In death as in life, Teddy Kennedy has been the subject of much vitriol.

Some people draw lines in the sand; Ted was the line. At least one cartoonist has labeled him “complicated,” and Newsweek titled its cover story “Understanding Teddy.” It features six essays and a ton of pictures to put the senator, the brother, the son, the father, and the husband in perspective. CNN ran an HBO special, “Teddy in His Own Words,” in the review of which TV critic Mary McNamara referred to his “complicated” life.

I never thought of him as that difficult to comprehend.

Perhaps the reason some have trouble coming to terms with Ted’s uneven combination of traits is that they just expect something different from a rich, famous and politically powerful man who has been in the spotlight for a lifetime. They have this image of what the Senior Senator from Massachusetts should be – something like perfection.

When it comes to ordinary” people, most of us understand that we all have idiosyncrasies, if not outright failings, that don’t necessarily comport with others’ images of us. But when it comes to our leaders and/or heroes, we don’t expect them to be as “ordinary” as we know we are.

Mainstream America has used many words to explain him, but even before their explanations, I understood all too well: Edward Moore Kennedy was human.

While I am generally hesitant to point to race, I think it does factor into my viewpoint. As African Americans, we generally appreciate frankness, or at least disdain inauthenticity. We assume everyone has a skeleton in the closet, and understand that that skeleton might still have a little flesh on it.

We know he was the baby boy in a large and accomplished family, a peculiar burden. We know he was a chunky kid like our “first black President,” Bill Clinton, and that both were probably really excited to find that women would be attracted to them.

We know others like him who acknowledge, if not exactly apologize for, their mistakes. (Wives: think husbands.) We know competitors who would take on anybody, including an incumbent president from his own party. We like it when someone has the courage to stand up for what he believes in. We accept that he drank, ran women, and drove his wife crazy, but we also know at least one other person who could teach a course on the subject. Typically, we give prominent people a little more room for error, and we forgive more quickly.

I also believe we have a different perspective on family tragedies.

People continually highlight Ted as the only son to die of natural causes. While saddening, I never found such events remarkable because similar tragedy besets innumerable African American families. I have lost relatives to motor vehicle accidents, drug overdose, murder, and suicide. One cousin died a slow and excruciating death from Agent Orange exposure in Vietnam. A couple others died due to untreated disease when medical care was readily available. I always assumed that tragic death came with the territory for large and male-dominated families. The AP story after Teddy’s death described his clan as idealistic and reckless; I eulogized my father and his brothers as fearless and rambunctious. Folks die early that way.

The late Sen. Kennedy also reminds me of a former pastor. The pastor was a brilliant orator who studied the Bible with abandon and delivered sermons that didn’t so much preach and teach the gospel as they did put it in perspective for daily living. His gifts were such that we’d often sit in the pews with our mouths open during services, then rush home to study the Bible because his messages made us eager to learn more.
On the other hand, he could be gruff, aloof, and was an accused, though not proven, thief and lecher. Our spiritual growth under his tutelage was priceless; the sense of betrayal we felt in the end was costly to our collective and individual psyches.

From this pastor, I learned that God uses imperfect people, and that if we expect to take advantage of the good that one offers, we have to live with the bad as well. It was a painful but immensely valuable lesson that I have since applied to many, including Teddy.

Janice Allen Jackson is a Charlotte resident, member of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church, freelance writer and management consultant.
 

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