John Montgomery Presents This Week's	November 13, 1999	Creep Logo by Alan Fraser
	Jesse Jackson
	I'm Not An Important Guy But I Play One On TV

Jesse Jackson must be getting bored. There was a time when he was involved in Important Issues. He marched with Martin Luther King. He founded the Rainbow Coalition which helped to raise the consciousness of the country about race relations. Jesse ran for President twice in the 1980s, mobilizing black voters and wielding true power. In 1992, he organized an effort to register thousands of voters and justifiably took some of the credit (or blame) for Bill Clinton's election.

But since then, Jesse's been reduced from a man who made a difference to a street performer looking for an audience. And a TV camera. He made some completely incomprehensible noise about the short-lived ebonics controversy. His contribution to the hellacious events in Jasper, Texas amounted to a vulture-like circle above the carrion. Jesse's now a racial gadfly, running around the country trying to create the next Big Black Brouhaha, resembling nothing more than Al Sharpton with a good haircut.

During this week's crisis, Jesse took on the state of Illinois, the Decatur School Board, and everyone else's patience. Back in September, seven black high school students there were expelled for two years for starting a rumble at a football game. The video of the fight shows the participants punching and kicking each other, slamming into innocent bystanders, including mothers trying to protect their small children. School board president Jackie Goetter didn't think the school system needed guys like that around anymore, saying, "This was not a simple fight. It was a mob action that endangered the lives of 100 to 200 people at a football game." She also pointed out that three of the expelled students had to repeat their freshman year three times, and the seven together missed more than 300 days of school in the last three years. Get lost, boys, the rest of us have some education to attend to.

Then Jesse arrived on the scene. He led a protest march through Decatur which attracted thousands, prompting the Superintendent, Kenneth Arndt, to close all the city high schools for two days. Then, as a compromise, the school officials decided to cut the two-year expulsions in half and allow the kids to attend an alternative school for "troubled" students. OK? Happy now, Jesse? You made some progress, now how about getting the hell out of town and letting tensions cool off for a while, eh? Not a chance, says Jesse, "Schools must reclaim and redeem our youth, not reject them.'' He also accused the school board of overstepping its authority by expelling students who hadn't been charged with any crime.

Right, Jesse, we can resolve that, said Macon County State's Attorney Larry Fichter. He brought charges of mob action, a felony, against four of the kids, one of whom was also charged with aggravated battery and resisting a police officer. Now have you had enough, Reverend? "They are trying to criminalize these youths to justify themselves,'' said Jesse ominously, and vowed to show up with his new pals when the schools re-opened to get them re-enrolled. The week ended with Jesse backing off on his re-enrollment threat, but working to intiate a federal investigation into the whole incident. Jesse, didn't you see the videotape of the fight? "There were no guns, no knives, no blood."

Also, no brains. Jesse's accomplishments during this road show now include eliminating two days worth of school for all the district students, getting his protégés thrown into the court system, and providing all minority kids in the future with a bona fide excuse any time they're suddenly faced with some form of accountability for their irresponsible actions: Racism. They're encouraged to continue that kind of behavior and will become belligerent, pushy, confrontational adults who don't feel they have to follow the same rules as everyone else and play to the crowd whenever possible.

Sort of like Jesse Jackson.