Apparently in order to be black enough, you have to pass the Rev. Jesse Jackson Test of Blackness.

Jackson sharply criticized presidential hopeful and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama for “acting like he’s white” in what Jackson said has been a tepid response to six black juveniles’ arrest on attempted-murder charges in Jena, La. Jackson, who also lives in Illinois, endorsed Obama in March, according to The Associated Press.

“If I were a candidate, I’d be all over Jena,” Jackson said after an hour-long speech at Columbia’s historically black Benedict College.

“Jena is a defining moment, just like Selma was a defining moment,” said the iconic civil rights figure, who worked with Martin Luther King Jr. in the 1965 Selma civil rights movement and was with King at his 1968 assassination.

Later, Jackson said he did not recall making the “acting like he’s white” comment about Obama, stressing he only wanted to point out the candidates had not seized on an opportunity to highlight the disproportionate criminal punishments black youths too often face.

I’m not only sure that Obama takes offense to that, but I do to. Obama’s “acting like he’s white” because he’s not showing interest in the Jena case? I beg your pardon, Mr. Jackson, but I’m white and I show plenty of interest in the case – including siding with the defendants. Jackson’s against generalizations applied to black Americans, but he turns right around and implies the generalization that not showing a huge interest in the case means you’re acting like you’re white. I’m sure that if Jackson actually looked, he’d find that there are many white Americans showing interest in the Jena case.

Allah asks:

What’s more obnoxious — equating Obama’s refusal to behave exactly as Jackson wants him to with racial inauthenticity, the fact that Jackson would make that rhetorical move so casually as not even to remember it afterwards, the offhand insult to whites who are interested in the Jena case and support the defendants, or the fact that he’s conveniently overlooking the fact that Obama is white on his mother’s side? Or is that the point, to remind black voters that his blood isn’t 100% “authentic”?

I think the last part is his point.