Rollingout.com article: Black Readers Say Rev. Jesse Jackson Is Correct CNN Reporter Soledad O Brien Is Not A Member Of The Black Race.
Rev. Jesse Jackson Questions Soledad O’Brien‘s Blackness, She
Says; O’Brien Misguided
CNN star correspondent Soledad O’Brien revealed in her new book that Rev. Jesse Jackson told her that she was not black enough. She also stated that African Americans are obsessed with race, which is a very misguided and dishonest statement in light of what her parents had to go through as an interracial couple to get married — and the hostilities she endured from her white peers growing up.
We are well aware that Jackson has made some politically incorrect remarks off the air — or when he thought he wasn’t being recorded. No one will ever forget how Jackson, believing his mic was off during a commercial break during a TV interview, told a fellow interviewee that he’d like to castrate then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008 for “talking down” to black people. And many people still resent Jackson who called New York “Hymietown” — a slur against Jews — in 1984 when he thought he was talking in confidence to a Washington Post reporter. And there are probably many other imprudent statements that never bled out of Jackson’s inner circles into the public consciousness.
O’Brien gives us her own experience as being the target of Jackson‘s unedited tongue that she says set her brain on fire. One of the anecdotes O‘Brien shared in her book, The Next Big Story, is an encounter she had with Jesse Jackson, who questioned her blackness by stating “you don‘t count.” Here’s an excerpt:
Today [Jackson] is angry because CNN doesn’t have enough black anchors. It is political season. There are billboards up sporting Paula Zahn and Anderson Cooper. He asks after the black reporters. Why are they not up there? I share his concern and make a mental note to take it back to my bosses. But then he begins to rage that there are no black anchors on the network at all. Does he mean covering the campaign, I wonder to myself? The man has been a guest on my show. He knows me, even if he doesn’t recall how we met. I brought him on at ‘”MSNBC,” then again at ‘”Weekend Today.” I interrupt to remind him I’m the anchor of “American Morning.” He knows that. He looks me in the eye and reaches his fingers over to tap a spot of skin on my right hand. He shakes his head. ‘You don’t count,’ he says. I wasn’t sure what that meant. I don’t count — what? I’m not black? I’m not black enough? Or my show doesn’t count?
I was both angry and embarrassed, which rarely happens at the same time for me. Jesse Jackson managed to make me ashamed of my skin color which even white people had never been able to do. Not the kids in the hallways at Smithtown or the guys who wouldn’t date me in high school. I remember the marchers behind me at the trial about the black youth/kid who beat the Latino baby. The folks that chanted ‘biracial whore for the white man’s media,’ even they didn’t make me feel this way. I would just laugh. Biracial, sure, whore, not exactly, white man’s media, totally! Whatever. But Reverend Jesse Jackson says, ‘I don’t count?’
I am immediately upset and annoyed and the even more annoyed that I am upset and pissed off. If Reverend Jesse Jackson didn’t think I was black enough, then what was I?
If you read the rest of O’Brien’s thoughts on Jackson and race on CNN.com, pay particular attention to what she believes is the African American community’s obsession with race. I find it particularly offensive that O’Brien would dare say it’s our “obsession” as if this is our burden alone and that we invented the concept of race and racism.
Moreover, how could she possibly lay that garbage at the feet of black people in light of her lineage and childhood experiences? O’Brien’s parents, an Irish-Australian father and a black Cuban mother, were prohibited by law from marrying in Maryland so they got hitched in nearby Washington, D.C., where marriage laws were less restrictive. Also, you will read that O’Brien states that the white guys in her mostly white neighborhood and schools did not find her attractive and didn’t want to date her as she sported an Afro back in the day. And yet she has the audacity to state that race is a black American obsession instead of an American cancer? She not only lets white Americans off the hook, perhaps because she married a white man, she then turns the screws on Rev. Jackson. It’s from this context that you should view O’Brien’s excerpt in the book.
Until recently, white people were not obsessed with race because they were the direct beneficiaries of racist policies and legislation, except when their children dated one of us or more than one black family moved into their homogenous neighborhoods. Or, until, one black man had the intestinal fortitude to move into the White House. –terry shropshire
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Fivrr!
2 weeks agoI don’t know WHY folks are just getting this (memo)! I always knew to which side she REALLY related but played us, using her MOTHER’s (black by defaultness) to rise to the media top! When will black folk EVER learn?!? JUST BECAUSE she has an OUNCE of African blood–don’t make her BLACK! I always knew that Soledad related and embraced more of her Hispanic and whiteness than she EVER did her blackness. I never seen her as a black woman. Always as a white Hispanic. Bet you I know what (racial) box she checks off….lol! -
I have to agree with Jesse on this one since O’brien’s comments sound like the comments a white person would make. White people made race an issue with segregation and Jim Crow and trying disenfranchise Black people because of skin color. She is not in a position to fully appreciate the Black experience since lives in a biracial world that leans toward a white view of the world and Black people. She is projecting her own race consciousness about race on the rest of us. She really should stick to what is true about herself rather than criticizing people who appear foreign to her. Obviously we are people she can not and will not identify with. My heart goes out to her since she has gained the whole world but lost her own soul.
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Ronnie 2 weeks agoRev. Jackson is correct about CNN and that is indictive of the other major cable news stations. Just look at your local channels. How many black anchors on the 10 p.m. news? You cannot count Roland Martin because he is classified as a CNN political contributor. It is certainly a slap in the face that Elliott Spitzer was given Campbell Brown’s old time slot. That would have been perfect for Roland Martin or another qualified African-American journalist like CJ Holmes or Don Lemon or Tamron Hall on MSNBC. Instead, we just watch Roland Martin on Washington Watch on TV One and Ed Gordon on BET now. No diss against both of their news programs. They are very good. Just would have liked to see them give the props they deserve. Thank you for this article as that is one book that I will not want to see under my Christmas tree.
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Berry Hudson 2 weeks agoTo me black has always been more than skin color. It is how you live and identify yourself. I never really considered Soledad one of us. I am sure she has had some trails as a woman of color, but she is hispanic. Now if she feels she is black that is fine, but just because you think we family don’t make it so. I would know what Ms. O’brien who has a white name a white momma, white husband, lives in a white neighborhood and has white kids feels is so black about her.
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Towg 2 weeks agoI have often wandered if she was black or white. I’ll bet Mrs. O’Brien does not check herself in the racebox as being a Black woman either. To me, she is no different than the Japanese and Chinese people who comes and set up local businesses selling black hair care products to get rich off black people, and to me she’s doing the same thing with her “being black in America” segments, which is making a living off the oppression of black people in America.
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J_Jammer 2 weeks agoPerpetrator of a problem. Race is only a problem, in most cases, when you make it one. Blaming others for making it a problem is you making it a problem.
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bebop 2 weeks agoI agree. Her journalism shows how she ‘thinks’ and Jesse was on the money with that one. He’s not perfect…and none of us are…but he will call it like he see it…whether you agree with him or not. Soledad’s Black in America Parts 1 & 2 were horrible. The series was not balanced at all and filled with all of the stereotypes instead of showing our many successes and accomplishments. She doesn’t love Black People…and it shows. She’s a colored woman who works her “blackness” for career purposes only.
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Huh? You are making inflammatory statements and you don’t back up even one with an example. Especially those last two doozie statements. Jeebus! What do you mean? Have you done extensive research on Soledad? What do you mean by “love black people”? How would she meet your standards of loving black people? If she only fulfilled some of your criteria would she then fail “loving black people”? If I look up loving black people on the internet will your criteria come up, credited to you Bebop? Is there any debate going on about this criteria, or are you the definitive word? Ditto for Soledad working her blackness for career purposes only. Egads. Show some humanity and please(!) some humility! You may hate Soledad, and if you back it up, have your say as to why and make your “I hate Soledad” argument. But to make statements like you’re making and not even attempt to treat them as opinions, that is hateful! And we sure need more hate in this world; there just isn’t enough!
Gayblackcanada 
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