The only Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) said this week that it was “absolutely offensive” for President Obama to tell the African-American community to stop complaining and grumbling.
“This is not an Imperial Empire, he is not an emperor,” Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) told Conservative New Media after a recent town hall, seemingly making a reference to the villain of the sci-fi “Star Wars” films. “The First Amendment says that you have the right to redress your government for your grievances. … We have a right to say, in the black community, that we’re hurting. We need to hear more than hope and change.”
CBC members mostly responded cautiously to Obama’s remarks last weekend at the CBC’s Phoenix Awards Dinner, but indicated that his tone in addressing the group was unexpected.
“Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying,” Obama urged the crowd. “I don’t have time to feel sorry for myself. I don’t have time to complain. I am going to press on.”
The chairman of the CBC, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), and member Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), suggested Obama veered off track in his remarks. Waters said the comments were “not appropriate” but she thought Obama “got carried away” as he was speaking and didn’t mean to insult anybody.
“I think the president stepped away from his prepared text,” Cleaver said earlier this week on MSNBC. “In the passion of the moment, he talked about the complaining he’s hearing around the country inside the party.”
However, CBC members have also expressed growing concern about rising unemployment in the black community and a lack of action on the part of the president. The caucus sponsored job fairs during the August recess.
“When you look at a community that is truly suffering — 16.7 percent [black] unemployment, 20 percent adult black unemployment and 45 [percent] to 46 percent black teenage unemployment, [a] 41 percent increase in food stamp recipients, poverty at the highest in 50 years, it is not about you coming up and telling people they have to stop complaining,” West said.
