Soledad O’Brien Goes Off on Jesse Jackson For Questioning Her Blackness
Below is an excerpt from her book “The Next Big Story.”
Even though I am not sure what he is saying, I can tell he is angry. Today he 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 had. 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 even make 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? My parents had so banged racial identity into my head that the thoughts of racial doubt never crossed my mind. I’d suffered an Afro through the heat of elementary school. I’d certainly never felt white. I thought my version of black was as valid as anybody else’s. I was a product of my parents (black woman, white man) my town (mostly white), multiracial to be sure, but not black? I felt like the foundation I’d built my life on was being denied, as if someone was telling me my parents aren’t my parents. “You know those people you’ve been calling mom and dad — they aren’t really your parents. What?” The arbiter of blackness had weighed in. I had been measured and found wanting.
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I don’t think you owe an awareness justification.Jesse needs to explain where does the money go that he get’s from all of the law suits from the past.I am very much for awareness…only to the degree that it helps someone less fortunate than I. Solidad has done plenty to bridge the gap for all races and I applaud loudly…tear up quitely.
Thank you Solidad !!!
BRIAN T.MAULTSBY
He has chosen to see the world through limited spectacles. Many educated, intellectual and progressive people are still unprepared for the variations of blackness. Blackness is not only in the shades of ‘us’, but the behavior of ‘us’. There is no typical black person in the same vein there is no typical white person. You, my beautiful Soledad represent one spectrum of us while my look is that of coffee with a lot less cream 🙂
Jesse Jackson is limited and fails to appreciate the range and flavors that humanity comes in. It is that attitude that strengthens stereotypes and prevents people like him from being pigeon holed and from being taken seriously.
I understand that you may have felt bad, you are human before you are anything else. However, his comment deserves pity and a realization that his time came and went.
Dear Ms. O’Brien:
As a member of a multi-racial family (AKA Mixer race) I am of the opinion that race is determined more by a person’s state of mind, then the color of their skin.
Thank you so very much, for the contributions you have made as a individual and as an anchorperson!
Sincerely,
Rev. Monrow A. Mabon, Esq.
Riverside, CA
I e-mailed a comment to Soledad months ago expressing a similar sentiment as Rev. Jackson’s.
Jackson and Sharpton are the same race baiters, thats how they get their attention. Jackson and Sharpton do nothing for black people but make us more dependent on whites for things we should be doing ourselves like securing our communties from dope dealers and protecting our children from these people. Giving our young a change to learn withour being threaten or bullied, supporting a two parent houeshold, getting rid of hip hop, look what has it done to us, thats what we need to do. Until we stop being victims and start be responsible and productive people in our communties and the world we will always be beggers even when we are encharge.
Jesse Jackson is terrible misleaded how can you judge another black woman be she look the part or not. How can you say she doesnt count? you are just as racist as the whites who oppressed us. you have no right to discourage a woman about her race what so ever. You count ms. Soledad no matter what Jesse say. He mad because its Obama who is in the White house and not him. What he said to you insulted me. He needs to apologize for that comment and I am just as black as the night is long.
I am so ashamed of Jesse Jackson. How BLACK do we have to be. First, we were too BLACK, second if you had a percentage of BLACK blood you were BLACK. Now, we are going to question the tone and hue of our skin. Remember how we became colored. Your birth right is who are, whether light skinned or BLACk as God’s rich earch. Let us embrace our Blackness and not start picking out hues to justify ourselves.
Soledad, Bless you for being the person you are
C. Becker Ph.D
all black woman need only to support themselves and their children because we are still carrying the load for the world who sees us at the very bottom even oprah ect. black men never had or backs and we should not have his.
Rev. Jesse is referring to the fact that most people are likely NOT to perceive Soledad…I surely did not even though I am mulatto and her surname is Spanish word for solitude…So it is not a matter if Soledad is “Black” enough is how she is perceived by the general public. Jessica Jesse is pushing for the issue that someone who is unmistakenly Black need opportunities to become anchor. They should never be made to feel that they are not “light enough” to become an anchor. Move all barrier against dark-skinned Blacks. They are just as good if not better than light skinned Blacks. Peace out.
Rev. Jesse is referring to the fact that most people NOT likely to perceive Soledad as Black…I surely did not even though I am mulatto. Another wrinkle is the fact that her surname is a Spanish word for solitude…So it is more likely for her to be perceived as Hispanic and not Black. Although there are some Black Hispanics. It is not a matter if Soledad is “Black” enough. Rather, it is how she is perceived by the general public. Jessica Jesse is promoting the issue that people who are unmistakenably Black need opportunities to become anchors. The “Brown Paper Bag” days are OVER. Dark-skinned Blacks should never be made to feel that they are not “light enough” to become an anchor. Move all barriers against dark-skinned Blacks. They are just as good if not better than light skinned Blacks. Peace out.
Soledad, you do count! You are a person-of-color, no matter what shade, and you matter just as much as other people-of-color.
I’m loving the dialogue. Jessie is as bi-racial looking as is Soledad. He was reflecting his own feelings of rejection by darker black people. We are all “EBONESIANS”; an “ETHNIC GROUP” which rejects the racial label (google the term).
Jesse. I am sick of you, you need to go away, You are just about the same color of Soledad O’Brien.You lost your standing in the black community years ago.The last time you created a fire storm, You said President Obama was taking bad about black people.Have’nt you learn anything.
Soledad tends to use her so called blackness when it’s convenient. Those luke warm reports on Blacks in America are a joke, especially when they try their best not to offend white people.
CNN choose you to do the Blacks in America reports because you would look less threatening to whites, just like the reports. You have fallen for the okie doke.
Soledad surely there are some white folks that you’d like to go off on? —-?
The devil knows what tools to use when he wants to divide and conquer.
Damn, here we go again,y’all can’t take “MESSY JESSE” serious. If he has a problem w/black on CNN why is he telling Soledad? Messy doesn’t have much 2 do his time as a “BLACK LEADER” are numbered. Side Note: who picked these ( Al too can’t 4get about him) clowns 2 be “LEADERS”
I am so sorry that you Ms O’Brien have once again been the victim of our lack of male protection for those whom we have been given the responsibility to shelter from the harms of this world. Young Black and brave sister keep fighting the good fight
Why is it that every time there is a Black issue or discussion. Those who disaagree with the issue have to resort to using terms like ‘Race Baiters and Race Card”? Terms that were normally used by people of a Conservative political bias nature. I say this because racially coded terms like “Race Magazine and Race Music” were commonly used by Dixiecrats or Conservative white Democrats in the Old South in the 1940’s thru the 1970’s to dismiss promient Back leaders and the Black movement doing those years. The terms themselves are coded racist words that exploded on the scene on FOX NEWS and now used by the other political party the “Right Wing Neo Condom Bleeding “A” Hole Republiclan Reactionarists on Conservative talk radio and FOX NEWS and have since traveled to other Cable News networks such as CNN and even MSNBC for daily consumption for the white psyche to think that any issue Black folks have is invalid because race maybe the tall order of the day and they are not willing to face up to that tall order.
Here is a good example of my argument. If I had some issues about Israsel to discuss and disagree with and used the terms “Jew Card.Zionist Card,Jew Baiting or Zionist Baiting”. You can bet your bottom half dollar I would be called an antiSemitic in a heart beat by the polilical bias CunTservatives.
And who saids there is no such thing as Race in American Poliitics these days ?
Mi hermana:
we are both blessed with two rich cultures. I too am “cafe con leche”(coffee with milk). I was born “Cubana” with a grandmother from Nigeria, and a blue-eyed, blond grandfather from Spain.
My siblings, and I are of different hues. we celebrate our sameness, and our differences.
You owe NO EXPLAINATION for your skin color. Rev Jackson is wrong. As a man of God(?)he should not judge.