Imus Apologized, When Will Jesse Jackson do Same with Duke Players

Don Imus deserved to be fired. It was a long time coming. Imus was held accountable for years of using race for self promotion. But when will Jesse Jackson be held accountable. It is indeed ironic that someone who has profited from racial division in our society should become a spokesman for castigating another beneficiary of racial hatred.

Jesse Jackson was quick to denounce Duke lacrosse players. He even accused "the gang" of "gross behaviour." Jackson uses the same type of stereotyping he accused Imus of in this column:

And there is Duke, a private school stocked with affluent, mostly white kids, often referred to as the plantation.

Jackson, incredibly, in the same article, talks about a culture that promotes violence against women by white men:

As Rebecca Hall of the University of California in Berkeley, who studies images of African American women in the culture, states, “Turn on a music video. A black woman is somebody who has excess sexuality….It’s excess sexuality that white men are entitled to.”

In the wake of the Duke scandal, black women across the country report on how often they are harassed or treated as simply objects available to hit on by white men. This image is magnified in our culture – and not simply by white producers, but on black music videos and black networks as well.

What report are you talking about? The overwhelming examples of black treated as sex objects comes from videos done by rappers, whom are overwhelming black. Sounds to me like an attempt to explain away the the double standard of blacks being condoned for using the same language employed by Imus.

Jackson then attempts to reconcile the contradiction; almost as if trying to understand why this town would harbor such evil people as the Duke lacrosse players:

Durham, North Carolina where Duke is located is not the old South. Its Mayor is black, as is its police chief, and the majority of its city council. It is relatively prosperous, with low unemployment, home of high-tech companies. The largest black owned insurance company is located there as are two black owned banks.

And maybe these kids are innocent? Did you ever stop and think about that? But then you admit you don't know "What happened?" But "something happened." Why? Because Nifong says so:

Michael Nifong was prompted to say, “This case is not going away”. Indeed, he asserts that the lack of DNA evidence "doesn't mean nothing happened. It just means nothing was left behind." The District Attorney is putting the case before a grand jury. And, while unresolved racial, gender and class issues dictate and divide perspectives, these facts are not in dispute.

Ironically he describes a lynch mob mentality orchestrated by the vast right wing conspiracy, when it was the Duke players whom were victims of a lynch mob:

Predictably, the right-wing media machine has kicked in, prompting mean-spirited attacks upon the accuser’s character. Rush Limbaugh called the two women strippers “hoes,” and later apologized saying “I regret you heard me say that.” And Michael Savage referred to the alleged victim as a "Durham dirt-bag" and "dirty, verminous black stripper". And, it is in this tense atmosphere that the accuser flees from home to home, fearing for her safety.

Another irony in all this, both victims of the racial vilification were members of sports teams, female basketball athletes and male lacrosse players. Jesse Jackson and Don Imus are also team members of an American sport: racial exploitation.