o state the obvious: If moral criticism is morally permissible only if the person making the criticism is morally flawless, then no human being has ever been in the position to criticize another on moral grounds.  Accordingly, it might seem to some that when morally flawed people criticize morally flawed people, then what we have is none other than sheer hypocrisy.  But surely that cannot be quite right.  Surely, I do not have be without fault—without moral blemish, if you will—in order to justified in criticizing the rapist for his act of rape or the pedophile for his sexual abuse of a child.  Besides, a wrong committed by another is no less that just because we ourselves have committed that wrong.  You have not committed murder any less just because I have also done so. 

Thus, surely I can justifiably call you a moral bastard for murdering someone even if it was only a day or so earlier that I did the exact same thing.  What follows, if anything, is that I, too, am a moral bastard. 

In this vein, one radio commentator—Mr. George Kilpatrick of radio station WSYR 570, Syracuse (NY)—exclaimed regarding the Don Imus affair that Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson do not have to be without moral flaw in order to draw attention the racism exhibited by Imus. 

I want, in what follows, to make some sense of the tension that one might rightly feel in all of this. 

Does a person have to be perfect in order to level a moral criticism against another?  Obviously not.  Just so, there is the issue of hypocrisy.  And one form of hypocrisy consists in deliberately and repeatedly and freely doing precisely what one blames others for doing.  If it is wrong to slander the moral character of another and one takes others to task for doing so, then one’s behavior is downright hypocritical if precisely what one does time and time again is slander one person and then another. 

Sharpton and Jackson claim to be committed to racial equality.  And we can concede for the sake of argument that, in America, blacks have faired poorly in this regard.  But from the truth that blacks have faired poorly in this regard, what surely cannot be justified is either treating whites unjustly or ignoring unjust behavior on the part of blacks.  Thus, insofar as Sharpton and Jackson can only see the flaws of whites—and nothing wrong that black folks do, then their criticisms of white racism count as being manifestly hypocritical. 

No one is perfect.  However, there can be moral aspirations.  And there is no reason whatsoever to believe that justice is truly among the moral aspirations of Sharpton and Jackson. 

It may be perfectly understandable that both men are more concerned with the injustices visited upon blacks than the injustices that others suffer.  After all, no one can do everything.  All of us have to leave some important things aside.  Yet, to be concerned primarily with the injustices visited upon blacks cannot possibly be an excuse to wrong a white or to ignore the injustices that blacks commit. 

The reason why Martin Luther King, Jr. stands as such a symbol of justice is that, whatever else is true, he gave the impression that he was committed to justice for all human beings.  So, even as no one doubted that injustices visited upon black people counted as his first moral charge, it was manifestly clear to all that he did not condone injustices on the part of blacks against white.  More generally, he never countenanced being a victim of wrongdoing as an excuse to commit wrongdoing. 

Perhaps in their heart of hearts both Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are deeply disturbed by the wrongdoings committed by blacks against whites.  But if such a sentiment does lie within their hearts, it must surely have taken up hiding in a most inaccessible crevice of their very being.  We know this because we know that each of them has quite publicly supported black women who have damaged the lives of white men by falsely accusing the whites of rape.  There has never been even the appearance of regret on the part of either Sharpton or Jackson.  If their behavior here does not constitute the very embodiment of hypocrisy, then the idea of hypocrisy is utterly devoid of meaning.

There is no less hypocrisy on the part of Jackson and Sharpton than there is on the part of evangelicals, who like Ted Haggard, preach about the vileness and sinfulness of homosexuality all the while regularly engaging in homosexual behavior. 

We all know that Haggard was not perfect.  But it is he who chose to preach so vehemently against homosexuality.  Either he should have kept his mouth shut or refrained from the very behavior that he was preaching against.  One does not have to be perfect in every way in order to make that choice, as I am sure Mr. Kilpatrick would agree.

Lest there be any misunderstanding, the issue here is not whether homosexuality is wrong.  I am not at all supposing that.  Rather, the point is that evangelicals are hypocritical when they engage in the very same behavior that, in front of one audience after another, they roundly condemn.

The only difference between, on the one hand, Ted Haggard, and on the other, Sharpton and Jackson, is that strong sentiment among evangelicals required Haggard to step down, where this is not so among blacks.  I would that in a like manner there were widespread sentiment among blacks requiring Sharpton and Jackson to step down. 

Sharpton and Jackson are moral profiteers who have made using the language of racial injustice an art-form.  They recognize that “white guilt” gives them a leverage that they would not have otherwise and drawing upon their oratory skills they manipulate the public among blacks.  Sharpton and Jackson have turned themselves into so-called heroes for the downtrodden among blacks.  But the legacy that they leave behind makes it abundantly clear what their real motives are, and so the depth of their hypocrisy.

What in the end will really transform the lives of blacks in America?  Not the belief that all whites are racist nor, again, is it the belief that blacks can do no wrong.  Alas, and most unfortunately, these two set of beliefs embody what the legacy of Jackson and Sharpton amount to; and these two beliefs cannot serve as a rock upon which a people can flourish.  For flourishing at its best is not about finding fault with others or ignoring one’s own faults.  As to the first, flourishing requires that a people find the creativity to surmount the roadblocks and detours occasioned by the faults of others.  As to the second, flourishing requires that a people not let the faults of the enemy becomes a stumbling block to their own successes, something which is not possible in the absence of self-criticism. 

To both of these criteria for flourishing, the contributions of Jackson and Sharpton are both astonishingly small.  What is the pay-off of their public stances?  Not much for blacks as a people, but a whole lot of power for each of these two men, who claim an unwavering commitment to racial equality for blacks.  If the word hypocrisy did not already exist, it would need to be invented in order to give expression to the kind of corruption that is characteristic of the moral timbre of their lives.  The only thing that makes this particularly despicable is that blacks are pawns in the hypocrisy of these two men. 

George Kilpatrick is right: One does not have to be perfect in order to point out wrongdoing.  Alas, it helps enormously if one is not a hypocrite.  An upright person is not perfect, but she or he sure as hell ain’t a hypocrite.  Except in the eyes of the corrupt or the morally blind or the radically misguided: Jackson and Sharpton have no chance whatsoever of being considered upright. 

Ain’t nobody perfect.  True enough.  But not nearly true enough to excuse hypocrisy in our lives.