On September 22, Congressman Charles B. Rangel, who represents New York’s 15th Congressional District, attempted to incite an audience at the Congressional Black Caucus’s town hall meeting to “revolution” in response to their outrage over the Bush administration’s failure to somehow spirit each and every indigent black soul out of the path of Hurricane Katrina, willing or not.
“George Bush is our Bull Connor,” Rangel said, referencing Theophilus Eugene “Bull” Connor, the police official who, during the Civil Rights Movement, turned fire hoses and attack dogs on blacks. He added (among other absurdities and calumnies) that “if you’re black in this country, and you’re poor in this country, it’s not an inconvenience — it’s a death sentence.”
A far more cogent and convincing argument can be made that Rangel and the other CBC poverty pimps and international socialists in attendance (such as the “Reverend” Al Sharpton and former president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, Kweisi Mfume), have much more direct responsibility for the wretched condition of black New Orleans residents than President Bush — prior to and after Katrina.
Were I not all too familiar with the cesspool that is politics in New York, I would be surprised that Rangel’s Harlem constituents, who ought to be chanting for his head adorning the end of a stick, have instead repeatedly re-elected him to office for the past thirty-plus years. Such a deal he has — being handsomely paid to keep poor people poor and convinced that it’s someone else’s fault!
It is heartening, however, that the perception of these creatures as the “voice of black America” is changing. On September 23, members of the black leadership network Project 21 demanded that the CBC and Senator Hillary Clinton join with them in condemning Rangel’s remarks. “Rangel’s comments are morally vacant,” said Project 21 member Mychal Massie. “How many blacks today suffer from beatings, fire hoses or have dogs set on them for trying to seek a seat at a lunch counter or go to school?”
Indeed. It does appear to me that in a country in which young, uneducated black men can become multimillionaires selling spirit poison disguised as art with the aid of (mostly white) entrepreneurs, blacks have far, far less to complain about than in 1963. Yet, the blather of such as Rangel has become more potent and vociferous, rather than less so.
Massie added: “Rangel’s comments may play well with those who embrace ignorance, but it will not resonate with Americans who eschew racial demagoguery.” I believe this to be true, however I think that illustrating some naked truths about the machinery at work might demonstrate the dynamic behind all of this, and why these people will remain a threat to all Americans for some time to come:
• Rangel and the other plantation foremen, through their self-aggrandizement and 40-year practice of feeding at the hands of (again, largely white) “progressives,” propagated the very ignorance that essentially put the black New Orleans residents where they were.
• The abysmal ignorance of Rangel’s constituents, the hurricane victims, and millions of other Americans to varying degrees has been brought about through media propaganda and the assault on critical thinking through the educational system, in which the aforementioned creatures have had a large hand. This figures prominently in the bizarre and precarious phenomenon of the blatant extremism and hatemongering that is tolerated on the part of Americans by these divisive activists; it is analogous to white separatist organizations receiving hundreds of hours of television and radio airtime every week — and getting good press more often than not.
Without question, Rangel’s comments, as well as some of the outlandish science-fiction conspiracy theories that came out of the Katrina crisis are right up there with blacks having prehensile tails — but they are completely in character with rhetoric he and his peers proffer on a daily basis. That the media is irresponsible enough to give the Rangels of this country one nanosecond of exposure is unfortunate, but that such people continue to rise to public office is truly chilling.
I am not the first to point this out, but Bull Conner, Lester Maddox, George Wallace and other leading segregationists were members of the party affectionately known amongst black conservatives as “the slave owner’s party.” They were Democrats — the same party that tried to vote down the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
I’ll close with Rangel’s own words: “It’s time for us to be able to say that we’re sick and tired, we’re fired up and we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Amen to that. It’s time for the Americans who want to be Americans — rather than cult followers — to consign caricatures such as Rangel and his far-left friends to obscurity — or a circus, whichever proves easier.
Erik Rush is a nationally un-syndicated black columnist and author who writes “The Culture Shark,” a weekly column of political fare. An archive containing links to his work is at www.erikrush.com.
