First off, let me state that I myself am white. The color of someone’s skin should be of little importance, but the racist label is being thrown around today because Samuel L. Jackson made a comment on the 2008 election. Is what Jackson said racist? How is what he said different than people saying that they are voting for the guy they could have a beer with? What about people voting for John F. Kennedy because he was handsome? Let’s flip it around, people said they wouldn’t vote for Kennedy/Romney because of their religion. Religion has been a big deal for political candidates going all the way back to 1928 when Al Smith became the first Catholic presidential nominee.
Was the editorial about race baiting? No, it was bringing up a quote and stating that Samuel Jackson was racist because he voted for President Obama because he was black. Samuel Jackson himself has taken to his Twitter account to clarify the quote.
Being a child during segregation and going through what African-Americans had to of course affects how Jackson sees politics. I wouldn’t even attempt to put myself in Jackson’s shoes, but of course someone wouldn’t picture an African-American President in a county that segregated blacks and barely even let them vote. Jackson, like many others, probably saw this as a historic opportunity to elevate an African-American to a position nobody growing up then would have ever dreamed possible. There is no need to elaborate on the Jim Crow system and segregation, but it is important to keep this in mind when evaluating Jackson’s quote.
Someone sent him a message and stated that he should have thought about voting and not vote based strictly on the color of the candidates skin. He was asked if Herman Cain would have got the same response. He tweeted:
While that may be more reflective of his political preference, it proves that he wouldn’t vote for Cain just because he is black. I'm not even going to inject any of my political beliefs here, nor should any be inferred. Did Samuel Jackson say something he probably shouldn’t have? Probably. We don’t really care what actors have to say about politics, we just want him to kick snakes off planes and tell
The Avengers to assemble. But this is America, he has the right to vote for who he wants and for whatever reasons he wants. He didn’t say he would never vote for a honkey or cracker, or that he hates white people, he just said he voted because Obama was like him. As I stated in the introduction, everyone does that to some degree. Let’s stop calling him a racist, maybe a knucklehead for talking about politics, but let’s cool it with labeling people racists when we don’t know the entire story. Racism does exist and we shouldn't ignore it. What he said was racial, but not necessarily racist.
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