Come On, Jesse: Don’t Hate The Playa, Hate The Game! – Between the Lines

This game of divide and conquer of black people at the leadership level is not new. We’ve seen it so many times that, like a re-run on television, we can tell what’s going to come next. After 150 years, we should know the game by now. 150 years ago, Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany had a very ugly public debate about Lincoln’s proposed colonization plan (Should we stay or should we go). For those of you who still purport that Lincoln freed the slaves, know that every abolition plan Lincoln considered had a colonization component – voluntary at first, but permanent in Lincoln’s mind to resolve America of its “Negro problem.” Lincoln was killed before it could be fleshed out, but Delany’s position was that Blacks should leave, while Douglass maintained we stay and it ruined their friendship. A half century later, Booker T. Washington suggested we accept segregation as a phase-in to equality. Like Jesse – the other day – W.E.B DuBois thought that Booker T. had lost his mind, and he said so. It started a fifteen year feud where Washington refused to participate in the Niagara Movement and the founding of the NAACP because of DuBois’ presence. Booker T. almost single-handedly shut down the NAACP, choking off its funding. The NAACP only grew and prospered after Washington died in 1915. DuBois would have a similar public feud with Marcus Garvey, where Garvey called DuBois a “rabid mulatto.” Almost a half century later, civil rights leaders Thurgood Marshall, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young thought direct action protest in the South was suicide, and thought that Martin Luther King, Jr. was crazy, and that Malcolm X was even crazier. But twenty years later when a student of King’s ran for President, Black America was determined not to play that game. Malcolm protégé, Louis Farrakhan came to Jesse’s aid in the middle of Reagan madness, helped bring back hostage, Robert Goodman, from Syria, defended Jesse’s “Hymietown” comments, registered to vote for the first time and took on the wrath of the Jewish community – over his solidarity with Jesse, even in the light of a later repudiation. Jesse has had his own “divide and conquer” struggles, first with Al Sharpton, and now with Barack Obama. And he knows the media is always looking to fan the flames of discontent and disunity throughout our community. Jesse is a student of the struggle, now a patriarch in the struggle, who has navigated many a trap. Why fall into this one?