Rev. Jackson where are you?

OK Jesse, your efforts to have Don Imus fired proved successful. As you demanded, MSNBC and CBS booted the shock jock last week. So now, what social cause will you fight to eradicate next? Will it be the dismal public educational system that’s failing African American youth nationwide? Or perhaps you will put up a vigilant fight against the unjust judicial system that appears to prey on young Black men.

What will be your next success story?

Last week the former Duke lacrosse players charged with rape had all charges dropped, not solely because they were innocent, but because they had the financial wherewithal to reveal their innocence. In contrast, America’s prisons are filled with innocent Black men whose lives are void powerful and influential people who will help discover their innocence. Will those brothers be your next success story, or are you just waiting for the next high profile atrocity to surface before you resurface – no doubt when national television is part of the equation.

Lights, camera – Jesse!

Hey, I might be out of place – if so please accept my apology – but before Imus’s disrespectful comments about members of Rutgers women’s basketball team, I had not seen you; not since that high profile Duke rape case. Before that, the government’s handling of the Hurricane Katrina aftermath was the last time you reared your head publicly.

Maybe I have not seen you because you were working diligently to implement fatherhood initiatives to help young brothers become good fathers and strong husbands. No, I have not seen you because you were using your tremendous power and clout to help reduce the proliferation of Black mothers burying their sons, while yet another set of Black mothers watch their sons buried in the penal system. No, maybe your public presence took a back seat to your fight to exterminate the HIV/AIDS virus that’s killing our African American sisters.

I’ve been told that most reverent work is performed without notice. I concur. However, the harvest of any planting eventually becomes visible. Where is the harvest?

According to my research, prostate cancer is the second leading cause of death by cancer for African American men, who also have the highest rate in the world. African American women are diagnosed with breast cancer less frequently than white women, but died at a higher rate; and HIV/AIDS is the leading cause of death for African American women between ages 25-34. I apologize for my ignorance, but what health initiatives have you brokered that has reduced these debilitating diseases crippling Black folks? Your visibility in those fights haven't been as public as your visible efforts to have Imus terminated.

So what am I to think? I’m truly confused, because you maintain that you championed the causes of Black America.

Rev. Jackson statistics indicate the unemployment rate for African Americans males is currently 9.8 percent and hovers north of 45 percent in some cities. Black men are dying at a proportionally high rate (who’s brokering the peace); Black boys are being displaced in the public educational system as early as the third grade and justice as it relates to Black folks is just that – ‘just us.’ Your presences with those causes haven’t been as visible, but then again I don’t watch a lot of television so I just might be out of the loop.

I mean you are the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who marched with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., but you know that. And you are the founder of the RainbowPUSH Coalition, whose mission according to your company websites reads, to serve as an “International Human Rights Organization committed to economic development, voter registration and participation, healthcare, job, peace, education and justice.” I shouldn’t expect anything less from you but for you to fight for those social issues that affect “the least of these,” not because I think you should wage that fight, but because that’s what you promote that you do.

I’m opened to the possibility that my vision about your servant leadership may be skewed. How could I ignore your efforts in the suspension of the Davis-Bacon Act, which was awarding no-bid reconstruction contracts, to rebuild New Orleans, to President Bush’s cronies! And I know, you put the fire to Coca-Cola and Anheuser Busch and pressured them to increase their minority hiring.

But Rev. Jackson, with high percentages of health concerns, unemployment and incarceration in African American communities, combined with depressing percentages of educational success in those same communities, I’m not sure of what to think.

Look, I concede. I’m ignorant, uninformed, undereducated as is relates to your current efforts and accomplishments with regards to the liberation of Black people. One might, rightful, even describe me as possibly being unappreciative for all that you’ve done for Black folks; I’m not. Please be clear, I don’t believe the solutions to these pervasive social ills that affect African Americans solely fall on your shoulders, and truth be told I gotta look in the mirror about what role I’m playing to reduce those ills; but bruh, where are you and how do those African American’s whose issues don’t attract prime time media coverage find you?

This commentary first appeared in the Washington AFRO-American Newspaper in the April 21 - April 27 edition.