I am clear that one of the primary reasons why the national news media including national Black media has given Congresswoman Maxine Waters national headlines with The Congressional Black Caucus "alleged" attack on President Barack Obama to lift his personal attention to addressing the dangerous unemployment rates facing majority Black communities. This is not the first time that The Black Caucus has taken public positions on jobs, and not the first time that Black Caucus members have presented various job creation bills. In Chicago for instance, I have seen Congressmen Bobby Rush, Danny Davis and Jesse Jackson Jr publicly tout their efforts to create jobs, and I have also attended legislative hearings from people like Illinois State representative LaShawn K Ford who just recently hosted an employment hearing to hear hours of testimony from grassroots groups that no matter what these Congressmen are doing they are on the ground and see that the poor are getting poorer and more desperate by the day. Despite the Public relations, the end result are NO JOBS.
Can Black voters in majority Black urban communities also "unleash" their frustrations on the record number of Blacks unemployed with no real plan in sight to remedy this historic and desperate situation? Can Black voters unleash on The Congressional Black Caucus for many members of the Caucus who do not champion the local job creation proposals touted by many grassroots community empowerment groups, that if supported could actually create jobs at the local and grassroots level.
As a former Chicago community organizer with Barack Obama, I remember his commitment to keeping connected with grassroots leaders to balance his public policy efforts as a community organizer as well as State and then United States senator, a practice that he has all but abandoned in the eyes of some. Many of the grassroots organizers Obama used to rely on, have had no formal relationship at all with him during his presidency feeling abandoned in the very communities of Chicago that he championed during his campaign for President. he indeed must be challenged to do better not just because he is Black and we expect more, but this is the kind of fight that we used to have with ANY U.S. President on their commitment to urban jobs.
That frustration and expectation for local job creation on the President can also be directed to the Congressional Black Caucus members themselves in having them work and hear more directly from grassroots Black public policy advocates who many of their ideas on local job creation in Black communities have fallen on deaf ears and that too must change now.
We hear from The Congressional Black Caucus on The President not responding to their urban agenda, and yet at the same time many Black grassroots public policy advocates could say the same of the Black Caucus for not working more closely in championing the local economic empowerment and job creation ideas they have promoted at the local level. The Black Caucus could be using this grassroots partnership to immediately stimulate new self-help concepts that could stimulate local job creation even as they challenge the President at his level to address the Black and poor.
The President and Congressional black Caucus are about to participate in the upcoming national monument tribute to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, BUT outside of all the symbolism and "feel good" quotes of Dr. King, I have not heard The President or The Congressional Black Caucus suggest that this dedication will actually inspire us to go out nationally and re-ignite Dr. king's own last efforts in life of his Operation Breadbasket and Poor People's Campaign. If we are celebrating the life and legacy of Dr. King but why are we not challenging the country and respective local communities to re-engage in Dr. King's last community economic empowerment initiatives that could stimulate immediate local job and business creation in those local communities.?
The Congressional Black Caucus can use their collective power and influence to make all of our collective Black communities recognize also that we are in the 90th Year Anniversary of the 1921 Race Riots of the original Black Wall Street of Tulsa Oklahoma where black residents then used their consumer power to educate themselves how to use that money to create a self contained Black community with their OWN collective resources. The Congressional Black Caucus in celebration of this 90th Year Anniversary could also be on a national Black community education campaign to show their current majority Black constituencies how they can do some things for themselves that can turn around the local cultural, business and job creation in their own communities, for Black communities today surely have more resources and economic power than the majority Black community of Tulsa had in 1921. So if majority Black communities could use their own consumer power back then with even less and create businesses and jobs in Black communities then why cannot The Congressional Black Caucus lead that kind of self determination today.? Is it easier to challenge the President for his ideas on his plan for local job creation versus using the kind of leadership that Black Wall Street leaders did, and like Dr. King did with his Operation Breadbasket Economic program that clearly had Black people using their own economic power to create businesses and jobs in their own local communities.
I never thought that after 40 years of the original Civil Rights and Black nationalists movements that today we would see this kind of record unemployment and I agree with Congresswoman Waters that its "unconscionable" that we are in this state, especially under a Black President, but I also find it "unconscionable" that the Congressional Black Caucus cannot also use their collective power to once again educate their own Black constituents with the historic live examples right before them of models that prove that when educated the Black community can create local businesses and jobs for themselves that we are spending more time now challenges others to do.
Thus, Black voters should be "unleashed" at many levels in addition to President Obama who should use Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's monument dedicated to re-start Dr. King's War On Poverty, Poor People's Campaign and Dr. King's Operation Breadbasket Community Economic Empowerment Program, and The Congressional Black Caucus should publicly acknowledge this year as the 90th Year Anniversary of the 1921 Race Riots Of the original Black Wall Street District of Tulsa and educate our majority Black communities that if lack people could use their consumer power to create Black owned cultural, businesses, and jobs districts before that they can surely do it again today. "Unleashing" is in order on many fronts in this Black State Of Emergency other than at the door of The President Barack Obama. And as veteran organizer, I am not here to throw stones, but ready to help "organize."
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