Race As A Defensive Cover For The Democrats - Does The Black Community Benefit Or Merely The Democrats?

Rangel, Waters, and the perils of Democrats 'draining the swamp'

Today's broadcast of "Democracy Now" proved enlightening regarding how race can be used as a protection racket, even with those who are predisposed to root out corruption in government.

Though I will post the actual video from Amy Goodman from "Democracy Now" later, her introduction of the story about Maxine Waters went something like this:

• Long time Black US Representative Maxine Waters will face ethics charges in the US House
• This follows the ethics indictment of a fellow Black representative, Rep Charlie Rangel
• Mrs Waters is accused of an unethical relationship with OneUnited Bank, a prominent Black owned bank in California
• The husband of Mrs Waters sits on the bank board and she is accused of intervening to obtain a meeting between Federal Reserve officials and the bank that the couple held shares in
• Many in the Congressional Black Caucus are curios about this second investigation of its members in a short time
• Since the Congressional Ethics committee has been formed Black members of congress have been a disproportionate target of ethics investigations
• Since its inception 8 Black members of congress have faced scrutiny, far beyond their proportion in congress

This perspective produced by Ms Goodman needs to be put into the proper context.  With the subject of "bank influence"  on the table - Ms Goodman chose to punt that issue that is so often near and dear to her muckraking heart and instead go after the racial angle.

This same strange but diverted focus can be found on various Black, progressive biased blog sites as well.  Few are asking if the charges against Waters are true.  Instead they are focusing on "the next (black) brick to fall.

At present the Democratic Party controls the House.  Even though the ethics panel houses and equal number of Democrats and Republicans we would expect to hear the "friends of Black people" on the panel from the Democratic Party loudly protesting the witchhunt for Black Democrats.

Others have said that Waters/Rangel have seniority and there are some with the interest of stripping Black people from this power.  Again while the GOP might be interested in damaging the standing of their partisan adversaries - it makes no sense for the Democrats to seek to do so.

The facts don't matter to some people.  They need to find a racist and Republican conspiracy.  Even when the facts don't lend themselves to this claim - it does not stop them from making the allegations.

The facts might be that two members of congress have violated the rules of ethics.  They are two Black members.  Those who are interested in justice and ethics will look at the evidence and allow the facts to drive the process.

Others who are more interested in something other than justice - (ie: power) have a vested interest in constructing purposeful patterns that might not be the case and rendering the indictment upon the judge to prove that they are not doing these investigations for racist purposes.

Beyond all else we need to note one important thing:  In 2006 when the corrupt Republicans in the US Congress were being exposed and tossed aside operatives like Nancy Pelosi (and many "Progressive who are Black" bloggers) made sure to make the linkage between the corruption and the party from which they came from.  We will NOT hear such linkages being made.  Instead the linkage will be made by the defenders and those in judgment will be forced to prove that they don't believe that they view the common source from which they come from are corrupt and thus they are looking at them closely.