April 19, 2011

Rev. Jesse Jackson

Rev. Jesse Jackson

What can we say about Jesse Jackson besides everything that most major media are too faggy to say about him? We can say that his legend-building moment”€”the claim that he cradled a dying MLK in his arms”€”was refuted by Hosea Williams and Ralph David Abernathy. We can say that he told LIFE magazine in 1969 that while working as a waiter in his younger days, he achieved “€œpsychological gratification“€ for spitting in white patrons”€™ food. We can say that when he gets nailed for calling New York “€œHymietown,”€ he excuses it by saying that in “€œprivate talks we sometimes let our guard down,”€ and that when he’s caught whispering that he wants to cut off Obama’s nuts, he blames it on a “€œhot mic.”€ We can say he’s been accused of passively aiding and abetting the mass murder of blacks and the punitive amputation of little African children’s hands by being super-friendly with thug dictators in Nigeria, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and the Ivory Coast. We can say he’s been accused of shaking the money tree of huge corporate entities such as Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, Toyota, and NASCAR under threat of, oh, hell, calling them racists or something. We can say that he lives and travels in conditions that are preposterously wealthy compared to the poor and oppressed huddled shivering socialist masses that he claims to represent. We can say with assurance that when a half-dozen young black males get arrested for beating the shit out of each other or beating the shit out of a lone white male, Jesse will be there, defending their God-given right to beat the shit out of people without getting arrested for it.

No, actually, we can”€™t say any of that without being called racist, so disregard it all (even though it’s all true).

I have not heard Reverend Jackson personally make a public statement on Bennett’s allegations, but even if I were to hear it, I would have trouble understanding it, because the porpoise-faced preacher has an oddly exotic South Carolinian inflection that my ears find impossible to decipher. I think he’s a highly talented speaker”€”black males tend more toward oratory than oral sex”€”even though I can never understand a goddamned word he’s saying. Does anyone here speak Gullah?

If I may talk “€œstraight”€ with you here, I don”€™t care a white man’s whit whether the bouncy, bubbly, boisterous, and butt-grindin”€™ Mr. “€œAruba”€ Tommy Bennett’s typo-riddled and ever-so-slightly theatrical complaint is true. That isn”€™t the point. If Jesse Jackson insists on having a gay valet who blows him, rubs medicinal cream on the rash between his legs, and cleans up the wet spot after he bangs female groupies, I believe it’s his constitutional right to have one. In this economy, countless eager gay black males would probably camp out overnight waiting to submit job applications to perform such duties, and we all know how much black people hate camping.

The point is that Bennett’s allegations against Jackson mark another enjoyable instance of progressive identity victimization politics eating its own intestines. Jesse Jackson may be black, but Tommy Bennett is black and gay. Many perceive Jesse Jackson as a blood-sucking, race-baiting Dracula, yet suddenly, deep from within his own organization’s bowels, he’s given birth to a tiny gay vampire who’s turned around and is nipping at his heels. Tommy’s holding an extra card, and whether or not he actually has a winning hand or is bluffing, he seems determined to play it. At the risk of flouting all currently accepted standards of cultural taste and restraint, I feel compelled to state that this is a case of the fried chicken coming home to roost.

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