Free Republic

For two years conservatives indulged themselves in unheard-of dogwhistle campaigns against this young African-American President while enlightened liberals pointed it out in a mild, somewhat derisive fashion but with little outrage. Now, in the aftermath of the midterm 'shellacking', a New Confederacy is rising with the assistance of the tea party and John Birchers, and it's getting enough traction in Congress to do real damage. The scary part? It's working. Fact: We are NOT living in a post-racial society. Not on the liberal side, and not on the conservative side. As nice as it is to think that we've transcended...

Perception is nine-10ths of the law in politics and the perception among a plurality of black Americans is that people oppose the president’s policies because the opponents are racist, a Rasmussen Poll found. On top of that, 21% said black-white relations are getting worse, 43% said white-Hispanic relations are getting worse, and 31% said black-Hispanic relations are getting worse. No other interracial relationships were included in the poll. The big question asked by Rasmussen was the perception of the motive of opposition to the president.

If there was ever any doubt that the Democrats take the black vote for granted, that doubt should have been put to rest when Barack Obama told the Congressional Black Caucus, "Stop whining!" Have you ever before heard either a Democratic or a Republican leader tell his party's strongest supporters, "Stop whining"? Blacks have a lot to complain about, not just about this Democratic administration but about many other Democratic administrations, national and local, over the years. Unfortunately, black voters, like many other voters, often judge by rhetoric, rather than realities. When it comes to racial rhetoric, the Democrats...

Jesse Jackson: 'Plantation' comments insult black voters By: Juana Summers September 30, 2011 04:20 PM EDT Black voters have not been “brainwashed,” and suggesting as much — as Herman Cain and Pat Buchanan have recently — is demeaning and derogatory, Jesse Jackson said Friday. “Those are very strong words,” the veteran civil rights activist told POLITICO. “It’s both demeaning and insulting.” Cain, the former CEO of Godfather’s Pizza and a Republican presidential candidate, on Wednesday told CNN that black voters have been “brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view.” “I have received some of...

MRC visited the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Dinner in Washington to ask attendees if the tea party is racist. The attendees are also asked about Allen West and Herman Cain and what they think of black members of the tea party. One man says they can go to hell, another lady calls them 'oreos.' Here's the video

While speaking with Tavis Smiley of PBS, Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee said conservative bloggers should "shut up" and "stop playing racial politics." This from a member of the caucus that does little else but play the race card. Seconds later, Jackson Lee went on to say that buy American should be "buy African American." She also said that if Obama's jobs bill is passed, that contractors who "do not look like" her need to make sure that if they get federal money, their workforce "better be reflective of those suffering double-digit unemployment." "I don't consider it discrimination, I don't...

Rep. Waters: Obama ‘got carried away’By Alicia M. Cohn, Daniel Strauss and Mike Lillis 09/26/11 09:19 PM ET Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) on Monday tried to downplay friction between the black community and President Obama but warned the president might have gotten “carried away” in remarks made over the weekend. Waters, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), appeared in a number of media interviews on Monday following Obama’s speech to the CBC Gala on Saturday, where the president told the audience to “stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying.” Waters said that there was room for improvement in the...

While acknowledging the hard-hit black community and budding criticisms in its ranks, President Barack Obama said in a speech Saturday night to the Congressional Black Caucus that he wouldn't give up -- and urged members of the black community to join him to jump-start the still-sluggish economy. "I expect all of you to march with me, and press on," Obama said. "... Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We've got work to do." The unemployment rate among African-Americans is 16.7%, nearly double the national average, while 40% of black children live in poverty. Such...

Teen pregnancy among Hispanics is rising in Montgomery County, bucking a countywide trend of falling birth rates. The birth rate for Hispanic 15- to 17-year-olds was 39.7 births per 1,000 females in the period from 2007 to 2009 -- the most recent for which data is available. That is a jump from 33.3 births between 1996 and 1998 and only a slight drop from the 41.6 rate from 2006 to 2008, according to the Maryland Vital Statistics Administration.

What’s the most obvious difference between Bill Clinton and Barack Obama? Unhappy members of the Congressional Black Caucus “probably would be marching on the White House” if Obama were not president, according to CBC Chairman Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.).“If [former President] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” Cleaver told “The Miami Herald” in comments published Sunday. “There is a less-volatile reaction in the CBC because nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president.” Rather than march...

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- The August jobs report was dismal for plenty of reasons, but perhaps most striking was the picture it painted of racial inequality in the job market. Black unemployment surged to 16.7% in August, its highest level since 1984, while the unemployment rate for whites fell slightly to 8%, the Labor Department reported. "This month's numbers continue to bear out that longstanding pattern that minorities have a much more challenging time getting jobs," said Bill Rodgers, chief economist with the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. Black unemployment has been roughly double that of whites...

A top lawmaker in the Congressional Black Caucus says tea partiers on Capitol Hill would like to see African-Americans hanging from trees and accuses the movement of wishing for a return to the Jim Crow era. Rep. Andre Carson, a Democrat from Indiana who serves as the CBC’s chief vote counter, said at a CBC event in Miami that some in Congress would “love to see us as second-class citizens” and “some of them in Congress right now of this tea party movement would love to see you and me ... hanging on a tree.” Carson also said the tea...

Black voters remain defiantly loyal to Obama, despite suffering from his mishandling of the economy and Maxine Waters' complaints about his focus on wooing white independent voters for his reelection. But of course, Democrats have long taken blacks for granted. This loyalty in the face of bad treatment is reminiscent of battered wife syndrome (BWS).

UPPER DARBY, Pa. - As police in Upper Darby, Pa., search for more young people involved in last week's flash mob, more adults are thinking about arming themselves with guns. People are talking about how afraid they are of being caught in the path one of these flash mobs while they're out minding their own business, and they want to be ready. Law enforcement officials say it's a nightmare in the making because ordinary, private citizens are getting gun permits. "We have people now that are fearful and carrying guns because of children. How sad is that?" Upper Darby police...

"Let us all remember who the real enemy is. The real enemy is the Tea Party -- the Tea Party holds the Congress hostage. They have one goal in mind, and that's to make President Obama a one-term president," Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-FL) said at a Miami town hall with constituents. Rep. Frederica Wilson blamed "racism" for the high black unemployment rate on MSNBC yesterday.

Election of our nation's first black president is delivering an unexpected message to our black population. Blacks are discovering that what a man or woman does -- their actions -- is what matters, not the color of their skin. It seems ridiculous to point out that this was supposedly the point of the civil rights movement. Purge racism from America. But blacks themselves have been the ones having the hardest time letting it go. It is not hard to understand why black Americans were happy that a black man was elected president of the United States. It was kind of...

Barack Obama Cannot Get Congress To Pass Amnesty For Illegal Immigrants So Now He Is Just Going To Ram It Down Our Throats Any Way That He CanAugust 19, 2011 If you are an illegal immigrant and you have not been arrested for committing a crime, the odds that you will ever be deported have now gone way, way down. With the Republicans in control of the House of Representatives, Barack Obama knows that he simply is not going to be able to get amnesty for illegal immigrants passed by Congress. But instead of giving up, Obama has decided to...

ALLEN WEST: I‘M HERE TO LEAD BLAKS OFF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY ’PLANTATION’ Billy Hallowell, on August 18, 2011 GOP Rep. Allen West believes that the Democratic Party is akin to a modern-day “plantation.” In an interview on Wednesday night’s “O’Reilly Factor,” he told guest host Laura Ingraham that he is the “modern-day Harriet Tubman“ and that he wants to lead fellow African Americans away from the the ”21st century plantation.” West made extremely bold statements throughout the interview, apparently undeterred by any negative response he might receive from the Democratic Party or from fellow African Americans. Commenting on anger...

They lined up dozens deep to tell of their economic struggles and to plead for help from the four Democrats lawmakers on the stage. A single mother laid off in 2009; an electrician who has worked only six of the past 24 months; a janitor locked out of her job over a medical-benefits dispute; and many more -- the frustration was palpable at the "Speak Out for Good Jobs Now!" town hall meeting that Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Oakland, hosted Tuesday night at Acts Full Gospel Church of God in Christ. Some of it was aimed squarely at House Minority Leader...

Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter needs to look at who really "damaged their own race." A week ago, in the midst of this, the summer of the flash mob — groups of mostly black teens who have attacked non-blacks at random in public places — Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter angrily lectured his city’s young black thugs: If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t...