Paterson on Jesse Jackson and Obama's 'Higher Plane of Thinking'
Intern extraordinaire Bharat Ayyar listened to NPR's Michael Martin interview David Paterson,who waxed poetic on NPR about his speech to the N.A.A.C.P. yesterday (where he was uncharacteristically outspoken about that New Yorker cover).
Today, Paterson talked about African-American leadership. Of the civil rights leaders, he said, “These people had to invest their energy on the abolition of slavery, preempting of segregation and the establishment of civil rights when they should have been spending their God-given talents finding new inventions for manufacturing, creating new transportation ideas, medical and scientific research, and perhaps nuclear physics.
"We have just wasted so much of our talent forcing African-Americans, Hispanics and women to invest their great ability in trying to make the Constitution valid and the Declaration of Independence read true," he said.
When Jesse Jackson's recent off-air comments about Barack Obama "talking down to black people,"Paterson said that complaint is essentially beside the point. “We shouldn’t pity [black] communities for not knowing who their leaders are," Paterson said. "We should pity the communities because they need them.
"The reason that there’s been this discussion about whose philosophy is right is because our neighborhoods have been so beset with poor housing, and substance abuse and crime and unemployment and underemployment that we had to find someone to speak collectively for the suffering we all endure."
Specifically addressing Jackson, Paterson seemed, if anything, mildly dismissive.
“Now, I don’t think the substance of what Reverend Jackson said was much better than the expression," he said. "The point is that what Senator Obama is saying to America is that, 'I’m going to fight for some of these same programs but I’m not going to allow people who are the recipients of these programs to walk around without any responsibility.'
"I think that is really a step toward a new culture and really a higher plane of thinking than we’ve seen in American government in a long time,” Paterson finished.
- Poll
- Obama (D)
- McCain(R)
- Spread
- RCP Average
- 49.8
- 42.5
- Obama +7.3
- Candidate
- Favorable
- Unfavorable
- Spread
- Obama
- 57.3
- 35.9
- +21.4
- McCain
- 50.1
- 42.3
- +7.8
Would someone please tell NY Governor Paterson that slavery in the US ended nearly 150 years ago and there are no living blacks that were slaves. In addition Paterson needs to be told that this is 2008 and the Civil Rights Act was passed in 1964, 44 years ago. Therefore Paterson needs to get with the times and stop wallowing in pity blaming black problems on Slavery. More Black talent has been wasted because of crack and welfare in the last 30 years than talent lost in the 1800's. In fact Blacks made greater contributions to society prior to 1960 than after the welfare debacle that has stripped them of all incentive to work. I've never heard such a rich and powerful man as Paterson whine and cry continuously about the past. We can't change the past, but we can change the future if we work hard at it. Placing blame won't help.
I don't know how Paterson gets up out of bed everyday, it must be awfully hard carrying that big chip on his shoulder all the time.
Paterson is a poster child for affirmative action; he's an adulter and ex-drug addict, he's not brilliant, he's not good looking, he's not well known nationally, he fell into his job, he's a liberal whiner and he's a racist. Anybody else would be unemployed and homeless but because he's black and blind he's governor of New York.
dr. moon, i think you might want to reread that passage. you missed his point(s) entirely. either that, or you have an agenda and ax to grind.
Phil Gramm was chastised for saying that Americans are whiners regarding the recession. For many years Black Americans, Women and Homosexuals whined louder than anyone else. Whining works.
whoa -- you people are incredibly racist. it's amazing to see the things people conjure up under the annonymity of a message board.