UPDATED: Since I was accused of "justifying" Jackson's comments in the thread, I'll make my point explicitly: I am "choosing" to remember an aspect of one person's mixed legacy that I happen to find inspiring.
There has been an inordinate amount of cluck-clucking in the MSM during the past week in an attempt to caricature Jesse Jackson.
Although I have often disagreed with and been critical of Jesse Jackson, both politically and in the manner he has sometimes conducted himself, I certainly never bought into the ridiculous Republican Party stereotype of Jesse Jackson as a "race-hustling poverty pimp".
However, as the Jackson-bashing continues I think it's important to remember other aspects of who Jackson is and the issues and causes that he has repeatedly championed throughout his career.
We're two days shy of the twentieth anniversery of the speech that Jesse Jackson gave at the Democratic National Convention in 1988. The speech can be found at American Rhetoric, which is a fantastic site that I highly reccomend.
I'm excerpting parts of the speech, although I would strongly encourage everyone to give it a listen as well.
Common ground.
Easier said than done. Where do you find common ground? At the point of challenge. This campaign has shown that politics need not be marketed by politicians, packaged by pollsters and pundits. Politics can be a moral arena where people come together to find common ground.
We find common ground at the plant gate that closes on workers without notice. We find common ground at the farm auction, where a good farmer loses his or her land to bad loans or diminishing markets. Common ground at the school yard where teachers cannot get adequate pay, and students cannot get a scholarship, and can't make a loan. Common ground at the hospital admitting room, where somebody tonight is dying because they cannot afford to go upstairs to a bed that's empty waiting for someone with insurance to get sick. We are a better nation than that. We must do better.
I think it's self-evident that those causes championed by Jesse Jackson in Atlanta twenty years ago have only grown more dire. Substitute "home-owner" for "good farmer" and the speech could be given today and carry just as much weight.
We stand at the end of a long dark night of reaction. We stand tonight united in the commitment to a new direction. For almost eight years we've been led by those who view social good coming from private interest, who view public life as a means to increase private wealth. They have been prepared to sacrifice the common good of the many to satisfy the private interests and the wealth of a few.
We believe in a government that's a tool of our democracy in service to the public, not an instrument of the aristocracy in search of private wealth. We believe in government with the consent of the governed, "of, for and by the people." We must now emerge into a new day with a new direction.
I have nothing to add to that sentiment.
Reagan gave the rich and the powerful a multibillion-dollar party. Now the party is over. He expects the people to pay for the damage. I take this principal position, convention, let us not raise taxes on the poor and the middle-class, but those who had the party, the rich and the powerful, must pay for the party.
I just want to take common sense to high places. We're spending one hundred and fifty billion dollars a year defending Europe and Japan 43 years after the war is over. We have more troops in Europe tonight than we had seven years ago. Yet the threat of war is ever more remote.
Germany and Japan are now creditor nations; that means they've got a surplus. We are a debtor nation -- means we are in debt. Let them share more of the burden of their own defense. Use some of that money to build decent housing. Use some of that money to educate our children. Use some of that money for long-term health care. Use some of that money to wipe out these slums and put America back to work!
I just want to take common sense to high places. If we can bail out Europe and Japan; if we can bail out Continental Bank and Chrysler -- and Mr. Iacocca, make [sic] 8,000 dollars an hour -- we can bail out the family farmer.
Again, substitute "Bear Stearns," "Freddie Mac," "Fannie Mae" & homeowners for "Continental Bank," "Chrysler" & the family farmer & it seems fairly obvious that this portion of the speech could be given just as easily now.
Once again we're coming off an eight-year spending frenzy in which the president has been making commitments and spending money like a drunk sailor without once ever asking for any sacrifice from the American people in return.
And the Republicans are supposed to be the party of self-reliance and personal responsibility?
Most poor people are not lazy. They are not black. They are not brown. They are mostly White and female and young. But whether White, Black or Brown, a hungry baby's belly turned inside out is the same color -- color it pain; color it hurt; color it agony.
Most poor people are not on welfare. Some of them are illiterate and can't read the want-ad sections. And when they can, they can't find a job that matches the address. They work hard everyday.
I know. I live amongst them. I'm one of them. I know they work. I'm a witness. They catch the early bus. They work every day.
They raise other people's children. They work everyday.
They clean the streets. They work everyday. They drive dangerous cabs. They work everyday. They change the beds you slept in in these hotels last night and can't get a union contract. They work everyday.
No, no, they are not lazy! Someone must defend them because it's right, and they cannot speak for themselves. They work in hospitals. I know they do. They wipe the bodies of those who are sick with fever and pain. They empty their bedpans. They clean out their commodes. No job is beneath them, and yet when they get sick they cannot lie in the bed they made up every day. America, that is not right. We are a better Nation than that. We are a better Nation than that.
Some people call that warmed-over liberalism. I call fighting for the most vulnerable of those among us. And the Democratic Party could use a little of this kind of fighting spirit.
The following is the type of "fight" that I'm looking for in my Democratic Party:
Don't surrender, my friends. Those who have AIDS tonight, you deserve our compassion. Even with AIDS you must not surrender.
In your wheelchairs. I see you sitting here tonight in those wheelchairs. I've stayed with you. I've reached out to you across our Nation. And don't you give up. I know it's tough sometimes. People look down on you. It took you a little more effort to get here tonight. And no one should look down on you, but sometimes mean people do. The only justification we have for looking down on someone is that we're going to stop and pick them up.
But even in your wheelchairs, don't you give up. We cannot forget 50 years ago when our backs were against the wall, Roosevelt was in a wheelchair. I would rather have Roosevelt in a wheelchair than Reagan and Bush on a horse. Don't surrender and don't give up!
Anyone out there remember when we thought of ourselves as a "compassionate" nation. Once upon a time, we were supposed to be getting a "compassionate conservative".
The last little snippet is my favorite. Call me maudlin, but I love a good up-from-your-bootstraps inspirational story. The kind of story that balances the need for personal responsibility with the need for occasional assistance.
And this is the Jesse Jackson that I hope everyone considers when listening to shallow MSM criticism over his hot-mic kerfuffle. And this is the Jesse Jackson that I wish to offer my profound thanks for leaving such a rich historical legacy:
Why I cannot challenge you this way? "Jesse Jackson, you don't understand my situation. You be on television. You don't understand. I see you with the big people. You don't understand my situation."
I understand. You see me on TV, but you don't know the me that makes me, me. They wonder, "Why does Jesse run?" because they see me running for the White House. They don't see the house I'm running from.
I have a story. I wasn't always on television. Writers were not always outside my door. When I was born late one afternoon, October 8th, in Greenville, South Carolina, no writers asked my mother her name. Nobody chose to write down our address. My mama was not supposed to make it, and I was not supposed to make it. You see, I was born of a teen-age mother, who was born of a teen-age mother.
I understand. I know abandonment, and people being mean to you, and saying you're nothing and nobody and can never be anything.
I understand. Jesse Jackson is my third name. I'm adopted. When I had no name, my grandmother gave me her name. My name was Jesse Burns 'til I was 12. So I wouldn't have a blank space, she gave me a name to hold me over. I understand when nobody knows your name. I understand when you have no name.
I understand. I wasn't born in the hospital. Mama didn't have insurance. I was born in the bed at [the] house. I really do understand. Born in a three-room house, bathroom in the backyard, slop jar by the bed, no hot and cold running water. I understand. Wallpaper used for decoration? No. For a windbreaker. I understand. I'm a working person's person. That's why I understand you whether you're Black or White. I understand work. I was not born with a silver spoon in my mouth. I had a shovel programmed for my hand.
My mother, a working woman. So many of the days she went to work early, with runs in her stockings. She knew better, but she wore runs in her stockings so that my brother and I could have matching socks and not be laughed at at school. I understand.
At 3 o'clock on Thanksgiving Day, we couldn't eat turkey because momma was preparing somebody else's turkey at 3 o'clock. We had to play football to entertain ourselves. And then around 6 o'clock she would get off the Alta Vista bus and we would bring up the leftovers and eat our turkey -- leftovers, the carcass, the cranberries -- around 8 o'clock at night. I really do understand.
Every one of these funny labels they put on you, those of you who are watching this broadcast tonight in the projects, on the corners, I understand. Call you outcast, low down, you can't make it, you're nothing, you're from nobody, subclass, underclass; when you see Jesse Jackson, when my name goes in nomination, your name goes in nomination.
I was born in the slum, but the slum was not born in me. And it wasn't born in you, and you can make it.
Wherever you are tonight, you can make it. Hold your head high; stick your chest out. You can make it. It gets dark sometimes, but the morning comes. Don't you surrender!
Suffering breeds character, character breeds faith. In the end faith will not disappoint.
You must not surrender! You may or may not get there but just know that you're qualified! And you hold on, and hold out! We must never surrender!! America will get better and better.
Keep hope alive. Keep hope alive! Keep hope alive! On tomorrow night and beyond, keep hope alive!
VOTE. VOLUNTEER. DONATE.