Williams and some other guy.


Here is a comment from Juan Williams:

This is all about Jesse Jackson wanting Barack Obama to fit into his old time mold of what a black leader is....

No doubt. The nice thing about this conflict is that it helps to bring these issues out into the open. Note that one of the more interesting comments Jackson made was after his comment about Obama "talking down to black people." Jackson said:

I want to cut his nuts out.

OK. So this is a much more base comment. Now to act like a former Psychology major: Does Jackson want to emasculate Obama because he sees Obama's success as indicating his own impotence? These comments whispered when he thought the microphones were off tell us quite a bit about Jackson just as Obama's reaction tells us quite a bit about him. In a speech to the NAACP, Obama shows no signs of backing down:

Now, I know there are some who are saying I've been too tough talking about responsibility. NAACP, I'm here to report I'm not going to stop talking about it.

Fun stuff. Going into my opinions about Obama's discussion is for another post (and yes, when I talk about that, I will refer to Bill Cosby as well), but for now, my point is that I think the dynamic of old guard versus ascending power is interesting.