Jesse Jackson shouldn't talk

Jesse Jackson just demonstrated that the ultimate passing away of the old thinking about race will be one of the best things to happen to the African-American community in many a long year. Racism and slavery trapped their physical selves. Victimization and hatred trapped their minds. And Jesse Jackson and others have played no small part in this ugly continuation of slavery in a different form. True freedom results when an individual takes responsibility for his own life. As long as he blames another for his own failings, he can never be free. His body is free, but his mind is not. Victimhood, and cries of racism where none exists, will never advance the cause of freedom in this country. It will never advance King's cause of one day being able to judge an individual not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.

Senator Obama has his own problems when it comes to race, but his candidacy and his status as one of two possibilities for the next president of the United States is a damning indictment of Jackson's thinking and the thinking of all those like him. I disagree vehemently with many of Senator Obama's policies, but the fact that America is one step from putting in his hands the leadership of the most powerful nation on earth should be proof enough that racism, while it still exists, is rare and declining.

Before he speaks of Senator Obama's manhood, perhaps Mr. Jackson should stop hiding behind the mantle of perceived racism, which relieves the aggrieved from taking responsibility for their own failures and chalks up disappointments to the racism and prejudice of others. At least Senator Obama had the courage to run as a candidate who happens to be black, rather than as a black candidate seeking payment for America's racial sins.