Why Black Leadership Continues to Fail Black America

"Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. He's white and the caucus is black. It's time to move on. We have racial policies to pursue and we are pursuing them, as Mr. Cohen has learned. It's an unwritten rule. It's understood." - Rep. William Lacy Clay, Jr. (D-MO)

The above quote from c.2006 is what Rep. William Clay had to say about Rep. Steve Cohen, Tennessee's 1st Jewish congressman representing a district that has a 60%+ black constituency. Rep. Cohen wanted to help the black cause. He was rejected because he's white. Blantant, overt racism. If you want to know why the current African-American experience is so horrible in America you need only look at the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) to find the leading clues.

By a tragic coincidence, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) was founded by several non-colored people including Lillian Wald (German Jew) and Henry Moskowitz (Romanian Jew). The NAACP was incorporated in 1911 with the following charter:

To promote equality of rights and to eradicate caste or race prejudice among the citizens of the United States; to advance the interest of colored citizens; to secure for them impartial suffrage; and to increase their opportunities for securing justice in the courts, education for the children, employment according to their ability and complete equality before law.

Furthermore, for decades the organization was overwhelmingly non-black and mostly Jewish. In fact, it didn't elect its first black president until 1975! Its first president was Moorfield Storey a supporter of the National Democratic Party, which was essentially anti-Democratic Party organization (i.e., Republican by modern standards.) You'll also note that although non-blacks played a pivotal and overwhelming role in the history of the NAACP only one, Mary White Ovington, is given prominent billing on its historical web page. That is not by happenstance.

I provide this historical context to make the following statement. Both the NAACP and the CBC are governing over a failing black America because the success of black Americans is neither in their goals or their self-interests. For that matter, you can include National Action Network (Al Sharpton's group) the Rainbow PUSH Coalition (Jesse Jackson's group.)

How can I possibly say that with such confidence? Because they are organized not to achieve or strive for success for all black Americans. Rather, they are organized to achieve liberal/collectivist perceptions of what is best for a subset of black Americans. It's the only way that Tavis Smiley can respond to a question about the status of black Americans under the Obama administration with a straight face and say "...the data is going to indicate, sadly, that when the Obama administration is over black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator on that regard the president ought to be held responsible..." and can continue to say "I respect the president, I will protect the president."

Another indication is CBC Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) saying "If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House." He was speaking of the nearly 17% unemployment rate for blacks.

One concrete example they are ignoring the advancement of colored people is their hostility towards school vouchers. There have been numerous polls suggesting that the overwhelming majority of blacks support school vouchers. This is understandable because of tragically broken public school systems all over the nation, and especially in the South. However, the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) are adamantly against school vouchers. Both the NEA and AFT give almost all their political donations to either support Democrats who oppose school vouchers or oppose Republicans who support school vouchers. Studies suggest that school voucher programs help to educate blacks and move them on to higher education.

Despite this evidence that school vouchers help advance black youths (and for that matter youths of all minority groups) can you guess the stance of the organizations that purport to help blacks? The NAACP, CBC, NAN and PUSH are all opposed to school voucher programs. All of these supposedly black organizations are actually for the advancement of the Democratic Party and its associated support groups like the NEA and AFT.

And its not just education where these organization differ from the black community's desires. When California's Proposition 8 providing that "only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California" was passed, 70% of blacks voted for it. All of the above black organizations are for gay marriage. (Full disclosure: I support gay marriage.)

In order to fix the problems in the black community from a political standpoint, the NAACP, CBC, NAN and PUSH need to take suggestions from the country's most successful civil rights lobby group. The National Rifle Association which is constantly ranked among the most powerful lobby organization in Washington D.C. each year. This organization is successful for two major reasons. Primarily, its members have what is commonly called skin in the game. They have a vested interest in making sure the 2nd Amendment - and thus citizen firearm ownership - adhere to "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Think of the fable regarding the chicken and the pig regarding breakfast.

A Pig and a Chicken are walking down the road.
The Chicken says: "Hey Pig, I was thinking we should open a restaurant!"
Pig replies: "Hm, maybe, what would we call it?"
The Chicken responds: "How about 'ham-n-eggs'?"
The Pig thinks for a moment and says: "No thanks. I'd be committed, but you'd only be involved!"

The NAACP, CBC, NAN and PUSH have that in common with the NRA. What they do incorrectly is put all of their eggs into one basket, via the Democratic Party. The NRA doesn't do this. Rather, the NRA has a very effective guiding policy to "endorse any incumbent politician who supports its positions, even if the challenger supports them as well." They know Washington D.C. protects incumbents and they don't care which party an incumbent belongs to. So no matter who's in power at any give time, the NRA holds both sides accountable for implementing their policies. The NAACP, CBC, NAN and PUSH are wholly owned subsidiaries of the Democratic Party. It can be argued the Democratic Party has so much control over blacks that they can utterly ignore their desired policies, knowing that they have nowhere else to go.

This is what the presidential architect of "The Great Society" had in mind. Lyndon B. Johnson once said "I'll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years." His plan?

"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference." — Lyndon B. Johnson (emphasis added)

I don't have definitive proof that LBJ said this. However, what followed was:

The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Economic Opportunity Act of 1964
The Food Stamp Act of 1964 (Welfare)
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965
The Higher Education Act of 1965
The Social Security Act of 1965, Title XIX (Medicaid)
The Civil Rights Act of 1968

I'm not suggesting that all of this legislation was inherently bad. In fact, much of it was good and necessary at the time. Rather, I'm positing the proposition that the intent of much of the legislation was not to fix problems in the black community. It was to have those "niggers" voting Democratic, and it worked so well that it is now commonplace to have the Democratic Party garner 90% of the black vote in almost every modern election.

Which brings us back to Tavis Smiley's realization that "...the data is going to indicate, sadly, that when the Obama administration is over black people will have lost ground in every single leading economic indicator on that regard the president ought to be held responsible..." (emphasis added). Unfortunately, Obama will not be held responsible by any of the organizations mentioned in this post. Maybe it's finally time for a change Tavis? However, I won't hold my breath because the current black power structure will never admit that things need to change. White guilt is too lucrative! Instead, the torch will pass from Obama to Hillary Clinton to continue to disappoint.