“You Can’t Vote Against Healthcare and Call Yourself a Black Man”
Geeeesum! Could Jesse Jackson be more insulting with this?
The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Wednesday night criticized Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) for voting against the Democrats’ signature healthcare bill.
“We even have blacks voting against the healthcare bill,” Jackson said at a reception Wednesday night. “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”
What Jackson apparently means is, you can’t think for yourself and call yourself a black man… because this is Rep. Davis’ statement on his vote:
I am a supporter of health care reform who believes that the House leadership’s approach is not the best we can do. Because we risk a disaster if we get this wrong, I will vote no on the House legislation and continue to root for a final bill that fixes the holes in our health care system and contains soaring costs in both the private and public sectors.
Good for Davis! Full reform would address costs and holes, not simply increase coverage and let the existing problems expand. And one doesn’t require a certain skin pigmentation to see that.
Jesse Jackson’s statement is, frankly, appalling and insulting to thinking people everywhere — or it should be. Can you imagine… say… Hillary Clinton stating that you can’t call yourself a woman and oppose abortion?
Really nasty. Why isn’t that man retired yet?
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Too bad Jackson is continuing to destroy the image of him when he did so much for our nation at Rev. King's side with this stuff.
Idiotic statement by Jesse.
But how different is this from people saying if you vote against health care you want people to die ?
You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.
…because being black is all about being on the dole? WTF?
It's actually worse. To say “if you vote against health care you want people to die” is so obviously juvenile and idiotic it sounds like something from the mouth of a 13 year old.
To say “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.” says:
1) Jesse Jackson is the keeper of the definition of “black man”
2) On at least some issues, no freedom of thought is allowed for “black men”, and specifically
3) “Black men” must be 100% behind whatever piece of legislation that the (mostly) white, (predominantly) liberal, (exclusively) Democrat coalition in Congress produces–sight unseen.
It's far more demeaning and insulting to black people than any childish accusation about wanting people to die if you are not a “healthcare reform” supporter.
Good thing a white guy didn't say it. It would have been racist . . . .
Statement from Congressman Artur Davis:
“One of the reasons that I like and admire Rev. Jesse Jackson is that 21 years ago he inspired the idea that a Black politician would not be judged simply as a Black leader. The best way to honor Rev. Jackson's legacy is to decline to engage in an argument with him that begins and ends with race.”
TM: I would agree about the 13 yr old standard except it came from a Congressman…..
Then again given the way things work these days perhaps most of them are 13 yr olds
because being black is about living on the edge…
THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION — OCTOBER 2009
Poverty 2008 – PDF
The Criminalization of a Generation and the Oppression of African-American and Latino People
The Number of Uninsured Americans Is At An All-Time High
Let's see high poverty rates, high rate of medically uninsured, high unemployment rates and high incarceration rates, and you wonder why they vote the way they do…
Considering that Democrats support the drug war that causes most of that incarceration, and they introduced the mandatory minimum for drug offenses, yes. Couple that with policies that seem designed to discourage, rather than help, people from escaping poverty and the only reason that I could see them supporting Democrats is, well, Republicans.
You wonder why they vote the way they do.
No, Don, I didn't wonder that at all. Congressman Davis plans to vote his mind on the bill. That's baffling only to people like you and Dr. Jackson, who vote based on party lines, conspiracy theories and identity politics.
Timeline: America's War on Drugs
In 1995 we had a Republican House and Senate…
I believe, and feel free to correct me if I am wrong, that between 2002 and 2006 the House, Senate and Presidency were in the hands of Republicans. During that six year period, did the Republican Party even attempt to repeal the tiniest part of the “War on Drugs”?
And those would be?
I'll need some time to find all the Democratic additions to the war on drugs. But for now I'll use your argument against itself: now that the Democrats have complete control, what are they doing against the war on drugs?
Not much, at best they are slowing it down by forgetting to enforce the laws, but then they are Democrats, and Democrats have not been known for their spine in the last few decades.
But if by some miracle, they were to acquire a spine and actively start the process of ending the “War On Drugs”, the Right would go ballistic…
In 1998, I had the opportunity to spend about 20 minutes one on one with Jesse Jackson as we waited in a back stage room to speak at the same event. As an individual, based on my brief observation, he is quite different from his public persona. He spoke in a soft voice, was a very good listener and exhibited a thoughtful intelligence. Once on stage, of course, the public persona emerged.
That he is a thoughtful and engaging man in person does not excuse his occassional outrageous public statements (though we all say dumb things once in a while), nor some of the tactics of Operation PUSH. It's just another side of the man.
And those tactics would be?
Everyone “knows” that one cannot be an “authentic” black, woman, Hispanic, etc., if one doesn't robotically vote the lib-Dem lockstep party line.
I think Rush and Jessie just need to get a talk show together and get it over with.
DQ -
My goal is not to trash Jackson or PUSH, both of whom have done a great deal of good. There a plenty of others who visit TMV who would be happy to do the trashing I'm sure. But, there is a history of questions and investigations that include:
- Jackson being fired as head of the Chicago branch of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference by Ralph Abernathy for “administrative irregularities.” This is what led to the formation of PUSH, later Rainbow/PUSH.
- accusations of corporate blackmail/extortion based the practice of demanding “donations” to PUSH as part of agreements to end boycotts or forego boycotts of certain companies,
- accusations of working with one company to damage the business of another. The most well reported of these was the Nike/Reebok situation in which no less a figure than Michael Jordan disavowed PUSH's tactics.
- ongoing lack of standard accountability in financial matters leading to multiple legal disputes and investigations.
The upside of Rainbow/PUSH includes remarkable accomplishments in African American hiring practices by American corporations, educational advances in minority communities and traditional minority colleges and universities, improvements in minority home ownership and a wide range of socially conscious programs to improve the lives of the poor.
My sources include blackpast.org, wikipedia and Time
Jackson is an incendiary a relic of a bygone era. A victim of his own success. We've turned a corner–thanks in part to his efforts–and he hasn't.
Poverty and jail time are not the wages of being black, as DQ suggested above. They're the wages of dropping out of high school and committing crimes. Claiming otherwise might have helped the black cause at one point, but today it's part of the problem.
If that is the case, why are African-Americans or anyone else dropping out of High-School?
Brings back memories
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNz5XnvZHhk
why are African-Americans or anyone else dropping out of High-School?
Presumably because they perceive the benefit not worth the cost.