The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)
failed to step up to the plate - to act as the
legislators that folks voted them into office to
be. Only Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney
broke the Pelosi-invoked boycott. She attended
every session, and made good use of the
experience, challenging the administration’s
witnesses every step of the way. The rest of the
Black Caucus abstained from the hearings except
for the occasional appearance of New Orleans Black
Rep. William Jefferson, who, as a representative
of the affected region, was given a pass by
Pelosi.
Collectively, the CBC abdicated any
semblance of leadership. They failed to make use
of the forum in which the New Orleans debacle was
being discussed. Why? Because they collectively
had nothing to say. And, as a body, they deferred
to the Minority Leader, Nancy Pelosi, who had
decided that Katrina was not something that the
Black Caucus should bother their minds about. She
ordered them to boycott the Katrina hearings, and
CBC chairman Mel Watt (NC) obliged her. Only
Cynthia McKinney did her job, on our behalf.
So this is not a commentary
about the minutia of legislation that has been
introduced under the signatures of various Black
congresspeople. None of it is going anywhere,
anyway. It is about Black leadership, and its
failings in the wake of the Katrina crisis. Black
congressional leadership been has been dragged
around by the nose by Nancy Pelosi and the rest of
the white folks who are indebted to corporations.
They showed their true colors on the Iraq War,
when only Cynthia McKinney, out of the whole Black
Caucus, voted for the Murtha bill that called for
an immediate
exit. The Congressional Black
Caucus left sister Cynthia out to dry on that one,
too. She was the only CBC member to vote for the
bill.
We have a dysfunctional Black
Caucus. It cannot cope with the biggest crisis
that has befallen our people…ever. A whole Black
city wiped off the face of the map. Yet the CBC
allows itself to be manipulated into towing the
party line - a white line - based on the logic of
a bunch of white consultants who are in search of
some mythical white American heartland. That’s not
where we live.
White folks live somewhere else. In
their world, it is in the Democratic Party’s
interest to find middling ground - which we don’t
live on. So they speak to the middling grounders,
who only exist in their minds.
What we must do is address our own
concerns, and not become confused by the verbiage
that has nothing to do with us. It is clear that
our congresspersons have drunk too much of that
wine. They are drunk on somebody else’s power -
but it’s not ours.
It
is in times of crisis that people show what they
really have, and are actually about. Nobody but
our congressional representatives can make
billions of dollars move. That’s their job, the
only reason that we bother to put them in office.
But, instead, they posture and primp and don’t go
to the hearings where they should be making our
case, speaking our position.
Obviously, we need a new leadership.
That Cynthia McKinney should be so isolated does
not reflect badly on her - it shows the true
nature of what we have accepted as the Black
leadership class. They cannot fix their mouths to
say that they are against the Iraq War, and they
cannot bring themselves to make any case on our
behalf, even when a whole city - New Orleans - was
taken away from us. If the CBC cannot rise to that
occasion, it is
worthless.
