Black Leaders Have Sold Out - Commentary by Raynard Jackson

Commentary by Raynard Jackson
NNPA Columnist

Once again the Black community has been shown how irrelevant they have become in the U.S. Most of the blame can be laid at the feet of the media appointed Black leadership for selling out their people. And we’ve gotten nothing in return. At least Judas Iscariot had sense enough to get 30 pieces of silver when he sold out Jesus Christ.

Isn’t it amazing that with all the debate swirling around the issue of amnesty for the illegals in the U.S., no one on either side of the debate has engaged with the Black community? Blacks will be hurt the most by giving amnesty to these 11 million illegals and yet there has not been one town hall meeting with the Black community to discuss how this issue will negatively impact the Black community’s high unemployment rate.

The official Black unemployment rate was 13.3 percent in March, approximately double the White rate of 6.7 percent. If the White community had the same unemployment number as Blacks, it would be declared a national emergency and Congress would be having hearings all over the country to solve this problem.

So, why do liberal Black groups – the NAACP, the National Urban League, and the Congressional Black Caucus – put so much energy in support of homosexual marriage and amnesty for illegals? These groups acknowledge the unemployment rate in the Black community is at an epidemic level, but their solution is to increase competition for the few low and unskilled jobs, in which Blacks are disproportionately represented.

So the media trots out Ben Jealous, Marc Morial, Marcia Fudge, and Al Sharpton to provide political cover for a policy that will further devastate the Black community. These folks do not represent the Black community, they represent the Democratic Party. In most cases, the Black community’s interest is not the same as the Democratic Party’s interests. Jealous, Morial, Fudge, and Sharpton are more concerned with getting invited to a party so they can take a picture with Obama or Valerie Jarrett.

Why is it that these media appointed Blacks always take up other groups’ causes to the detriment of the people they claim to represent?

Where was the illegal Hispanic community on Trayvon Martin? Where was the homosexual community on apartheid in South Africa or the genocide in Rwanda? Where are the White women on repealing the “wet foot, dry foot policy” in Miami?

None of these groups have stood with Blacks on any of these issues, yet Blacks lose their minds to support them on the issues they care about—homosexual marriage, amnesty for illegals, and including women in affirmative action.

The rank-and-file in the Black community is totally against amnesty for illegals, marriage for homosexuals, etc. In fact, in a poll commissioned for BET Founder Robert L. Johnson, respondents were asked: “Do you believe Hispanic Americans will achieve greater economic growth than African Americans over the next 5 years?” More than half – 51 percent – replied yes, with only 19 percent saying no and 30 percent not sure.

Can somebody please explain to me how the media touts polls that say 65 percent of Americans support homosexual marriage, yet 30 states have laws on the books that define marriage as between a man and a woman? The math doesn’t add up. Even in the Bob Johnson poll, the Black community was split, with 42 percent saying marriage should be restricted to a man and a woman. When asked if equal rights for gays are the same as equal rights for Blacks, 55 percent said no, 28 percent said yes and 17 percent were unsure.

So, to my many readers, don’t believe all the bogus polls about how America supports amnesty for these illegals—because they don’t. Remember, these are the same polls that said the criminal background check bill would past the Senate last week.

So, as it was with the defeat of the criminal background check bill before the Senate last week, the amnesty bill submitted in the Senate will similarly be defeated. The liberal media and their appointed Black mouthpieces will be totally discredited upon the defeat of this amnesty bill.

These are some of the issues that the Republican Party can engage with the Black community on and win new allies in the fight to bring them into the party. I challenge GOP leaders to do a series of town hall meetings within the Black community on these issues of illegal immigration, homosexual marriage, and values in general.

Even within the Republican Party, there are varying positions on these issues, but the point of the town halls is to show that there are many opinions within the Black community on these issues. As I have often said, Republicans never engage the Black community even when they agree with the party on certain issues. As Reagan once told me, “my 80 percent friend is not my 20 percent enemy.”

If the Republican Party deals with some of these issues, then we might be able to say, “My 93 percent enemy can become my 20 percent friend.”
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Raynard Jackson is president & CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, LLC., a Washington, D.C.-based public relations/government affairs firm. He can be reached through his Web site, www.raynardjackson.com. You can also follow him on Twitter @raynard1223.