Rev. Jesse Jackson Speaks Spirited Words at Kennedy School Class Day

Joseph S. Nye, dean of the Kennedy School of Government (KSG), introduced the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson as "the most impressive orator of our time" at yesterday's KSG Class Day

speech.

"Whatever happens," quipped Nye before Jackson's talk, "it is difficult to sleep through one of his speeches."

Indeed, as Jackson spoke, there was nary a shut eye at the ARCO Forum. Jackson, who is president and founder of the Rainbow Coalition (please see profile, page B-5), drew large amounts of applause throughout his speech, pausing only to allow for occasional whoops and cheers of approval to die down.

Jackson's talk, true to form, was interspersed with biblical analogies and parables.

"Jesus was born in the slum," Jackson said, comparing Christ's plight to that of countless disenfranchised groups in the U.S., "to an unmarried mother, who didn't have the right to vote, who didn't have the right pedigree. He was born outside, with the smell of manure. Jesus was born in the slum, but the slum was not born in him."

Jackson started off his talk by condemning the growing disparity in wealth between rich and poor Americans.

"For the rich there is no ceiling," Jackson said, "for the poor there is no floor."

This disparity, according to Jackson, cut across ethnic lines, despite popular stereotypes.

"Most people are not black or brown; they are white, female, and young....Most poor people are not on welfare; they work everyday. They catch the early bus. They sweep the floors. They clean our soiled sheets when we get sick. And when they get sick, they can't afford to sleep in the beds which they have made," Jackson said.

Jackson said there was something wrong with a nation that constructed first-class jails and second-class schools.

"Most rural and urban schools are not wired for the Internet, but all the jails are," he said.

Jackson also criticized U.S. foreign policy in Kosovo.

Jackson, who traveled to Belgrade in May to free three American POWs, has been calling for an end to the NATO strikes against Serbia since his return.

Echoing an oft-repeated criticism, he said NATO's handling of the Kosovo crisis, while well-intentioned, was profoundly misguided.

"Our intent was to do all that we could to avoid killing civilians, but civilians have been killed by the thousands.... Our intent was to help rescue and secure the lives of 1 million people. Instead, we have completely disrupted the lives of 14 million people," he said.

Jackson's argument was simple and clear--where the NATO hoped to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, it created one, and cost itself a pretty penny in the process.

When asked at a press conference what he would have done in Clinton's stead, Jackson said he felt the U.S. should have negotiated more before resorting to military action.

"We went into [the Rambouillet negotiations] without enough patience, with de facto support for the KLA," Jackson said.

Jackson also denounced the "double standard" the U.S. invokes when dealing with humanitarian disasters in Europe and Africa--intervening in Western conflicts, but not those on other continents. He compared the refugee crisis in Sierra Leone, an African nation which has been embroiled in a civil war for several years, to the one in Kosovo.

"Let me tell you a tale of two continents," Jackson said, "Sierra Leone shares the horrors of Kosovo but not its hope. There is no public outcry against the violence, no commitment for aid to reconstruct the country."

Jackson finally trained his guns upon Harvard itself, criticizing the KSG for having too few tenured black faculty members.

"It's not about brains," Jackson said, as applause from the audience drowned out his words, "but about opportunity and the flow of cultural and historical bias."

It was ironic, Jackson said, that an institution publicly committed to indoctrinating its students into the world of public policy and social justice also faced problems with discrimination.

"If justice is to be taught, let justice also be done," Jackson declared.

Nye said that Jackson's criticisms were largely justified.

"We're trying to do something about it," he said.

Yet what Jackson didn't mention, Nye said, was the progress that was being made. According to Nye, fully half of the 24 faculty hired over the past three years have been women or members of minority groups.