Jesse Jackson’s Proposal to Cut Off Sen. Obama’s Testicles May Go Too Far

Commentary by Carbolic Smoke Ball Founder Emeritus, The Hon. Rufus Peckham

The Rev. Jesse Jackson has been a titan in the American sociopolitical milieu for forty years.  Like every titan, he’s been beset with sneering, green-eyed troublemakers whose sole mission in life is to destroy him. 

Take, for example, the whiners who bellyache that, contrary to Rev. Jackson’s claims, he was not on the balcony with Dr. Martin Luther King when Dr. King was shot. 

And this is a big deal – exactly why?  So, it slipped Jackson’s mind that he wasn’t on the balcony - sue him!  Things slip my mind every day.  Just yesterday I forgot to put out the trash and the recycling bin.  So, you see, being on the balcony with the era’s leading civil rights leader at the time he was shot - or not being on the balcony - is not the sort of thing one would necessarily remember.  As I always say: If forgetfulness were a crime, the jails would be filled with senior citizens, and prison rape would be a thing of the past. 

Or take the knee-jerk reaction of hyper-sensitive Jews who assumed Rev. Jackson must have been ridiculing the Jewish people when he called New York City “Hymietown.”  In point of fact, Hymietown is still listed on the books as the official name of one of the boroughs of New York – Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn and Hymietown.  Far from ridiculing Jews, Rev. Jackson was paying them homage.

Do you have any other pejorative allegations about Rev. Jackson?  Bring ‘em on, and I’ll obliterate them one by one with the same unassailable logic.  Rev. Jackson is a titan, plain and simple.

But every now and again, even titans nod off.

That’s what happened last week when Rev. Jackson was caught on a live microphone calling for Barack Obama’s genital mutilation:  ”See, Barack’s been talking down to black people . . . I want to cut his nuts off,” Jackson said. 

Before I proceed, I apologize to our female readers for using that crude description of a male body part, “nuts.” (I can’t believe it — I just used that crude term again!)  Truth be told, men discuss testicles in virtually every conversation we have with other men.  Such as, “Hi, Jacob, are your chicken nuggets still sagging like they were in the locker room?” Or, “Gee, Adam, your chin ornaments are bulging through your shorts – and you ought to be really proud!”  Or, “Pardon me, Brad, while I reach down and scratch my giggle berries.”  But men limit their usage of testicular euphemisms to discussions with other men because they realize women find this anatomical appendage at least mildly grotesque and more fitting for a farm animal than a human being.

But getting back to Rev. Jackson: as much as I admire all that he’s accomplished, whatever that might be, and as amusing as his comment was (since it involved testicles and all), after considerable reflection I part company with him on castrating Senator Obama.  For now. 

At present, I would reserve the forced removal of testicles to animals and men who commit rape.  Of course, women who falsely accuse males of rape should have their tongues ripped out.  (You see, my methods would promote a very healthy respect between the sexes — girls and boys would be scared to death to go near one another, and that’s the way it should be.)

I do give Rev. Jackson credit for proposing an intriguing idea that merits serious public discourse: if someone says something you don’t like, his balls are cut off.  The genius of the plan is in its simplicity.  And I am this close (putting index finger and thumb apart about an inch) to jumping on Rev. Jackson’s bandwagon on this issue.  But ultimately, his proposal suffers from overbreadth because it fails to set forth criteria to determine which sorts of comments merit turning a man into a eunuch.  It also suffers from gender asymmetry because it provides no comparable mutilation for women.  So it’s back to the drawing board, Rev. Jackson.  Once you come up with a more narrowly tailored plan to address these concerns, I am certain it will garner wide support. 

Until then, Sen. Obama, your love apples are safe.

Jul 14

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