What the....that ain't right

There was a time Jesse Jackson was worthy of respect. I don't remember it, but I am assured it was there. At some point, however, he became a caricature...a symbol of a good thing gone awry. Not Al Sharpton awry, but still...the movement lost its direction and stopped being about making the country (and world, as an outgrowth) better and started being about making Jesse famous at the expense of the cause.
Compare someone like Jackson to King, Jr. On the one hand you have a cartoonish Don King like promoter of Jesse Jackson, always ready to be seen next to a (alleged) murderer like Simpson and say he is being mistreated because he is black, to stand next to a (alleged) child molester like Michael Jackson and say he is being mistreated because he is black, to stand next to a (alleged) coke-sniffing mayor like Marion Berry...compare that to someone who went to where injustices were being suffered by the poor and downtrodden, to someone who fought for economic opportunities , for educational opportunities, for...well, I think that makes the point pretty well. And we can make it even more clear when we compare either of those to Sharpton.
Be that as it may, in case it is not obvious heretofore, I do not have a particularly high opinon of Jesse Jackson. And I seldom find sense in what he says. How strange is it then that I believe Michael Richards, of all people, got Jackson to say something I believe is brilliant...an outstanding bit of thinking and a message that needs to be spread.
It is divisivness of the first rank for ANY group to say "we can say this word and it isn't offensive when said by us". And no, I don't buy into the argument that "the 'N' word isn't the 'N' word when said by a black". The smurf it isn't. Same letters, same pronunciation, same meaning. And Jackson is on to something when he says we need to eliminate it from prominent public usage including entertainment.
Contrast what he is saying with Rep. Waters who banally proclaims "This is not simply about whether or not the black community forgives or forgets..."
This is NOT something that solely affects "the black community". This is something that affects SOCIETY. Is it acceptable to use words like "nigger", "greaser", "gringo", "spic", "cracker" and so forth? I have heard every one of those bits of trash spewed by pop culture entertainers. Not in context of a movie establishing the character as villainous, not in the context of discussing what was said but in the context of a song or conversation.
Language is powerful. The old children's chant, "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me" has it dead wrong. Physical wounds heal but often the psychological wounds never do...they ripen and fester and sprad until the entire persona is affected. It gets into the heads of people when they listen to terms like those mentioned above or when women are "bitches and hoes", so labeled both by the males...and with increasing frequency by themselves.
Richards tapped into something that runs deep in this country...the idea that IN SOME CONTEXTS the usage of certain words that are almost universally unacceptable become acceptable because of the context. Had he been Eddie Murphy or Jamie Foxx or Alonzo Bodden...a comedian who himself used equivalent epithets for white people during his performances on Last Comic Standing if I recall correctly...then no uproar would have occurred because it is acceptable in many quarters for black on black verbal violence.
Jackson is absolutely correct when he says that has to stop. Look at the demographics for who listens to gangsta rap. Now tell me that people who repeatedly hear these words held up as centerpieces of acceptable verbiage are suddenly going to believe they should not themselves use those words. Bollocks.
A lot of people are saying Richards killed his career with that childish outburst. Maybe. But in a world where being controversial is itself reason to be a celebrity he may have enhanced it with his stupidity, he may have made himself relevant for the first time since Seinfeld shut down. And now he has a chance to do some real good.
He needs to stop with the apologies. Yeah, he needed to apologize but now he has a great platform to say "Here is what needs to change and here is why it needs to change." He can help us clean up the language. Let's get rid of a lot of the excess profanities that overwhelm our airwaves. Let's restore a certain amount of respect to the language and society. Stop the use of "God" as a replacement for "wow". Stop the use of racial slurs...yes, even the ones against the whites...in entertainment as sources of entertainment. Stop the uses of slurs on womanhood. Jackson is right on...until it is unacceptable for everyone then stop saying it is unacceptable for anyone. Then we will be moving towards true equality.