{"id":85,"date":"2008-07-09T17:54:46","date_gmt":"2008-07-09T17:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/07\/nuts-to-you-rev-jackson.html"},"modified":"2008-07-09T17:54:46","modified_gmt":"2008-07-09T17:54:46","slug":"nuts-to-you-rev-jackson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/stevenwaldman\/2008\/07\/nuts-to-you-rev-jackson.html","title":{"rendered":"N**ts to You, Rev. Jackson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most men might be irked if they heard that someone wanted to have their genitalia removed. <\/a>Barack Obama, however, is probably celebrating. Drudge Report says Jesse Jackson apparently was caught on tape suggesting the procedure for the Democratic nominee because he felt Obama was spending too much time lecturing black churches on morality.If you’re trying to prove you’re not a black radical, it doesn’t hurt to be attacked by Jesse Jackson for your moral prudishness. It’s not just vividness of Jackson’s comments — the delicate Drudge Report referred to the candidate’s “n**ts” — it’s the substance. Jackson apparently was suggesting that Obama has focused too much on black behavior and not enough on the government’s responsibility. If Obama is lucky, this will highlight some of what Obama’s been saying in black churches. On Father’s Day, Obama said to the congregation at Apostolic Church of God in Chicago (according the prepared text):<\/a><\/p>\n

“If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are is missing — missing from too many lives and too many homes. They have abandoned their responsibilities, acting like boys instead of men. And the foundations of our families are weaker because of it. You and I know how true this is in the African-American community. We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households, a number that has doubled — doubled — since we were children. We know the statistics — that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison. They are more likely to have behavioral problems, or run away from home or become teenage parents themselves. And the foundations of our community are weaker because of it.How many times in the last year has this city lost a child at the hands of another child? How many times have our hearts stopped in the middle of the night with the sound of a gunshot or a siren? How many teenagers have we seen hanging around on street corners when they should be sitting in a classroom? How many are sitting in prison when they should be working, or at least looking for a job? How many in this generation are we willing to lose to poverty or violence or addiction? How many? Yes, we need more cops on the street. Yes, we need fewer guns in the hands of people who shouldn’t have them. Yes, we need more money for our schools, and more outstanding teachers in the classroom, and more after-school programs for our children. Yes, we need more jobs and more job training and more opportunity in our communities. But we also need families to raise our children. We need fathers to realize that responsibility does not end at conception. We need them to realize that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child — it’s the courage to raise one.” <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here’s the full speech on video:<\/param><\/param><\/embed><\/object>Everyone kept wondering when Obama was going to have his Sister Souljah moment (a reference to Bill Clinton going out of his way to diss the star over nasty rap lyrics to show he was a centrist). Maybe Obama didn’t need that after all. He just needed for one of his supporters to suggest his castration. Obama gets all the breaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most men might be irked if they heard that someone wanted to have their genitalia removed. Barack Obama, however, is probably celebrating. Drudge Report says Jesse Jackson apparently was caught on tape suggesting the procedure for the Democratic nominee because he felt Obama was spending too much time lecturing black churches on morality.If you’re trying…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nN**ts to You, Rev. 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