By: Kirsten West Savali, Your Black World
Rep. Allen West (R-FL) is finally contemplating doing something that should have been done a long time ago: Stop pretending that he cares about the state of Black America by cancelling his membership in the Congressional Black Caucus.
Consistently ignoring the racist stench that emanates from the Tea Party at all times, West, instead, chose to become offended that Rep. Andre Carson (D-Ind) accused tea party groups of being racist.
In Miami for the CBC’s Jobs Tour, Carson made it clear that the Tea Party is nothing more than a modern day KKK, contending that they “would love to see [Black people] as second-class citizens.” Rep. Carson continues, “Some of them in Congress right now of this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me … hanging on a tree.”
Since Micheal Steele—after being ridiculed, mocked, and demoted from RNC chairman after his Hip-Hop, anti-Obama shtick failed to attract African-American voters to the GOP—has defected to MSNBC, West has become FOX’s go to “Conservative Black Guy” and had this to say on Fox & Friends:
“When you start using words such as lynching… that’s a reprehensible word and I think we should move away from that language,” said West.” “One of the things I’m starting to think about is reconsidering my membership in the Congressional Black Caucus, because I don’t think they’re moving in the right manner toward solving the problems in not just the black community, but all of America.”
West further expressed his deep disdain for the slavery and Jim Crow era vernacular in a letter to CBC Chairman, Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO):
“Congressman Carson’s desire to generally criticize a large grassroots group as racist is baseless and desperate,” he wrote. “When individuals believe they are defeated in a political disagreement, they normally resort to race-baiting, which in my opinion is in itself racist.”
The blatant hypocrisy that West displays for daring to accuse anyone of race-baiting is laughable and pathetic. After insinuating that President Obama and he are more alike than his supporters may realize—claiming that it’s “hypocritical” that Obama’s “big black bus is not going into the black community”— West was lead by FOX’s Laura Ingraham to call his CDC colleague, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), a “plantation boss,” while casting himself as Harriet Tubman:
You have this 21st-century plantation that has been out there, where the Democrat Party has forever taken the black vote for granted. And you have established certain black leaders, who are nothing more than the overseers of that plantation. And now the people on that plantation are upset, because they have been disregarded, disrespected, and their concerns are not cared about.
So I’m here as the modern-day Harriet Tubman, to kind of lead people on the Underground Railroad, away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility.
I’m gonna be brutally honest … white liberals have turned over to certain leaders, quote-unquote ‘perceivably innocent’ in the black community like, a Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or a Maxine Waters or Barbara Lee, and said you know, pacify and keep the black community firmly behind us, regardless of the failures of our social welfare policies.
Maybe someone should explain the concept of race-baiting to Rep. West. By his own rationale, he’s placed liberal Black Americans on the plantation; following his logic—which is seriously questionable—he should not be surprised when people fight against the “lynchings” that inevitably take place.
Or, maybe, he should just continue to drink his tea and let the CBC continue with their empowerment tour without him serving as a distraction.
Kirsten West Savali is a Senior Editor at Your Black World. Connect with her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter: @kwestsavali
