Jackson Bows Out, but He Never Bowed In

WASHINGTON —  Jesse Jackson walked slowly into the church basement accompanied by 57 ministers and community leaders. They arrayed themselves around him in two long lines as Jackson delivered his consent decree.

Jackson had called this little gathering to announce that although he had never said he was going to run for mayor of Washington, he would stop running for mayor in the future. Though not many residents of Washington shed any tears over this announcement, there was a great gnashing of teeth in the media.

For nearly a year, commentator after commentator had urged Jackson to run. They had their reasons ready:

* It would get Jackson out of the 1992 Democratic presidential race and thereby help heal the party. (Which Jackson cared nothing about.)

* It would help Jackson by proving he could win elective office. (Though his lack of elective experience, Jackson recognizes, is often an excuse people use to disguise far uglier reasons for not wanting him in the White House.)

* It would save Jackson the embarrassment of another loss in 1992. (Though Jackson happens to believe he might win the nomination in 1992 or at least get the vice presidential spot.)

But in the end, Jackson pulled out. He did so only a few weeks after a different kind of article began circulating in the press: These showed that although the national media might think it just swell to have Jackson as mayor, Washington residents did not.

Residents of Washington? Oh, yeah, them. Seems a lot of people forgot about them. But they had something to say. And it was that, while they viewed Jackson as a national figure and an inspirational figure and even an historic figure, they didn’t think he cared much about filling potholes. Or towing abandoned cars.

So Jackson bowed out without ever having officially bowed in. And I thought he looked relieved when he did it. He no longer had to worry about actually running a city. Instead, he could do what he liked to do best: He could champion a cause, launch a crusade.

His becoming mayor of Washington would never have made history. (Which was one of the six reasons that I listed a year ago why Jackson would never run for mayor.) But making Washington the 51st state, now that would be historic. Which is what Jackson now wants.

Jackson announced it would be a titanic struggle, a struggle worthy of him. He compared it to no less a battle than those faced by blacks in South Africa. “Just as Mandela is out of jail, but not free,” Jackson said, “by democratic standards, the citizens of Washington are out of jail, but not free.”

Then Jackson hinted at “direct action” to achieve statehood, saying that “marching” and “going to jail” might be necessary to “free” the District of Columbia.

And because all battles must have a first shot, Jackson fired his at a slow-moving target: Gov. William Donald Schaefer of Maryland. The day before, Schaefer, in response to a question, had said that, if “their statehood is not feasible,” he would “have no problem with D.C. becoming a part of Maryland.”

Schaefer figured the district might actually want it. After all, this would give Jackson what he said he wanted: representation for the people.

Jackson went ballistic when I asked him about Schaefer’s statement. “Washington, D.C., has its distinction and its tradition,” Jackson said. “And really what he’s proposing is a kind of Bantustan concept. And as we end Bantustans in South Africa, we’re not going to transfer them to Washington.”

Bantustans are the phony black “homelands” created by the government of South Africa, where blacks would be allowed to live in poverty and without any civil rights. To accuse Schaefer of wanting this for Washington was a considerable insult.

But, actually, there was a certain logic to Schaefer’s position: Maryland had given up the land that now forms Washington. George Washington himself bamboozled Maryland property owners out of their land in 1790 for $66 an acre. (George must have had a silver tongue to go along with those wooden teeth.)

So if statehood does not get approved by Congress (and I don’t know anybody who believes it will), wouldn’t rejoining Maryland give the district the senators and governor and voting representatives it says it wants?

But in suggesting this, Schaefer accidentally pulled back the curtain on the dirty little secret of statehood. It is not, as Jackson and others claim, about representation for the citizens of the District of Columbia.

It is about representation for the district that the power brokers behind it personally desire. If the issue were merely about representation in Congress, then supporters would be glad to get Maryland’s senators representing them.

But the supporters of statehood have different plans. They want to pick their own senators--and one may be named Jesse Jackson.

I am not saying this is wrong. But let’s not dress up the question of statehood with Revolutionary War phrases like taxation without representation or even compare it to the genuine struggle for human and civil rights in South Africa.

Statehood is not about freedom for the people. It is about jobs for the few.