Dwight Lewis, a columnist for the Tennessean, interviews Jesse Jackson in
the
wake of Barack Obama's strong Super Tuesday showing:
Jackson carried Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana,
Michigan and Virginia when he sought the Democratic
presidential primary [sic] in 1988 but here was Barack
Obama, a black man, making new gains across the nation
among voters.
"It's been 40 years since the assassination of Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr., and 43 years since Selma,'' Jackson told
me over the telephone Wednesday. "America is maturing and
being redefined, and redefining itself in front of our eyes.
"I think Dr. King, C. Eric Lincoln (a late scholar and
writer) and (James) Cheney, (Andrew) Goodman and (Michael)
Schwerner (civil rights workers murdered during Mississippi's
Freedom Summer of 1964) would all be pleased that white
America is maturing. Blacks and whites have been playing
together in athletics, entertainment, in the military and
now as political leaders.
"Look at the Super Bowl last Sunday, New England vs. the
Giants. They were able to transcend race because the playing
field was even. The rules were public and the goals were
clear, and there was inherent justice in the competition.''
There is something delightfully quaint about Jackson marveling over blacks
and
whites playing on the same teams in the Super Bowl. True, the National
Football League has a history of racism, but it was overcome decades ago.
In
1988, the same year Jackson ran for president, a black quarterback led the
Wa****ngton Redskins to victory in the Super Bowl.
Jackson actually has a good insight at the end of that
quoted passage: "The rules were public and the goals were
clear, and there was inherent justice in the competition.
"Surely one of the reasons s****ts are generally free of racial
tension is that they are something close to a pure meritocracy.
Players are judged on the basis of what they actually contribute
to a team, and the final score serves as an unambiguous
bottom line.
Contrast this with, say, university admissions, in which the scales are
tipped
in favor of certain ethnic groups, based on rules that are shrouded in
secrecy. If we want society to be more like the NFL, shouldn't we be doing
away with rules that enforce distinctions based on race?
What about Jackson's remark that "white America is maturing"? We suppose
there
is an element of truth to it, if only because the passage of a generation
means that young and middle-aged people today have no memory of
old-fa****oned
segregation and thus are able to see the world in a way closer to the
colorblind ideal.
But to say white people have "matured" because they are willing to vote
for a
black candidate now but were not in 1988 rather misses the point. Barack
Obama
is a very different candidate from Jesse Jackson, who ran on a platform of
racial resentment. One could just as well say that black voters have
"matured"
over the past 20 years because they have ****fted from Jackson to
Obama--or,
even more tellingly, because few sup****ted Al Sharpton four years ago.
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