Bought-off Black Politicians (handy list)

[Moses]

One-fifth of the CBC are members of the DLC. These include Harold Ford, Jr. (TN), who votes against his Black Memphis constituents’ interests to better position himself for a U.S. Senate race, while hobnobbing with the good ol’ boys of the conservative Blue Dog Coalition; Artur Davis (AL), beneficiary of the 2002 corporate cash offensive that also ousted Cynthia McKinney in neighboring Georgia; David Scott (GA), possibly the most conservative-voting member of the CBC, also a 2002 Black “New Democrat”;  Gregory Meeks (NY), Juanita Millender-McDonald (CA) and James E. Clyburn (SC), an otherwise decent man who nevertheless finds it useful to co-chair his state’s DLC; and Albert R. Wynn (MD),who is proud to have “represented the Congressional Black Caucus on the [House Democratic] Caucus Democratic Leadership Council.”<br>
Wynn and Harold Ford are among the four CBC members that voted to give George Bush the War Powers he used to invade Iraq, as is Sanford Bishop (D-GA) who, although not a DLC member, shares Blue Dog Coalition membership with Harold Ford.

The ninth Black DLCer and/or Blue Dog in the Congressional Black Caucus will be leaving, shortly. Denise Majette this year begged off a rematch with Cynthia McKinney to run a doomed Senate campaign with no prospect of effective support from a state Democratic Party in complete disarray due to white defections to the GOP. McKinney won back her seat handily, in 2004.

Newly elected CBC members Gwendolynne Moore (WI), Al Green (TX) and Emanuel Cleaver (MO) are not affiliated with the DLC. Eighteen stellar Black U.S. Representatives belong to the 54-member Congressional Progressive Caucus.

With a few exceptions, the Democratic Leadership Council/Blue Dog faction of the Congressional Black Caucus are elected by overwhelming majorities of Black voters who are totally unaware of the DLC’s racist, corporate origins – or even that their representatives are members of the DLC. A Black progressive grassroots political education project of huge dimensions is clearly in order.

The Disturbing Reflection

We never stop hearing that Blacks need to seek alternatives to “the Democrats” because “the Party” ignores Black aspirations and “takes Black voters for granted.” All true; that’s the DLC’s modus operandi. But these corporate-wedded Democrats also comprise one-fifth of the Congressional Black Caucus, and include the mayors of Atlanta (Shirley Franklin), Detroit (Kwame Kilpatrick) and the disastrous, voucher-sucking, always gentrifying and constantly lying Anthony Williams, of Washington, DC.

Will Black anger at “the Democrats” lead to a deep malaise and wholesale withdrawal of African Americans from the political process? Yes, a great disengagement is likely in the absence of a practical, credible and inspirational path to African American empowerment. Is a Black political party such an alternative? “Blacks support the formation of an independent black political party in greater numbers than anytime since the Reagan years,” according to Harvard political scientists Michael Dawson and Lawrence Bobo. (See , November 18, 2004.) “In general blacks are showing strong support for an independent political agenda, based on control of black communities, which includes strong support for reparations.” But that does not necessarily translate to a practical, doable project. What is one to do with the more than 10,000 Black elected officials, nearly all of them Democrats elected by Black majorities in their localities?

The truth is, African Americans are “the Party” in the places where most of us live. In fact, African American Democrats are majorities of the Democratic Party in Louisiana, South Carolina, Georgia and Mississippi, yet allow (mostly DLC) whites to run the party machinery. In many cases, Black Democratic leaders join the DLC, themselves, with full knowledge that the faction was created to prolong the illusion that whites remain the dominant presence in “the Party.” In much of big-city America, the Black vote is the electoral party, for Democrats.

If we look around, we’ll find plenty of “Black Party” chapters already in existence. The problem is, they don’t act Black. The wrong people are in charge, including the wrong Blacks. In such cases, the formation of a new, “Black” party amounts to running away from the problem.

It’s time to look in the mirror, and clean up our own house. It’s the one that’s crumbling.

www.blackcommentator.com/116/116_cover_black_dems.html

[Moses]

This commentary originally appeared on the web site of CKLN Radio, Toronto, Canada.

When Ray Charles first performed in Paris in the 60s, the Algerians sent him a message that he was safe despite the fact that they were fighting a war against French colonialism. It's the kind of ambiguous tale that looms large in the legacy of the brilliant genre-bending artist who died last June, just missing the buzz over Ray, the recently released flick starring Jamie Foxx.

Charles may have been a musical and business genius, but on the political front it's an altogether different matter. He liked to get paid and laid – and I'm afraid he allowed this aspect of his personality to cloud his political judgment.

His best-known transgression was performing in South Africa when the United Nations-sanctioned cultural boycott was in full effect – a boycott supported by the African National Congress and all the liberation movements.

When Charles played there in 1981, the Black Consciousness Movement (of AZANIA) made it clear that they loved him but that this was not the time to appear in that racist state. The appeal didn't faze him, and as a result he faced pickets in South Africa and 15 cities in North America, including Toronto, Albany, New York City and Los Angeles.

All that the UN asked for was a simple apology and a pledge not to return to South Africa until apartheid was abolished. But Charles wouldn't utter the "sorry'' word and instead told his detractors that they could "kindly kiss the far end" of his anatomy.



Other stars got it right: Curtis Mayfield, Frank Sinatra, Tina Turner,George Benson, Eartha Kitt, Jimmy Cliff and many others.

Even Sammy Davis Jr., a card-carrying Republican, appealed to then president Ronald Reagan, one of the pariah state's greatest supporters, to reverse his position.

Charles described himself as a Hubert Humphrey Democrat, meaning a left-moderate Democrat in the parlance of the times. But when he was offered $100,000 to perform America The Beautiful at Reagan's second inaugural gala in 1985, he softened his stance on the Republicans. He had recorded a version of this patriotic song back in 1972, in the days when black activists were hostile to the symbols of American nationhood and on principle wouldn't stand up at public events when the national anthem was played.

At Reagan's celebration, Charles sang and played piano to a taped orchestral background, without a band, and he and long-time manager Joe Adams pocketed all the money. Adams was proud of the contract. When he met with Ron Wilkins of the Unity and Action Network (Los Angeles chapter) and actor Robert Hooks on the issue, Adams boasted that "for that kind of money we would have sung America The Beautiful at a Ku Klux Klan rally."

I always blamed Adams for turning the race-conscious Charles into a puddle for the Republican party. Adams had been an L.A. radio personality, entrepreneur and actor who starred in many Hollywood films, including Carmen Jones, with Lena Horne, and the original Manchurian Candidate, in which he played Frank Sinatra's psychiatrist. He managed Charles at a time when African-American artists were almost exclusively handled by Euro-Americans. So Charles made a brave choice in hiring Adams.

Still, I've come to believe over time that most of the political gaffes belonged to Charles himself. There's no other way to understand his chronic insensitivity to the dreams and desires of black America.

In the end – sadly – it appears that the "Genius of Soul" was unfailingly his own man.

Norman (Otis) Richmond is a news commentator at CKLN Radio, Toronto, Canada. CKLN’s web address is www.ckln.fm/. Mr. Richmond can be reached at [e-mail]