Who Will Speak For The Poor?
jesse jackson should have been in the news -- for very different reasons.
2008-07-21
By Brian Gilmore

As the fallout over the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s off the record remarks about Barack Obama continue to sprout wings in the media, it has become clear that Jackson’s mistake was not only the words and phrases he used, but the fact that he missed a chance to again become a real player in a real debate in Black America. That debate is this: Who speaks or who will speak for the black poor and working poor that Bill Cosby, Barack Obama, and many others now believe are fair targets for uncensored condemnation? It is a still unanswered political question.

Jackson, who could have grabbed the leadership torch and made the issue of black poverty real again in America, is now effectively muted. His street corner words referring to Obama are what are remembered now, and the issue of the black poor, and the black working poor and the daunting issues they face, is lost in the endless news cycle.

Yet, does that mean the issue of black poverty and the problems of the black working poor are not real issues whose only solution is for some prominent black politician or entertainer to give some version of Booker T. Washington’s drop your buckets’ speech?

Back in October 1995 it was clear who spoke for the black poor and black working poor: the Nation of Islam’s Minister Louis Farrakhan. Minister Farrakhan had slowly risen through the leadership ranks of Black America and despite his repeated Anti-Jewish moments, and his links to the demise of Malcolm X, he seized the moment.

In 2001, writer Ta’Nehisi Coates explained the reach of Farrakhan and the power he emitted through the organization he headed, The Nation of Islam:

"The sect's willingness to work with the black poor has given Farrakhan legitimacy among people that the NAACP has seemingly forgotten. In return, they have imbued him with a power few other black leaders could wield: the power to strike fear in the hearts of white people."

Coates added that Farrakhan championed those with “nothing to lose” and that he represented “the unspoken threat of an ignored poor black America...” 

Now, don’t misunderstand; Louis Farrakhan has and has had little patience for the personal failings of black people. The Million Man March, as most of us recall, was about personal responsibility. But regardless, Louis Farrakhan had the attention of Black America and especially so had the attention of those who were on the lower end of the economic ladder. More importantly, he might have held Black America’s feet to the fire for not doing better, but he did not hesitate to hold America’s feet to the fire every time he rose to speak.

This is why Jackson’s odd moment on Fox News is such a missed opportunity despite the backwardness of his comments.  The issues that the black poor and working poor face now are different from the issues faced by middle class and upper middle class black people. While the middle class might be concerned with the survival of affirmative action programs in education and in employment, civil rights enforcement, and other suspect remedial efforts left over from the civil rights era, the black poor and working poor have more desperate concerns.

Their wages are low and stagnant. They have trouble obtaining health care and other job benefits. They are competing with new immigrants for many of these menial jobs, they increasingly are finding it difficult to obtain affordable housing, and the schools their children attend are lousy and have been under-funded for generations now.

Bill Cosby’s  famous statement “the lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal” is a joke to many of them because the black poor and working poor never got a deal; they were left to die with few resources in aging neighborhoods, depleted tax revenues, and corrupt self serving politicians (many of them African-Americans) who had little, if any, power or will to address any of their real issues.
 
So who will speak for the black poor and working poor now as the presidential campaign rolls along to an end? Now that Cosby, Obama and the pundits have effectively framed the discussion in such a one sided manner, who will stand and deliver a speech not about race but the other speech Black America and the country needs so badly: the one about economic class.

Brian Gilmore is a public interest lawyer and Washington D.C. based writer. He covers law and books for EbonyJet.com