Jesse Jackson is too much.

Jesse Jackson Is Too Much

THE REVEREND Jesse Jackson has been rotating around the world, broadcasting over Radio Havana to add his bit to the South African mess and comparing President Botha to Adolf Hitler, among other insults to human intelligence.

Americans have indulged this demagogue too long. Official Democrats do not dare anathematize him because he allegedly speaks for blacks, who vote Democratic. If that is so, at least non-Democrats can make the point that needs making, namely that if Mr. Jackson were white, he'd be run out of town.

One of the remarkable things about American society over the period since World War II has been the evaporation of racial animosity. The recently published collection of Ernie Pyle's wartime columns shows the depth of anti-Japanese feeling at the time. Pyle, a thoroughly representative American sensibility, regarded the Japanese as slimy near animals, disgusting sub-humans. John W. Dower's War without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War, also recently published, shows how racial animosities on both sides made the fighting so very savage. Today there is no anti-Japanese animosity in American society. The Japanese tend to be admired, for their industry and achievements.

When Jesse Jackson mouths off about American "racism" he ought to be reminded of this. Bernhard Goetz did not shoot four Orientals in that New York subway. The recent Vietnamese immigrants do not have a high illegitimacy or crime rate. The welfare rolls are not loaded with Koreans. No one gets nervous when approached on the street by a group of Japanese teenagers. Reverend Jackson has work to do here at home before he reforms South Africa, and builds new shrines to Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.