Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan created a stir recently when he agreed with a controversial statement made by Mexico’s president about immigrants taking low-paying jobs that even African-Americans don’t want. Speaking in Milwaukee earlier this month, Farrakhan said: “Vincente Fox was not wrong when he said the Mexican takes jobs that even Blacks in America don’t want.”

Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton accused Fox of being insensitive and flew to Mexico to tell him so in person. They met with Fox on separate days, holding their own news conference to recount their conversations with Fox. Even after the visits, Fox did not back down from his original statement. Subsequently, he supported the issuance of Mexican stamps to had stereotypical images of Black people that was far more insulting than his original statement.

Having witnessed first-hand how Farrakhan’s words have been distorted in the past, I decided to request a copy of the Milwaukee speech from the Nation of Islam. They sent me a CD and DVD of the speech overnight so I could hear Minister Farrakhan’s words for myself.

According to a recording of Farrakhan’s speech, he asked: “Why are you so foolishly sensitive when somebody is telling the truth?” He drew laughter when he told the audience, “You picked cotton so long, you don’t want to see a farm. Even if you own it, you get away from it.”

I, too, thought the Vicente Fox incident was overblown and said so in one of my regular appearances on NPR’s “New and Notes with Ed Gordon.” I agree that Fox should have been more careful in his word selection. To say that Hispanics were taking jobs that “even” Blacks don’t want, implied that as far as Americans go, one couldn’t get any lower than African-Americans. If you remove the word “even,” there’s nothing to complain about. The truth is immigrants from Mexico are taking jobs that neither Blacks nor Whites want.

Having covered civil rights leaders for more than three decades, I know that the most dangerous place on the planet is to stand between some of them and a TV camera. You take your life into your hands if you do that. Let’s be honest and state that the trips by Jackson and Sharpton to Mexico were taken, in part, to gain publicity. I don’t doubt their sincerity, but I also know their history. Most of us whisper this among ourselves, but unlike Farrakhan, don’t say it publicly.

What bothered me about their trips to Mexico was they undertook Mission Impossible just as the battle over George Bush’s next nominee to the Supreme Court was heating up. Given the choice between whether the president of Mexico used imprecise language and the selection to fill a Supreme Court vacancy, Jackson and Sharpton should have headed to Washington, not Mexico City.

This Vincente Fox fiasco points to a need for a more balanced style of national leadership. Seeing the walls of segregation crumble in my hometown of Tuscaloosa, Ala., I am not one to say that marching or street demonstrations are not still needed. But we must insist on fewer publicity gimmicks and more emphasis on the less glamorous work, such as education. We need to not only narrow the achievement gap between Blacks and Whites, but between Black males and Black females. To his credit, Hugh Price tried to steer the civil rights movement in that direction during his tenure at the National Urban League. Each of the major civil rights groups has major initiatives in education, but no group is doing enough.

Of course, there is the usual rhetoric about providing the same accolades for academic excellence that we as a community provide for athletics. One of the most effective programs is the NAACP’s ACT-SO program created by the late Vernon Jarrett. My friend Dr. Donald Suggs has a banquet each year to honor educational excellence in St. Louis and many other local groups have similar programs. But all of us need to do more. A report by the American Council on Education notes that twice as many Black women as Black men now attend college. That has enormous implications for every aspect of our community. Concentrating on keeping our young people in college and out of the criminal justice trap will be much more rewarding, in the end, than rushing to Mexico for a photo op and press conference.