How Black Leaders Fail Us
Brown versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person’s problem. We’ve got to take the neighborhood back. We’ve got to go in there. Just forget telling your child to go to the Peace Corps. It’s right around the corner. It’s standing on the corner. It can’t speak English. It doesn’t want to speak English. I can’t even talk the way these people talk: “Why you ain’t where you is go ra?” I don’t know who these people are. And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk. Then I heard the father talk. This is all in the house. . . . Where did these people get the idea that they’re moving ahead on this. Well, they know they’re not; they’re just hanging out in the same place, five or six generations sitting in the projects when you’re just supposed to stay there long enough to get a job and move out.
—Bill Cosby, Address to the NAACP on the 50th Anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, 20041
Somebody had to say it. And it was Bill Cosby. It was a deep and profound commentary on the black community taking responsibility for their families and lives. His concern wasn’t about being politically correct. Rather, he was commenting on the deterioration of the black family, and teens. He took considerable heat from friends and foes alike for his comments. He faced a public backlash because he effectively said that good dads make their children’s lives better and that fathers need to step up to the plate.
It is a sad commentary on our society that speaking the truth can be so challenging. It was a statement that many had been afraid to make. And it shouldn’t have to be that way. A white person would never be able to express him or herself in this way even if it was from the heart because it would be dismissed as discriminatory. He would be labeled as antiblack for even raising the issue. And a black man, even one with the stature of Bill Cosby, was criticized as effectively being a traitor to his own people. Somehow people thought that if Cosby remained quiet, if we kept our dirty little secrets in the closet, life would somehow be better for the black community.
Seriously, is this the way we solve our problems? Cosby’s commentary on the need for the family unit, education, and employment is a no-brainer. How could it be that someone like him could be so harshly criticized because he took such a commonsense approach to the ups and downs of daily life? Would those critics rather have heard him say, “Hey it’s okay that black children are often raised by their mothers alone”? Or that “male role models really have no effect”? I’m glad that Bill Cosby set the record straight and challenged the politically correct community that polices our speech. I wish more people spoke up.
I think the language and behavior of young black children and teens today is very concerning. But for them and for society as a whole, it is very sad. There has been a steady erosion of basic language communication skills. The way you hear these children speak is not proper English, and the slang that is used will certainly not help them get a job in the future.
You hear it everywhere too. Have you listened to rap music over the past ten years? It’s violent, disrespectful, and full of vulgar language. But it’s not just in music; it’s because of music videos, computer games, television, and the movies that this generation is not learning basic social skills.
And none of the traditional black leaders are doing anything meaningful about it. Not at school, not at home, not among leadership. Have you ridden a city subway lately and listened to gaggles of teens dropping the F-bomb and using the N-word? If you dare suggest someone curb his offensive language or improve his pronunciation, you are labeled a racist. As if the English language and race were somehow reflective of one another. Isn’t that ridiculous?
As we know, first impressions are lasting and people are not only judged by their looks but also by the first words that come out of their mouths. Basic communication skills are necessary to get ahead. One needs to be able to express oneself in almost any job. Bill Cosby wasn’t just talking about improving our use of the English language; he was talking about the betterment of a community. It would be tragic if an individual had great potential but was being held back because no one wanted to hire a receptionist who couldn’t form a proper sentence.
You’d think the education system would help stop this slide into oblivion. But frankly, it’s contributing to the problem. This is especially true in urban communities, where failing public schools are not providing the basics of reading and writing.
RiShawn Biddle is the editor of Dropout Nation. In 2010, he wrote about the deterioration of our children’s reading levels and the impact it has on their lives. Literacy in the country is a huge problem—53 percent of black fourth graders haven’t developed age-appropriate reading skills. They test below basic proficiency. In this country, 1.3 million students drop out of school and 6 million more just sit in special education classes not advancing—the percentage of boys is greater than that of girls without reading skills.2 And you know what happens when children can’t read: They end up in those special education classes that aren’t helping and they develop long-term disciplinary problems.
Having served as a board member with the Opportunity Charter School in Harlem, New York, I’m well aware of cases where students are labeled as “special needs” by the public school. The truth is most of them are not special needs students but simply students who never learned how to read.
If students can’t read, they don’t graduate. They don’t get jobs. They have low self-esteem and sometimes end up on the wrong side of the law because of it.
Part of the reason the cycle continues is that children need help at home to get started in reading. They need encouragement and support. They need to understand it is more important than the video games their friends play after school. But in impoverished single-parent households, sometimes the parent can’t read or is working two or three jobs and are not present to make learning a priority. Couple that with the fact that some teachers in this country are subpar and not prepared for classroom work, and you understand why we are facing this crisis.
Previous federal administrations have tried to address the literacy rates—but even the most recent, George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act of 2001, didn’t make a meaningful impact. Most national programs fail to stick. Obama is approaching the problem by spending $100 million in grants to research why teachers can’t get through to their students and improve reading skills.3 A $100 million grant to study why teachers are failing black Americans? How about $100 million for mentors and teachers? This is the typical big government approach to public education that Obama and his administration have endorsed. Don’t resolve a problem. Throw money, lots of money, at it. Then you can say you are working on it without having to really do anything about it.
Outside the classroom and the home, there’s another negative influence. I understand that technology has come into our lives like a storm and that some children learn to turn on a computer before they even learn to write. But this culture of texting and Tweeting is crushing our children’s minds: C U LTR. BRB. LOL. That’s not language. And many of them don’t see the difference. Using “U R” instead of “you are” seems commonplace to many. Our students think this is appropriate and they now use it when communicating with others. And you see it everywhere: on their school assignments, in their communications with employers.
And now we have some people suggesting we embrace this and just get rid of cursive handwriting all together. How can that be a positive move for these already language-challenged children who aren’t getting encouraged at home or school? Many employers and lots of organizations still communicate with cursive writing—not texting. Explain to me how an office could hire a student who can only read noncursive writing?
A parent website called parentdish.com did a report quoting teachers who explained that cursive is a tool that helps children learn to read and communicate. The problem is that these children, who would normally be learning as early as third or fourth grade how to read and write cursive, don’t even recognize it because they’re programmed to read block letters on computers. The long-term implications of speaking in condensed text can’t be good. There needs to be more discussion in this area.4
Worse, I believe, was the big controversy when Oakland, California, pushed for Ebonics in schools in the mid-1990s. A resolution was passed there to allow it to be used in the classroom as a tool. Ebonics is what’s mostly referred to as the black vernacular. There are proponents suggesting that speaking and teaching children in the “native tongue” would actually help them learn. Can you believe that? What are they suggesting—that Ebonics is a language? Which employer is going to let them use it to meet with clients? Ebonics is a kind of slang, broken English that is not only tolerated among educators, but also suggested that it be used as an accepted form of language. In Oakland, California, in 2008, educators went so far as to propose Ebonics be used as a second language.5
I agree with Bill Cosby that parents and educators shouldn’t allow the deterioration of language. How can children prepare themselves for a life outside of their poor neighborhoods and poorly run public schools if they can’t even string a sentence together?
And whom can we hold accountable for this?
Clearly there’s a lot of blame to go around. President Obama has inherited this mess after decades of decline. However, with a background as a community activist in Chicago, he should have been personally aware of the failed consequences of big government policies to solve the multitude of problems facing inner-city blacks. His efforts are only going to perpetuate the ongoing tragedy. Why work hard in school? The government will take care of you, feed you through food stamps, and give you free health care. Instead of promoting policies to encourage personal responsibility and independence, Obama’s policies will sadly drive more Americans to the government plantation.
The lack of language skills, second-rate education, and poor parenting are creating an environment whereby young adults lack respect for others. And they don’t care about their behavior—they do what they want, there are no consequences. Contributing to this attitude are the online videos that go viral involving young black men and women, of a fight or individuals being verbally disrespectful to someone. Life cannot be about what is captured on those videos. They don’t give context or background. Young children see these images and think this behavior is somehow normal or acceptable. It just is not the case.
Two powerful examples come to mind: The first took place at a McDonald’s in Maryland in April 2011. A fourteen-year-old girl and her eighteen-year-old friend allegedly targeted a twenty-two-year-old transgendered person and inflicted an unwatchable beating. The only person who made an attempt to stop the madness was an elderly lady while a McDonald’s employee took the video. By the time the police responded, the victim was in the midst of what appeared to be a seizure. What would trigger such animalistic behavior—by girls, no less? What kind of upbringing results in this kind of behavior? What messages are they getting that suggest to them this behavior is okay and they will not suffer any consequences? Their actions will cost them as charges were filed.6
Around the same time, there was a video that garnered national attention. It was of a fight on the New York City subway over spaghetti. It’s difficult to tell exactly where or how the brawl began, but essentially two black teens are sitting across the aisle from a white woman. One of the teens is eating her lunch. Somewhere along the way, the woman asks “What kind of animal eats spaghetti on the train?” Clearly this is an offensive comment. But was it worth a fight? The altercation ended in fists and pushing, with other subway riders pleading with the young girls to stop and to just calm down. Thank goodness a black man stepped in to help the white woman or someone might have had to call an ambulance.7
On a personal level, I understand from my own experiences how problems at home can negatively affect a child’s behavior and education. While I was growing up, my parents separated several times. As a result, I acted out with anger and frustration. I got in a few fights in middle school, I gave my teachers a hard time, and my grades suffered. But luckily I was disciplined at school and at home for my actions. I learned the hard way how not to behave.
Thank goodness I was able to turn my life around and not let the family issues drag me down. Unfortunately, today, far too many children don’t get the tough love that I needed and received.
My outbursts were nothing like what we are witnessing today.
Sadly, the world has changed. What we’re seeing now is a rudderless group of kids coming out of these poor communities with little leadership. There seem to be no mentors or people to guide them. Where are the role models? Where are the leaders for these black teens?
There is a significant lack of discipline in the home these days too, which is a major part of the problem. In a lot of broken homes, there are children raising children or even raising themselves, because they live in a single-parent household. The parent is working more than one job and there’s no face time or interaction for the parent to really know what’s going on with his or her children. This is part of the reason why so many disadvantaged children are not doing well in school—yes there are public schools that are failing our children but there’s also, in many cases, no accountability on the parent’s or child’s part regarding discipline and responsibility.
Parents can’t stay on the sidelines. They must get involved and stay involved on a regular basis. They need to be responsible and know where their children are, what they are doing and with whom they associate. It’s the parents’ responsibility to make sure the children are properly educated, disciplined and good citizens in their communities in order to prepare them for the future. Otherwise where are the children going to end up? The cycle of dependency will just continue.
Due to the lack of a nuclear family it is especially important for black children to have positive role models. We need more of them. And I don’t mean a handful. I mean hundreds of thousands of members of the black community need to step up the plate. Oprah Winfrey is a great role model for black children—she has a real rags to riches story that can inspire and encourage the struggling youth. But speaking of Oprah: I firmly believe she should be leading the charge on issues such as school choice. Shouldn’t she step up now with her time and money? It’s good that Oprah built a school for girls in South Africa but what about giving back in the country that made her a billionaire? Chicago is on fire with flash mobs and crime. Why can’t Oprah lead a surge of school choice reform? While money is important she has made significant donations to charter schools—but that is nothing compared to what Oprah could achieve if she put the power of her voice behind school choice. The $6 million she reportedly gave to charter schools is not nearly enough. Perhaps she is taking a passive role on school choice because she might face the wrath of the established liberal front groups, NAACP, teachers unions and alienate her close relationship with President Obama and other liberal friends. Taking a leadership role and the ensuing controversy might also cost her some of her followers and harm Oprah’s business interests. Trust me I know the consequences of standing tall for liberty and I’m not a billionaire!
As I mentioned earlier, for years I volunteered for the Opportunity Charter School in Harlem serving on the Board of Trustees. I gave my time because I wanted to make a difference in this world. I don’t just talk a good game of “Yes we can,” rather I say, “Yes, I do.” I saw firsthand the difference we made if we just gave children a chance—children who are already in an environment where they’re set up for failure. These kids come from public schools that aren’t meeting their needs. I volunteered my time because I wanted to help.
The school has very limited space because it shares space with a public school. There are hundreds of wait-listed kids who would really benefit from what the school offers because the education there is tailored to the child’s needs. So if a child needs more attention in one area, he or she gets it. It’s not formulaic—they’re all taught on individual levels. The school starts at the sixth grade level. And sadly, there are kids who show up unable to read, because they’re not learning in the public schools. It is hard for me to understand why the teachers, students, and parents are not accountable in some public schools. All the money that’s been thrown at public education, yet we still have kids who can’t read. Infusions of cash will not fix this broken system and the test scores are flat. You have kids coming in from low-income homes, whose parents can’t afford private schools, and the public schools are failing to meet their needs.
I was at a fund-raising event in New York tapping private donors. We called it a “friend-raiser”—reaching out to individuals to introduce them to the school. I met a young man, who looked to be about sixteen and he really impressed me. He was enrolled in our school and he was a far cry from your typical teen. He’d never been to an event like this before and he was having a great time. It was cute to watch. The event was in a board member’s home—a Park Avenue apartment—a part of town this kid had never seen. The size and grandeur of the home, and even the food being served, was completely foreign to him.
He told me about his days at school before coming to the charter school. He described his previous schools as noisy and full of kids that didn’t listen. He said his routine now, which requires him to walk single file in the halls and in uniform, is completely different. He was really happy to be a part of this environment. He truly likes going to school now. And the great thing—he wants to go to college. I’m not convinced he’d have even thought about that had he stayed in the public school system. It was rewarding to see that this is what we can accomplish if we put our minds to it. Breaking this cycle of dependency can be done if we make a commitment to try new strategies and work hard at it.
In 2011, New York City lawmakers cut the city school budget by 3.42 percent or $271 million. But it isn’t about the money as much as it is about how we use it. How do we best spend it? And here is the rub—we aren’t making very good choices. In fact, we are making downright bad ones. As the New York Daily News reports, although these cuts were made “lawmakers also added $14.3 million in teacher pork for union-backed teacher centers.”8
It’s hard to understand the power of these unions and why they are interested more in protecting their overpaid and under-functioning staff than they are in protecting the students themselves. I’m aware of the challenges these kids face. Children shouldn’t have to deal with this—no regular decent meals, no study facilities, and gang members approaching and hassling them. They come from single-parent homes and in many cases the parent works several jobs. Their reality is incarceration or the early death of loved ones. A tailored and caring school environment is the only chance these children have at a shot at a better life. Parents need choice despite what the NAACP says. This organization works together with (or is in the pocket of) the teachers’ unions. In New York in 2010, the NAACP along with teachers’ unions sued the city because nineteen failing schools were going to be shut down. The NAACP and the teachers’ unions won and those failing schools remained open. They won and the bad schools survived.9 The NAACP was at it again in 2011 suing to keep failing schools open. Who loses? The kids. Obama’s girls certainly attend an elite school. Obama had a good education himself. He had the tools for success, but he’s holding other parents hostage.
Bottom line: We should be using the voucher system, creating school choice, and creating online charter school options. We need to create competition, not complacency in the way schools are run. It’s common sense. Monopolies are bad for consumers so it’s reasonable that governments that run monopolies in education are also bad. With this type of system, there are few incentives for teachers to go above and beyond their basic duties to meet the needs of individual students and there’s little accountability for failure.
A system absent of incentives works against both the teacher and the student. Competition brings out the entrepreneurial spirit and innovation in all fields. In the business world competition motivates and spurs innovation. In education competition would do the same. Importantly, increasing choice and competition have shown to increase student test scores across the nation.
So why is achieving competition in education so difficult?
Tragically, special-interest groups have rallied to block school choice efforts around the country. The teachers’ unions that look out for the teachers (and not the students) want to promote their own interests. In some cases, groups like the NAACP lend their support for these unions.
Why would the NAACP want to restrict attempts to improve the education of hundreds of thousands of black children?
Union leaders want to maintain power and control. Their agenda is to reap in dues that are used to help elect progressive politicians. Once elected, the politicians return the favor by rewarding the unions with unsustainable benefits. It’s a vicious cycle that bloats our budgets, raises our taxes, and keeps a stranglehold on the educational system. Union bosses are looking out for themselves and not the best interest of the children.
The NAACP, a once venerable group is now trying to paint the Tea Party movement as a racist movement. This is the same NAACP that beat back state-sponsored segregation in the landmark Brown v. Board of Education case heard at the United States Supreme Court in 1954. Once, the NAACP fought for equality. Now, the NAACP seems to be fighting to keep failing schools open and deny black children in low-income households an opportunity to obtain a quality education.
In Washington DC the NAACP, along with teacher unions, successfully lobbied the Senate to end the District’s Opportunity Scholarship Program, a voucher-based system, initiated in 2003. It had awarded funding to approximately thirty-three hundred students to attend a school of their choice in order to improve their education. Although President Obama’s daughters attend an elite school that will prepare them for a bright and successful future, Obama had no problem with denying educational opportunities for other black children.
To solve this educational emergency we need to take immediate steps to make a difference in children’s lives to give them a chance to succeed. Every day we wait is another day we fail our children and our nation. There is no quick national fix. We need to do it locally, neighborhood by neighborhood, school by school. As Albert Einstein once said, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Children and parents held hostage on educational choice need to be liberated. The cycle of dependency must be broken. The black community can no longer continue like this. It’s time we break the insanity of government-run schools and move forward with school choice.
School choice will empower parents and free those children currently enslaved in failing public schools so that they can obtain the skills that are necessary to have a bright and successful future.
If the public school system worked, I wouldn’t advocate a change. But it doesn’t work. And we are being strangled by the teachers’ unions to block change in order to promote their pension plans. Dropouts, reading levels, and the violence all tell me that this is a failed system that can’t be fixed. We need to move on, and do it now.
There is some good news to report—the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program was a top priority for John Boehner when he became speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives and the House passed a bill initially authored by Boehner called the SOAR Act, reauthorizing the voucher program. In putting children first and not taking any chances, Boehner was successful in funding the voucher program via the 2011 budget.
How ironic that the white guy from Ohio had to press the first black president to give black kids in the District of Columbia real hope and change.
Here’s what I demand of leaders with clout: Make an effort—especially when it comes to educating the children. Let’s demand this not only of politicians. How about black icons in other parts of society—entertainment, sports, industry—why are they not standing up for school choice and other causes? We owe this to our future generation. If only Oprah would seize the moment and shake the shackles of liberal politics she could do more for the black community than the first black president. I urge successful blacks like Oprah to communicate to the black community how truly exceptional it is to be American. The free market system worked for her. Through hard work and perseverance she was able to transcend her humble beginnings and personal hardships into one of the most powerful and wealthy women in the world. She needs to encourage young blacks to follow her lead.
Looking back at my voting record, I have to say that I voted for Democrats early on in my life, because my parents did. I thought a black woman in America was supposed to do so. I was influenced by the standard publications that the black community read at that time. It was always Jet and Ebony and there was an obvious slant to everything I read. There were always positive discussions about the left-leaning blacks like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. That was the only exposure I had to black politicians too.
At around the age of twenty, I decided to move from my parents’ home. It was time for me to grow up and start to take responsibility for myself. Before I left home, I worked two jobs—one for the Department of Motor Vehicles and one in retail at night. I started to really crave more in life than what my hometown offered. But I am not convinced everyone has that yearning because they are not exposed to what other opportunities are available to them. So they just stay and do what some of their relatives do and gloss over the standard black community material they are given.
I was the first person in my family to get a university degree. I moved away from the life I’d grown to know, away from the local traditions, and I learned a lot. I started reading different things. I was exposed to debates on public policy and alternative discussions. I really encourage young people to just read, step outside of the box that they have been locked into. Black families don’t have to vote for black politicians or only Democrats. You can really open your heart and mind and hear and learn other ideas that are out there and worthwhile. There are leaders out there worth listening to and hearing and deciding for oneself if they’re worth supporting. Status quo is not the answer. Just because someone is black doesn’t mean they have your interest at heart.
It helped me too because once I was out there on my own, in a big world, I didn’t fall back on any theory that I was owed anything at all. I never played the race card at my job. In contrast, look at Obama. He’s the first to insinuate that the reason for the uprising in the Tea Party is to get the black president out of office.
A book out called Family of Freedom: Presidents and African Americans in the White House by Kenneth T. Walsh reveals a candid conversation with Obama about race in which Obama says he doesn’t want to be thought of as a black president and that he is president to all people. He said he doesn’t really think about his race, he has too many other things to think about.
But here is the contradiction. Obama does acknowledge race is an issue. Walsh writes:
In May 2010, [Obama] told guests at a private White House dinner that race was probably a key component in the rising opposition to his presidency from conservatives, especially right-wing activists in the anti-incumbent “Tea Party” movement that was then surging across the country. Many middle-class and working-class whites felt aggrieved and resentful that the federal government was helping other groups, including bankers, automakers, irresponsible people who had defaulted on their mortgages, and the poor, but wasn’t helping them nearly enough, he said.
A guest suggested that when the Tea Party activists said they wanted to “take back” their country, their real motivation was to stir up anger and anxiety at having a black president, and Obama didn’t dispute the idea. He agreed that there was a “subterranean agenda” in the anti-Obama movement—a racially biased one—that was unfortunate. But he sadly conceded that there was little he could do about it.
If race were really the motivation of the right, why would there be such a surge in black GOP members throwing their hats in the ring? According to the New York Times, in the 2010 midterm elections thirty-two black Republicans ran for Congress. This is the biggest surge since Reconstruction. In fact, a black Republican had not graced the house since 2003.10 Indeed, I see this surge of black conservative politicians as a broader blacklash against President Obama.
Obama’s solid support from the black community also started to slide around that time, as conservative candidates were speaking up and challenging his stranglehold on minority communities. Once holding a solid 95 percent approval rating, Obama’s numbers started to slip. Before the surge against Obama, J. C. Watts of Oklahoma and Gary Franks from Connecticut were the only black Republicans to serve in the House of Representatives since the 1930s. Watts served in the House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 and during his tenure he became the Republican Conference Chair—the fourth-highest-leadership position in the House. Franks was elected in 1990 and he served three terms.
But Obama’s policies are so extreme it is no surprise that he awoke a whole new crowd of black politicians—even in the south:
• Herman Cain of Georgia made a splash on the national scene when he decided to run for president. Known for his role as CEO and president of the once faltering company Godfather’s Pizza, which Cain pulled out of bankruptcy.
• Lieutenant Governor Jennifer Carroll of Florida represents the first black woman to hold this position, which she took starting in January 2011.
• California’s Star Parker went from welfare mother to college graduate to 2010 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives.
• Another southerner to join the scene is Angela McGlowan, who made a run in 2010 for a congressional seat.
• Princella Smith of Arkansas made that attempt as well in Arkansas’s 1st District.
• Mia Love is the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, and is the first black female mayor elected in that state. She is considering running for U.S. Congress.
And with sentiment shifting against Obama, in November 2010, for the first time in ten years, two black Republicans were elected to Congress—Florida’s Allen West and South Carolina’s Tim Scott.11
The political system really offers less political diversity among blacks. In the past, there was one answer. If you were black, you voted Democrat. No one seemed to care that the Democrats were enslaving the black population to a life of handouts and dependency. No one seemed to want to ask the tough questions. And it is very strange, as there seems to be a greater range of political opinions among white politicians. There are white socialists, moderates, and there are conservatives and libertarians. The black spectrum is very small. In fact, I attended a conservative event years ago—before I was a recognized public speaker. Some guy said to me, “What are you here for, the food?” It was in Manhattan—the high-society crowd, people with money. This guy didn’t expect to see a black face in the crowd. That’s one incident that really stuck out. So it is not just that black people think the black community should vote Democrat, white people seem to have this crazy notion too.
That lack of diversity among members of the black caucus creates many challenges in Washington. Congressman West, the only black Republican to join the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), said the organization is failing the community it’s supposed to represent:
The Congressional Black Caucus cannot continue to be a monolithic voice that promotes these liberal social welfare policies and programs that are failing in the Black community, that are preaching victimization and dependency, that’s not the way that we should go . . . and those are not the types of principles that my mother and father raised me with in the inner city of Atlanta, Georgia.12
Republican Tim Scott declined joining the caucus because he thinks his parents would be appalled at the narrow-minded nature of the group.13
Sadly and somewhat ironically, if you judge the black community by its leadership, we are in serious trouble. It’s not just what they are doing—promoting policies that hand out cash and benefits to keep everyone on the government plantation—it’s how they use the system for themselves at a great opportunity cost to their constituents. The list of offenders reads like a who’s who of the race-baiting, self-serving, politically correct crowd.
One of the most visible and hypocritical faces in the Democratic crowd is Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of California. She’s been a powerful force as lawmakers have scrambled to hang on to the minority vote in California. Consequently, she gets excused for not so respectable behavior. Famous for advocating the use of race to earn appointments for blacks and a constant rant that black Americans are historically disadvantaged and in need of special treatment, Waters crossed the line recently. She’s always been shameless in her push for banks to loosen loan requirements for blacks, but recently she was charged after allegedly arranging a meeting between regulators and executives at a Boston based bank called OneUnited Bank. She was seeking to broker financial aid for the troubled bank. Guess what she forgot to mention? That her husband had ties to the bank and would therefore be affected financially to the tune of $350,000 if the bank were bailed out. She was charged by a House investigative panel, cited with ethics violations, all on the heels of her pal Charles Rangel’s fall from grace.14 Waters was charged with three counts of providing improper assistance, denied any wrongdoing and, like Rangel, sought an open trial before the ethics committee.
I’m not saying, by the way, that some white politicians aren’t corrupt. They are. But collectively, there is a long list of lawbreakers whose communities really need their help. Their constituents’ blind loyalty and no political competition keep them in power despite the miserable condition of their neighborhoods. While it’s never acceptable for any elected official to abuse their power, it’s somehow worse when the self-dealing comes at the expense of a low-income community.
Michigan is one of those states that will struggle for a long time to climb out of the recession. It was hit hard. That’s why Democratic Representative John Conyers’s misuse of government funds in 2010 to put his son in a Cadillac Escalade was even more despicable. The taxpayers funded the car, but Conyers tried to sneak the money back into the kitty—waiting until Christmas Day in the hope it would go unnoticed in the news cycle. The Hill reported that Conyers wrote a check to the federal government for his son’s car, which belonged to the Conyers congressional office.
“Conyers, the outgoing chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, said his son’s use of the vehicle was inappropriate and pledged to reimburse the government.” House members can pay for and use cars for business, but Conyers’s son was using it for personal use, which is forbidden.15 He was the subject of an ethics committee investigation for questionable use of office resources in 2006.
Conyers’s wife, Monica, was given a thirty-seven-month sentence for bribery involving the city of Detroit. She accepted $60,000 in bribes from a company attempting city council influence.16, 17 Conyers himself was again under the ethics microscope for writing a letter to the Environmental Protection Agency allegedly on behalf of his wife, who has financial ties to a businessman who would have benefited from a positive decision from the EPA.18
Louisiana has dealt with its share of corruption. Former U.S. Representative William Jefferson was convicted in 2007. The feds caught him with a two-year sting operation. They used unmarked bills, to the tune of $90,000, which he stashed in his freezer. I guess it gives new meaning to the expression cold cash! He was charged in federal court with bribery, money laundering, wire fraud, and racketeering.19
Even when convicted, these guys play the much-over-used race card to explain away their poor choices. Maxine Waters did. She claimed the ethics committee was racially biased. Jefferson’s advocates did too. The CBC cried race with regards to the federal investigation in which Jefferson was caught on tape taking a bribe. The CBC suggested a white congressman wouldn’t have gotten any heat for getting caught on tape taking a $100,000 bribe. The CBC insinuated, even though the FBI found the cash in his freezer, that Jefferson was targeted because he was black.20
By using race to defend the indefensible, the CBC is showing its true color and it’s not black. It’s the color of arrogance, entitlement, and invincibility that is not race based but bred from years of not being held accountable for their actions.
I also think black leaders are at fault for losing focus, which contributes, in my opinion, to the deterioration of an already struggling community.
There was a Pepsi commercial that came out right around the beginning of 2011. Let me remind you of the environment at that time: The jobless rate was at around 10 percent. The economy hadn’t recovered from 2007–08 recessionary times. Energy prices were creeping up. And yet, when there was an innocent enough Pepsi Max commercial, which showed a black woman flip out on her husband while they’re sitting on a park bench when a white female jogger smiles and waves at the husband, black lawmakers sprang into action.
Never miss an opportunity to throw the race card to get some media attention must be the top play in the black congressional playbook. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas took on the ad with zeal, calling it “demeaning” on the House floor. She said the ad shouldn’t have run during African American history month and that it was insulting to women. Was it really necessary to take on that issue? Is this what the elected officials should be involved in when the country is struggling to gain its economic footing? Weren’t there more important issues for Representative Jackson Lee to get behind that more significantly represented her constituents?21
This next example is a little confusing, but let me explain it and you can form your own opinion. It’s race-baiting gone awry. In 2009, when the Obama administration was handing out stimulus like it was candy, many Republican leaders stood up and tried to show fiscal conservatism. The then governors of Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina were considering saying no to a chunk of the $787 billion up for grabs at the time. Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina held a press conference. Here’s some of what he said about these four states:
It’s kind of interesting, because there’s a colored thread that ran through that . . . the governor of Louisiana expressed opposition. Louisiana has the highest African-American population in the country. The governor of Mississippi expressed opposition. The governor of Texas and the governor of South Carolina—these four governors represent states that are in the proverbial black belt. That particularly insulted me.
Clyburn said he considered states refusing the stimulus money a slap in the face to African Americans, though he later backpedaled the slight to say it may not have been an intentional slap. In an interview he explained that the stimulus money was greater for poverty areas and that by turning it down, these governors were ignoring those who lived in the poorer areas.22
Too many of us are living on the government plantation. Too many of us are living in poverty. Making matters worse, Obama is driving many more of us to a life of government dependence and servitude to legions of bureaucrat masters. We will be trapped in never-ending poverty by the false promises of government security that sap us of independence, ensuring that the cycle of subservience continues. We have to take responsibility for ourselves and get ourselves out. Person by person we need to get out of the twenty-first-century cotton fields and integrate ourselves into modern society with independent thought and self-reliant action.
It would go a long way if we had some leadership to help us along the way. It would be nice if elected officials weren’t spending so much time lining their own pockets. It would be nice if they made the black community a priority for reform rather than a justification for reelection.
But given the failure of black leadership in government, let’s start to look elsewhere. Business, community, Hollywood, and sports have any number of black men and women that could step up to the plate and be leaders. Maybe they don’t all support the Tea Party movement. Maybe they have other political leanings. But the black community needs new figures to step up to the plate and take leadership for helping today’s black youth prepare for tomorrow’s society. They can do it in schools, on the basketball court, or through their businesses. I am not saying black leaders all need to see the world exactly the same way. Rather I am saying that they can each make a difference in their own way. If these individuals would simply look at the tools they used to rise to the top of their respective field and apply those learnings to the broader black community, we could turn the corner and get on the path to social achievement and advancement. Imagine what change that could bring.