What the hell is "acting white" supposed to mean? What stereotypical white behavior is the founder of the so-called Rainbow Coalition referring to so dismissively? And if a white power-broker accused a white candidate of "acting like he's black," wouldn't Jesse Jackson (and his buddy Al Sharpton) be in the front row of the lynch mob calling for his disembowelment?
I'm so confused.
The double standard on racism is weighing us down. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a day when his children would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, yet his most intimate followers -- including Jesse Jackson -- seem more obsessed with the color of a man's skin than the content of his character. If Jesse Jackson (and many, many other black leaders) cannot live up to King's standard, can they truly expect other races to do it?
I won't waste any more of your bandwidth. I blogged more fully about this at Under the News
Obama has had this problem with the Black leadership for awhile. He's black in the sense that his father was African, but he's not a product of African-American culture and history. That's also why many whites feel more comfortable about him than they do about other natonal black figures.
Posted at 2007-09-20 09:57:19 [PermaLink]