Pride and Prejudice

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The dream of growing up to be President one day may be a cliché, but until Jackson came along it was only a white cliché. More immediately, Jackson has inspired black adults to run for local office. They were winning on the local level already, especially in cities (four of the six largest have black mayors), but Jackson for the first time has demonstrated black political power on the national level.

Although few have voted for Jackson, many whites say they admire him. In New York, where he polled only 7% of the white vote, Jackson was seen as an "attractive, forceful leader" by two out of three voters, a higher positive rating than given to either Hart or Mondale, according to a Harris poll. Said Pollster Louis Harris: "Jackson might be President if he were white."

That Jackson cannot win the Democratic nomination does not discourage blacks from supporting him. By voting for him, blacks cast "a vote of confidence in themselves," says Albert McDaniel, 44, an administrator for a skills-training school in Chicago. "Jackson is saying you have to judge winning in more than one way. The rise of pride among people who never gave a thought to voting—that's winning. People renewing hope in the Democratic system—that's a definite win."

Blacks know that if Jackson goes to the Democratic Convention with enough delegates, he can extract important concessions from the party. Many blacks do not trust white Democrats, no matter how liberal their voting records, to push their interests. Indeed, with the party preoccupied with cutting the federal deficit, issues of vital importance to blacks—affirmative action, teen-age unemployment, the black underclass—are hardly discussed by white candidates. Says Max Palevsky, a liberal activist in Los Angeles: "The Democrats have lost their way and become a not too articulate reflection of the Republicans. Instead of sweeping these issues under the rug, Jackson is lifting the rug up."

A vote for Mondale or Hart, Jackson tells voters, means "getting off a Republican elephant and onto a Democratic donkey going in the same direction, just a little slower. We need a new direction. It is better to lose an election going in the right direction than win going in the wrong direction." Some blacks carry that logic to its literal conclusion. Asked if she feared that a vote for Jackson would actually help Reagan, Chicago Secretary Selestine Humphrey answered, "I don't want to see Reagan back, but if that's the price black people have to pay for some respect, I say let's pay it." The message to white Democrats is that black voters can no longer be taken for granted because,they have "nowhere else to go." Says Jackson: "We had to break the dependency syndrome. We moved from a relationship born of paternalism to one born of power."

Having taken Jackson lightly at first, neither heeding him nor holding him accountable, many whites were unsettled by his soaring prominence. They scrutinized his calls for racial pride, looking for overt signs of racism. Unfortunately, Jackson provided one. A foolish and offensive remark, spoken in an unguarded moment, set off a chain of events that threatened to overwhelm Jackson's accomplishments with controversy and bitterness.