When I saw what resulted from the meeting that Ben Jealous, Marc Morial and Rev. Al Sharpton had on Wednesday with the “first black president,” it reminded me that today was Valentine’s Day.
No, not because I "loved," or even liked, what they had to say about black-specific issues during their meeting (i.e., nothing), but rather because the outcome made me think about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, which took place on February 14, 1929. That's when seven Chicago organized crime figures were lined up against a wall and shot in the back, in a garage, on Chicago’s North Side, by a group of gangsters working for the notorious Al Capone.
Unfortunately, the poor victims didn’t suspect until the very last minute that they were in trouble, because two of the “shooters” were dressed as Chicago policemen. The way the shooters carried themselves had given the victims a false sense that they would, somehow, be alright. In the same way, we believed that the "black leaders" were actually going to the White House to represent our interests. It turns out that we were wrong. What actually happened wasn't a literal "murder," but it did, arguably, signal the figurative “death” of three major civil rights organizations, and the total discreditation of their national leaders.
While it didn’t actually happen on St. Valentine’s Day, it did take place during Black History Month and that made what transpired especially hard to take.
In short, here’s what occurred in DC: The “first black president” had finally agreed to "give a meeting" to Jealous of the NAACP, Morial of the National Urban League and Sharpton of the National Action Network. Dorothy Height, of the National Council of Negro Women, had also been invited, but she, understandably, just couldn’t “handle” the snowstorm, and didn’t participate. For those of us who had always believed that it would be a "cold day" before the president actually held a meeting to discuss black issues, there was little surprise that this event took place during a blizzard.
After all, in a period wherein the national unemployment rate is 9.7 percent, the black unemployment rate has grown to an astounding 16.2 percent, 18.2 percent for black men and 43.8 percent for black teens, as compared to 23.5 percent for white teens.
It was the NAACP, wasn’t it, that sued two major banks last March, citing systematic “institutionalized racism?" Has racism been eliminated in America since then? I must have missed it.
While we're on the subject, it is still true that black businesses participate in only about .4 percent of all gross receipts generated by U.S. businesses. In that regard, the Transportation Equity Network recently disclosed that out of $163.8 million allocated to date in direct contracts to companies for street, highway and bridge construction under the Stimulus Program, $4.7 million, or 3 percent, has been distributed to Hispanic-owned firms, but not a single dollar has been won by African-American-owned businesses.
It’s also true that the Congressional Black Caucus has become increasingly outspoken against the way in which the President’s policies consistently ignore the ongoing economic crisis across the national black community.
Disappointingly, however, a little more than an hour after the meeting commenced, the three “black leaders” emerged, stood out on the front steps of the White House in the driving snowstorm – without the president, I must point out – and lamely explained that, somehow, they had traveled all the way to Washington, in a blizzard, to NOT talk about black-specific issues. It was a pitiful sight-- the three "national leaders," standing in the snow, under just one, way-too-small umbrella held by Rev. Al Sharpton, saying, with straight faces, that their conversation with the President hadn’t really been about race, at all. Even worse, the Associated Press pointed out that the meeting also didn’t “yield immediate announcements or initiatives.”
How disappointing – no black-specific topics, nothing immediate, no initiatives.
Would Hispanic, Jewish, gay, labor or Asian advocates have come out of the White House in that storm and admitted to their followers that they hadn’t even brought up their own topics?
I don’t think so.
How, then, do you explain Jealous's announcement that they had all agreed to focus on “geographic areas, urban and rural, where assistance should be located?” How do we accept the embarrassingly transparent effort to provide even more “cover” for the President, when Jealous blurted out something about the President’s non-black-specific program being a viable one “…if Congress lets it work?”
Then, reminding us all that it probably has been a very long time since he’s actually been "on the ground “in the black community,” the president of the NAACP curiously said: “When you’re on the ground, the poor black community is the same as the poor white community.”
That’s absolutely absurd and totally untrue. There is ample evidence, in fact, that poor black people are substantially "more poor" than poor white people. As an example, only 11.2 percent of whites live below the poverty level, as compared to 24.7 percent of blacks, and the average black household earns only about 60 percent of that earned by the average white household. Does that look "the same," Mr. Jealous?
Finally, remembering that he probably should say something that might resonate with a national black audience, Jealous began to channel Jesse Jackson or Jay-Z, and said: “This is about place. It’s not about race.”
How condescending. How embarrassing.
Even more curious, neither Sharpton nor Morial were able to say anything more constructive. Sticking very closely to the White House "talking points" that must have been given out along with the Kool-Aid, Sharpton made a commitment to try to get Republican Congressional leaders to pass the President's generic, mainstream “jobs legislation."
The three "black leaders" surely must know that the “rising tide lifting all boats thing" is just the President’s entirely inaccurate and shamefully weak excuse for not focusing directly on black issues, and that the “rising tide” does not, and never has, lifted “black boats” during previous economic cycles. In 2005, for example, when the U.S. economy still appeared to be robust, when real estate values were still rising, when the equities markets were still setting records, the overall unemployment rate in America was 5.3 percent, but the black unemployment rate was exactly twice as high, at 10.6 percent.
The "tide" had clearly risen, exactly how high had the"boat" risen for black folks, then?
How can our "black leaders" say that the African-American community’s economic problems have nothing at all to do with race, and then go right back to their offices, where they get paid handsomely for advocating and creating programs to reduce racial disparities? Don’t they realize that when they say those things, they also send a message that there is no longer a need to have a NAACP or a National Urban League or a National Action Network?
Maybe the three of them have simply grown tired of being "on the outside" and have increasingly come to enjoy receiving even an empty White House invitation. Maybe it’s no more complicated than that. But if that’s true, then I have a suggestion: Maybe it’s time for the three "national black leaders" to quit – today – and to make room for new people who have the energy and the commitment to hold the government and the private sector accountable, finally, for providing a level playing field for 40 million still-largely-marginalized black people in this country.
The three "black leaders" just demonstrated that they are no longer interested in doing the job. Without question, however, someone else has to seriously accept the responsibility. This is real, and it needs to be discussed.
Oh, and before I forget … Happy Valentine's Day!
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