Jarrett-Carter.com

You have to respect the contributions of folks like Jesse Jackson and Cornel West. They paved the way, set the tone, and any other term you can come up with to say “they did it first.”

But doing it first usually doesn’t translate to doing it best, and that’s the situation we currently have with these trailblazers questioning the incoming leadership of Barack Obama.

Just a few days ago, Jesse Jackson cautioned a church congregation in Baltimore about symbolism and substance, recognizing Obama’s victory as a momentous moment, but not a moment to overshadow the long trail ahead.

This morning, Dr. Cornel West was a guest on Democracy Now!, criticizing Obama’s cabinet appointments and names that are being raised as potential appointees. Dr. West went so far as to liken himself a modern Frederick Douglas that will put pressure on the modern day Abraham Lincoln.

Frederick Douglas? Really?

There’s no secret about how much this means to folks, but the Golden Days crew is going to have to fall back a little. Everyone can acknowledge and understand that an Obama presidency is not going to be the people’s revolution. The promise of such a movement got him elected, but the bottom line is that broke families and greedy corporations don’t exactly translate into grassroots heaven.

And while a bottom-up movement is the so-called back bone of American history, now is not the time for such hopeful ambitions. Maybe in eight, but certainly not four years. What needs to happen now is jobs, housing and international diplomacy.

Of course it would be nice if corporations and government suddenly got the notion to stop screwing people over, but that’s been the common practice for too many years. You can’t expect a boon of middle class prosperity when the middle class has been expertly complacent for the last eight years under a system designed for the ultra-rich.

And if we’re lucky, the country will be open to an inclusive discussion about moral responsibility, legal equity, and educational value.

Barack Obama was packaged and sold as the answer to all of our problems. For black folks, he was and is the face of cultural ascension. That advertising will only be as faulty as we make it, because if we remain stagnant in communities and believing the hype delivered by Dr. West and Rev. Jackson, the ideal of self-improvement that Obama expertly rode into the White House will be lost in a four-year hail storm of scrutiny.

It’s a classic case of Old School vs. New School, with the new face of African-American leadership staring down upon the shoulders of those who lifted him up. Both sides have something to offer for the good of the country and the people, but one side has more to lose than the other. Old school has been criticized and ostracized for the better part of 40 years. 2008 and beyond will be their golden years for sticking it to the man, cooling their march-burned heels, and publicly lamenting how generations lost the hope.

Unfortunately, the New School has to shoulder their expectations, along with managing the delicate hopes of a country just getting used to knowing that black folks can want the same things they want without brandishing guns or a cranking up a boombox while asking for them.

Come January 20, school will be in session for everyone.

First, Jesse Jackson wanted to cut Sen. Barack Obama’s nuts out for talking down to us. Then, in what he believed to be a more private conversation, he refers to us as “niggers being told how to behave” by Obama?

Just when everybody thought it was safe to begin attacking Obama on what seems to be wavering policy stances, Jesse comes along and makes it all right. A perfect deflection, a surreal distraction, all in time for the Senator from Illinois to shake up the world with comprehensive reform and planning for a new day in domestic and foreign policy.

And they, the news media, have to talk about it.

At first, I thought that Jackson was on the John McCain payroll, taking swipes at the very person he helped pave a way for. But you have to assume that the democrats, and particularly the black democrats, are becoming well-versed in the Karl Rove playbook of dirty politics.

Rule number one - attack their strengths.

And with media being a significant strength of conservative politics, with television and radio shows having such pull over informed and uninformed voters alike, what better way to draw attention from what the candidates are doing right and wrong on the trail then to completely denigrate them to distract focus from the issues?

Truth be told, Jackson’s remarks couldn’t come at a better time. Obama, preparing to embark on a fact-finding visit to Iraq and Afghanistan, was criticized for outlining potential policies on the international conflicts prior to his trip. It could’ve have tripped Obama up slightly in the court of public opinion, but Jackson’s remarks are more noose worthy than any perceived missteps Obama could make in foreign affairs.

Give it about two weeks and this will all blow over, but for right now, Obama supporters should take up a familiar cry from the 80’s.

“RUN (your mouth) JESSE, RUN!”

Don’t think for one second that Rev. Jesse Jackson didn’t know exactly what he was doing when he made comments about castrating Sen. Barack Obama.

Don’t be fooled into believing that comments made on conservative Fox News, repudiating Sen. Obama’s messages specifically to African-Americans was a genuine mistake.

Jackson has been around the block before. He’s been in front of live microphones and television cameras. He knows full well that a couple of seconds on pause means private thoughts aren’t shot around the world in seconds. To assume that this was just an error in tact and judgment is worse than the error in tact and judgment itself.

If this were another individual, it’s highly likely that Jackson himself would be drawing comparisons to the vile practice of slavery, where the castration black men was as natural as whistling Dixie. Jackson would be on Fox News and countless other outlets, vehemently denouncing what would be considered from a white man’s lips racial threats, and from the lips of another black man, an attempt to stymie the momentum of the Senator from Illinois.

How interesting that the object of Jackson’s discontent was his assertion that Obama talks down to black Americans on strengthening the moral fiber of our communities. Talking dirty because of the perception of talking uppity.

The irony is an absolute kick in the groin.

He knew every single part of this. And despite his vehement apologies, despite his endorsements and support, Jackson is well aware that comments made by a black man who once ran for president against another black man currently running for president are sure to be taken very seriously by everyone. Black, white and everyone in between.