The House, ethics, and race
Four members of the House of Representatives are being investigated on ethics violations, and two (Maxine Waters of California and Charles Rangel of New York) seem intent on defending themselves in public trials before the House ethics committee.
All four are Democrats and all four are African-Americans. This Politico piece focuses on the resultant inevitable question:
The question of whether black lawmakers are now being singled out for scrutiny has been simmering throughout the 111th Congress, with the Office of Congressional Ethics a focal point of the concerns. At one point earlier this year, all eight lawmakers under formal investigation by the House ethics committee, including Rangel and Waters, were black Democrats. All those investigations originated with the OCE, which can make recommendations ”” but take no final actions ”” on such cases.
There’s a “dual standard, one for most members and one for African-Americans,” said one member of the Congressional Black Caucus, speaking on condition of anonymity.
We are becoming exceedingly familiar with this sort of defense based on accusations of racism. It’s not new, either; for quite some time, whenever there appears to be an over- or under-abundance of a minority in a category deemed undesirable—whether it be criminals, underachieving students, or terrorists—the cries of “discrimination” go up.
The idea behind such a defense (usually mounted by liberals/progressives) is that, if ethnic and racial groups were actually treated exactly equally and discrimination did not exist, all the races and/or ethnicities would be distributed in every category (bad or good) in the same percentages as their distributions in the general population. Achievement would be equal and representational, job hiring likewise, and criminal and other bad behavior would likewise be equal, among the groups.
To believe otherwise would require people either to believe that there are some innate differences between groups, or to believe that there are cultural differences or other environmental differences other than victimization and racism that can account for the variation, or perhaps a bit of both. The environmental explanation is at least marginally more PC than the innate explanation, but neither are acceptable (or useful) to those who prefer to play the racial victim card.
But life is not like that, and distributions do not follow the liberal playbook. And when life does not follow the PC rules, the explanation at hand is racism on the part of those doing the selecting, whether it be the employer, the lender, the teacher—or the House ethics committee.
What is the House ethics committee—otherwise known as the Office of Congressional Standards—and who is on it? To avoid charges of political bias, this particular committee is composed (unlike others) of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans, and none of the current ten members are African-Americans, which of course is hardly evidence of bias. At any rate, in the cases of the four black House members currently charged or under investigation, it’s not the House ethics committee that started the whole thing. The charges against two—Rangel and Waters—originated with another body, the “OCE” mentioned in the Politico quote above. And the investigations of the alleged offenses committed by Weeks and Jesse Jackson Jr. originated in criminal probes by the Justice Department (Weeks was caught up during an investigation of some Queens, NY politicians, and Jackson was implicated in the Blagojevich case, hardly an operation that can be said to have been aimed at an African-American target).
So, what is this Office of Congressional Ethics OCE, otherwise known as the Office of Congressional Ethics?:
[It] is an independent, non-partisan entity charged with reviewing allegations of misconduct against members of the House of Representatives and their staff and, when appropriate, referring matters to the United States House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (commonly referred to as the Ethics Committee).
The OCE was created by House Resolution 895 of the 110th Congress in March 2008. Governed by an eight-person Board of Directors, Members of the OCE Board are private citizens and cannot serve as members of Congress or work for the federal government.
The OCE is an entity created by the Democratic Congress during the last months of the Bush presidency. There are eight current members, four from each party, most of them former House members: David Skaggs, Porter Goss, Yvonne Burke, Jay Eagen, Karan English, William Frenzel, Allison Hayward, Abner Mikva. Two names seem especially interesting to me in terms of the racism charge: Burke, an African-American former House member from California who has recently been active in local Los Angeles politics (and who faced her own more minor and local ethics accusations in 2007); and Mikva of Chicago, a judge and former House member who was an early mentor and fervent supporter of one Barack Obama. Neither would be especially vulnerable to charges of anti-black racism.
No, it would appear that the reason the four House members are under suspicion at present is that they have done things that appear suspicious. And, should they be found guilty, one might indeed wonder why it is that African-Americans appear to be disproportionately involved in these sort of violations.
My personal opinion is that the racial aspects are rather incidental, and that other factors are more likely to be at work. A great many black House members are Democrats from highly urban areas, districts in which winning the Democratic nomination is tantamount to winning the whole shebang. Once they become the nominees, they are elected, and ordinarily can continue to be re-elected quite easily as long as they might choose to run. This is a situation that tends to resemble what used to be known as machine politics, and which especially lends itself to corruption. (For example, Chicago politics has become practically synonymous with this sort of thing.)
White politicians are by no means immune to the temptations of political corruption, and many are the mighty who have fallen. What is unavailable to them, however, is the defense that they have been falsely accused because of racism.
[NOTE: A previous effort to rein in the OCE was mounted by Marcia Fudge and nineteen other members of the Congressional Black Caucus back in June (and by the way, can you imagine if there was a parallel group called the Congressional White Caucus?). There has also been a fair amount of bipartisan criticism of the OCE—perhaps because both parties feel potentially threatened by its power to investigate them. Before the OCE was established, the House ethics committee was the name of the game, and it often appears to have downplayed Congress members’ violations:
Yet even Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) acknowledges that the House may have to take a second look at the powers of this outside ethics office, which has the authority to publicize its inquiries, unlike the formal House ethics panel, which is much more secretive.
The [June 2010 CBC] resolution would curtail the OCE’s power to comment publicly on cases that it dismisses; preclude the release of OCE findings if the ethics committee dismisses a complaint; prevent the ethics committee from receiving reports from the OCE in the 60-day window before a primary or general election involving an accused member and require public complaints to come from witnesses with firsthand knowledge of alleged wrongdoing.
Under current rules, the OCE can initiate investigations into lawmakers and aides based on news reports or complaints ”” even anonymous ones ”” from the public. It can recommend that the House ethics committee, a bipartisan panel composed of members, undertake its own investigation into a matter. If the OCE makes such a recommendation and the ethics committee dismisses the complaint, the OCE can release its full report to the public.
Pelosi said that the CBC suggestions to curtail the OCE will be deferred till the beginning of next session; I guess by then the swamp won’t need as much draining. But the Waters/Rangel scandals and possible trials (which could occur this fall, before the 2010 election) are the sort of thing the CBC and Pelosi might indeed wish to prevent in the future.]
[NOTE II: In further news today, House whip and Democrat of South Carolina James E. Clyburn:
…said it was inevitable that some political opponents would try to turn the ethics questions into a race issue. “Those Tea Party people that showed up at the health care debate, they will not hesitate for one moment to racialize something,” said Mr. Clyburn, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “They did, and they will.”
Ah yes, those racists Tea Partiers, the carefully-constructed false meme that keeps on giving. Mr. Clyburn, of course, would never stoop so low as to racialize anything.]
The idea behind such a defense (usually mounted by liberals/progressives) is that, if ethnic and racial groups were actually treated exactly equally and discrimination did not exist, all the races and/or ethnicity would be distributed in every category
nice revisionism..
may I ask what group has been doing that logic for longer than any of the ones you mentioned?
may i also point out that before these people gave it a name it was the way they got the german population to hate jews?
In US employment law, adverse impact, also known as disparate impact, is a “theory of liability that prohibits an employer from using a facially neutral employment practice that has an unjustified adverse impact on members of a protected class.”
protected class
and class hatred against their oppressors?
by the way, i once showed a link to a translation and photo of a Nazi Germany news paper that argued the same argument. you censored it, just as you censored your paragraph above and omitted the largest group who actually moved us from equal opportunity (when they werent being hired fast enough and not liking that flooding the workplace with workers lowers salaries) to equal outcomes (favoring the oppressed class over the oppressors), to now less than equal outcomes (now that they have 60% representation over the oppressors, they now have state help in raising that even more by mandate).
yes i know about the civil rights VII, and LBJ, and the 71 case… and a lot more…
but what led to changing an equal opportunity law into an equal outcome law?
who argued for all the affirmative action so well that they can have two children, and one is born an oppressor and deserves punishment the other is born the oppressed protected class!
maybe things like this would explain it:
The feminist dilemma: when success is not enough
By Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Christine Stolba
If an employer decided that a worker has to life heavy serving trays (as in the case below) and that because of that rule, more men than women are hired, the employer could be found guilty of discrimination on the grounds of disparate impact.
and so, our soldiers have to lower their pack loads from 40 kilos, as it was in roman times, to under 20 kilos, as teh women cant do it. our police have to use tasers on children, and pregnant women, and have a higher rate of shooting civilians, because we cant select otherwise.
ah, but you see, this is class warfare, and class society stuff…
and as I showed, under this the oppressed have a right to class hatred agasint their oppressors.
like a piton, one group succeeds and they all belay
from FEMINIST LAW PROFESSORS
“The Disparate Impact of the Economic Crisis on Unmarried Women”
Unmarried women earn only 56 cents for every dollar that married men make. [Center for American Progress, 4/25/08]
[does that take in aid to dependent children? does it take in support? does it take in state aid? nope… and its a known false number – i have found the number in documents from the mid 1800s]
female-headed households have twice the likelihood — 13.5% — of seeing a 50% greater drop in their income than male-headed households’ probability — 6.6% — of such a drop. The probability of a major income drop for female-headed households has risen in the last two recessions. [“Taking a Toll: The Effects of Recession on Women,” Prepared by the Majority Staff of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, 4/18/08]
and sommers:
Of the 5.7 million jobs Americans lost between December 2007 and May 2009, nearly 80 percent had been held by men.
Single women have been among the fastest-growing groups of homeowners in recent years. In Baltimore, single women accounted for 40% of home sales in 2006, twice the national average. Nearly half of these mortgages were subprime, according to the National Community Reinvestment. [New York Times, 1/15/08]
well yeah, they are a protected class.
and in germany they took belongings from the oppressor classes and gave it to the germans oppressed by he disparate impact jews were having.
anyone want to talk about the list of jews by a certain democrat?
A Democratic representative from New York has fired his campaign spokesperson after she gave a newspaper a list of what she called “Jewish money” going to his Republican opponent.
same old reason… but they expanded the targets and changed the game a bit… that way, they can get away with more than before. they saw that Stalin indiscriminate and wider swath of killings hid the fact that stalin and hitler had the same targets.
just as they revisioned out john willis menard, and joseph rainey, and jefferson f long, and robert c de large, and robert be elliot, and benigmin s turner… they have change the history of each of the target groups.
in fact… its most interesting to go back in time, pick up the erased history, and here the rebuttals and arguments we forgot…
to read the 16 page speech that the founders and the 4/5s person was a anti slavery thing… to read how the AMA said medicare and medicaid would lead to communism… how feminists were known for what they were, and now are not remembered as a terrorist organization that like the weather underground lit bombs and also wanted communist revolution
history history history
blacks and others couldn’t get this legislation… but women could.. and now that all the groups, like bishops and pawns are set up right, there is only one target. its core is the same target as before, but now widened to also take their protectors too.
My poor scroll wheel 🙂
Neo asked, “can you imagine if there was a parallel group called the Congressional White Caucus?”
No.
And if there was I’d have no part in it. None.
However there should be a new caucus called:
1) The Congressional American Caucus
or
2) The Congressional All Races Caucus
🙂 🙂 🙂
That would surely fire up the liberals. 🙂
Since the 1970’s Blacks have been held to a different standard than whites: They get away with things no white person would ever get away with; they are given things for free no white person would ever get the chance for (affirmative action); they are given every excuse in the book for breaking basic moral standards; they are paid money to be single parents and careless fathers.
It is no surprise then, that they do unethical things and think nothing of it. When they are called on the carpet there is outrage and cries of racism.
In fatc it is no different from the child whose parents let it get away with anything its whole life, and then who are shocked when the real world does not let them get away with things.
Politicians in general are corrupt and corrupting. Black political leaders are some of the most corrupt there has ever been. They tell lies to make their living (Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton for example) and use color as a kind of thuggery.
Everyone should be held to the same standard. There should be no affirmative action; no special preferences, and the cries of racism should be gone forever. For all practical purposes, it does not exist any more.
Neo, I really appreciate your postings and the comments section of your blog. Thanks.
Concerning the double standard for the different races here in America – I don’t think that there is an answer. Sorry.
The Asians are held to a different standard than whites for college entrance, women are held to a different standard than men and I haven’t seen any standards that apply to blacks. Mexicans seem to be the new ‘under-class’, but I think they might have a surprise up their sleeves for America. Also, don’t forget about the Muslims and others who seek to establish their own little utopia in North America. Yup, things aren’t what they were – and aren’t what they’re going to be either.
Terrific piece by Roger Simon that touches on this issue as part of a braoder theme:
http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerlsimon/2010/08/01/the-party-of-the-rich/
“There’s a “dual standard, one for most members and one for African-Americans,” said one member of the Congressional Black Caucus, speaking on condition of anonymity.”
=====================
Bob M said (August 2nd, 2010 at 4:28 pm)
“The member may indeed be correct, although not in the direction he or she had in mind.”
SUBTLE, YET ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
=====================
The same argument (“You’re picking on the black man again, you racists!!”) gets made by LiberalProgressives about the number of African-Americans in prison, when the fact is that the proportionality of ethnic representation in prison pretty well matches the proportionality of ethnic representation committing crimes.
“Mexicans seem to be the new ‘under-class’, but I think they might have a surprise up their sleeves for America”
Reparations?
And really, why not? Affirmative actions is already two generations old so why not amnesty followed by reparations followed by everybody goes to Disneyland for gubment cheese! Just leave the bill at It’s a Small World for the next generation to pick up.
Sharpton’s already at work on the case. Heard him on some news report recently, and the voices of “the community” will be throwing gasoline on every spark they can find.
Those who speak out against Obama are racist, and those who demand these players face the heat are as well. That’s how it will be played.
I am SOOOO sick of all the charges of racism. It appears to be the first line of defense when a public figure is black. The dems seem to have forgotten that we humans have a fallen nature.
The pity is that racism does exist, and by tossing that charge around for everything under the sun, real racism is less likely to be called out.
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If i didn’t know better i’d swear blacks would do anything to bring back good ole back of the bus racism. Otherwise they are staring at assimilation into real equality which by definition offers no life perks or special treatment.
Contaminating the arguments with facts? Denounce yourself immediately.
(Disclaimer: I am Black, and a former Liberal Democrat)
Let me offer another perspective. Someone above made a generalization about Blacks, that was painted with a wide roller brush. Waters and Rangel hail from districts that have a substantal number of lower income Blacks, who are somewhat marginalized and insulated from the rest of the world. In a past post I noted how any group that lived insular, homogenous lives from the rest of the world will have narrow world views. This can be a powerful weapon in the hands of a skilled politician. Throw in a devisive issue (Historical Racism), and you’ve created an almost teflon coated profession.
In short, Waters and Rangel live in areas that are predominantly working class/poor Blacks, who have little contact with other viewpoints. Because of this, it is easy to play the “race card” to garner support even in the midst of corrupt behavior by a politician. Both have chosen publc trials because their reelection is a certainty. They get to play martyrs, and they still get reelected. As senior members of the CBC, they still maintain power to highjack legislation, in an effort to get their goodies in pork and gov’t contracts. What;s most significant about these 2 is that they are entreched in local/beltway politics for 30+ years. Longevity breeds arrogance; and power is maintained through manipulation. Only the tools are different.
Take for example Barney Frank and Jack Murtha. Instead of playing the race card, they play the “Conservative Boogyman” card. Frank is so intertwined in Fannie/Freddie, that he is their poster child. And Murtha bought his poor Appalachain constituents with pork. He was an unindicted conspirator in the ABSCAM scandal, but it took him to die to get him out of office. Both are equally as crooked as Rangel and Waters. And all four are entrenched in local politics for three decades.
And for the record, most African Americans hold the CBC in a regard that is somewhere between indifference and annoyance. The districts of the CBC are not representative of the socioeconomic and education levels of most Blacks. Look at the example of former Congressman Cynthia McKinney. She became so disliked in her district, her campaign was isolated to the poor neighborhoods, with no prin or tv campaigns. She hailed from a district that was 80% African American. After she cut a fool, she lost her distirct by 60% – 40% and 65% to 35%, in two seperate elections with the results falling along income lines.
Cubs_Fan: that is true about McKinney. It gives hope that, if the offenses are egregious enough, someone who seems invincible can be rejected by the voters whose support he/she took for granted.
And the fact that Barney Frank is still in the House is an abomination. His liberal seat is a tiny bit insecure these days, although I have every expectation that he will be re-elected.
any group that lived insular, homogenous lives from the rest of the world will have narrow world views. This can be a powerful weapon in the hands of a skilled politician.
This is right on target, and it’s typical of “ethnic politics” of all stripes. There was enormous corruption in the old Irish politics of the early 20th century for the same reason: emotion-driven appeals to ethnic solidarity and bigotry by slick politicians who had the poor and less educated folks wrapped around their fingers. It’s exactly the same today for corrupt black politicians like Rangel and Waters and McKinney.
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reader writes “There was enormous corruption in the old Irish politics of the early 20th century…”
Scratch the word “early” if you live in Eastern Mass.
Which reminds me. There may indeed be other congressmen just as guilty who haven’t made it to the table because they cover their tracks better, or even, as suggested, because they have that little more forgiveness by their colleagues because they are white. Could be. But absent hard data, it’s not a factor in this discussion.
Cub’s_Fan
Correct. Of the four, who would win the Rogue’s Prize for most harm done to the Republic? Barney Frank, by a landslide.
I welcome such accusations. The harder they flog that horse, the sooner it will be obvious it’s deader than hell and has been.
If there really is a double standard, where black Congressmen are allowed to get away with things that others can’t, then those black Congressmen have willingly participated in their own setup and have little cause to complain when Congressional Democrats, seeking a few scapegoats to throw under the reform bus to pretend they are fighting corruption, choose them.
Paycheck Fairness Act would mandate equal pay for unequal work
The Obama administration wants to force employers to pay some people equal amounts for doing unequal work, through a deceptive bill known as the Paycheck Fairness Act. “Male supermarket managers with college degrees couldn’t be paid more than female cashiers if the college degree for the manager wasn’t consistent with ‘business necessity,’” says economist Diana Furchtgott-Roth in a July 23 column in The Washington Examiner. The bill would also radically increase damage awards for what it labels as “discrimination.”
And guess who is working really hard to come up with this ‘Soviet’ system? I am told that its The Irrelevant, but for some reason, I think they got that part wrong…
since they changed the legal system to be rule by men, and social justice, and unequal laws for equal outcomes, they had to move to the next part. Given that we don’t know the history, how would we know where their plagiarism displayed as innovation, genius, and progressive utopianism…
‘now,’ an employer found guilty of discrimination is only required to pay ‘back pay,’ not ‘punitive damages.’ Actually, employers already have to pay not only back pay but also damages up to $300,000 under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. The so-called ‘Paycheck Fairness Act’ would eliminate the cap on punitive damages in gender-based pay discrimination cases, leaving the sky as the limit. Other provisions in this perverse bill could force employers to pay people who do nasty, dangerous, unpleasant jobs as little as those who do nice, pleasant ones, if the unpleasant jobs are performed mostly by members of one gender, and the pleasant ones mostly by the other gender. (Examiner, Pg. 20)
http://www.openmarket.org/2010/08/02/paycheck-fairness-act-would-mandate-equal-pay-for-unequal-work/
Love your cancer, die by your cancer, as your cancer don’t love you!
By the way, the socialists claim this is equal pay for equal work, but all it is is a way to redistribute wealth and centrally control the economy.
where is hux when you need someone to explain how the 70% nationalization, the 40+% not employed, the destruction of farm credits, deflation coming leading to hyper inflation… is not like Wiemar Germany?
i said we were so much like it, its was petrifying. it thrust one into a Kafkaesque dream. It all could have been prevented EASILY.
but i said, the Huxlies, and others are the major facilitators. they are the people that say, tread on, never realizing that there is an event horizon, and once you pass it, the end result is a given.
I saw one of those survival shows recently. its sad, but interesting that they never realized that once they passed a certain point, they were later to be at a marginal point of survival. so marginal that one of the children who took an extra trip up a hill, died of the slightly extra dehydration from doing so.
they say in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king. but that is only half true. the one eyed man is not king if he is not despotic, narcissistic, and willing to grab control using his advantage.
Otherwise, it changed into, in the land of the nearsighted, the farsighted are ignored precisely because they see farther and cant be believed until its close enough that everyone sees it. after that point the prescient become Cassandra, blamed for the peoples failures.
“Disproportional” is a key word in the Left’s defensive verbal arsenal. That there is a disproportional number of black males in prison for felonies is proof of racism, etc., etc. When it’s disproportional in the other direction, that’s called social justice.
Blacks commit a “disproportional” amount of crime. Do a search on “the color of crime” to see what I mean.
“You see, I don’t think they have the answer. I simply can’t make myself believe that we are only clods of earth and that when we die, we die and that’s all. I’ve seen bad conditions in lots of places, on ships, in jails, and in foreign ports in China and India and Africa and South America. I’ve fought against these conditions. There’s no doubt that out of it all revolution may come – the way the Communists want it to – but what will come after that? What will this crowd do when they’ve got their revolution? I hate to think about it. But I’m pretty sure they haven’t got the answer.” John Rogan
and
This is the peculiar paradox of modern totalitarianism. This is the key to the mental enslavement of mankind: that the individual is made into nothing, that he operates as the physical part of what is considered a higher group intelligence and acts at the will of that higher intelligence, that he has no awareness of the plans the higher intelligence has for utilizing him. When a person conditioned by a totalitarian group talks about the right not to incriminate himself, he really means the right not to incriminate the communist group of which he is only a nerve end. When he talks of freedom of speech, he means freedom for the communist group to speak as a group through the mouth of the individual who has been selected by the higher intelligence.
The Bill of Rights of the American Constitution was written to protect individuals against centralized power. The Communists pervert this safeguard by first enslaving the individual so that he becomes the marionette of the centralized power. Bella dodd
ack! wrong thread… it was to be in the obama thread… sigh
Meant “disproportionate”, but -al will do.
>>said one member of the Congressional Black Caucus, speaking on condition of anonymity.>>
Sounds like a perfect opportunity for someone to get information that would allow for investigation of Congressional members of the “other” color. If these anonymous CBC members know someone who _should_ be investigated, but aren’t – due to color or any other cause – why are they keeping mum about it? If they _don’t_ know any non-black members who _should_ be investigated, then they should keep their mouths shut…
In other words…they should put up or shut up.
I sometimes think that the Dems welcome congressmen with “problems” so that they can hold their secrets over them to keep them quiet – why are these CBC members anonymous? They should be shouting from the rooftops if there are equally guilty members who are getting a pass.
If over or under representation of a group is an indicator of racial bias, what does it say about the fact that 95% of African Americans voted for Obama?
JEG, it says they are righting wrongs. Which is curiously what the plantation owner in 1850 probably figured he was doing.
here comes the fun stuff i predicted and have been trying to detail…
Chicago bomb technicians exploded a grenade found hanging from a light pole in Lincoln Park this morning, said police news affairs. // Officials weren’t originally sure if the grenade, which was hanging from a pole on the 1900 block of North Clifton Avenue // At 8:20 a.m. the Bomb and Arson Unit detonated the apparent grenade
the south americans have been using grenades… there are also caches…and los zetas have been paying for new recruits, sending them to mexico for insurgency training.
unlike germany, there is nothing to prevent other external states from trying to take advantage of the situation, the progressives left out the baking soda… and have imagined being friends with people using them
This will come as great news to Duke Cunningham.
OB – no fair! Republicans are a whole different category.
I agree with JuliB; ENOUGH of these accusations of racism already.
My wife is oriental. I’ve got several hispanic in-laws. And two of my grandsons are black. A family reunion looks a little like a meeting of the UN. So take your accusations of racism and shove ’em where the sun don’t shine!
AVI, yes: Republicans are the wretched refuse of the earth.
Realistically, I suspect black politicians get a lot more slack, for several reasons.
First, people are leery of being accused of racism (hard to believe, I know, but sometimes people make such accusations). The transgressions have to be especially egregious to overcome that risk.
Second, and related to the first reason, going after a black malefactor is a great way to get Sharptoned. Even if you’re right, and you win the legal battle, you lose the PR one.
Third, black politicians commonly get re-elected regardless of what they’ve done (hello, Marion Berry!), and so launching an ethics probe against a black politico probably equates to generating a political enemy for life. It’s a lower rent version of “if you strike the king, you’d better kill the king.” The chances of, e.g., Rangel or Waters actually getting the boot are zero. The day after the hearings, and the mild admonishment they’ll like receive, you’ll need their cooperation in Congress. Good luck.
Fourth, there’s the soft bigotry of low expectations. In candor, it is sad but true that because of the reasons cited above, people – white and black alike, I suspect – pretty much expect a substantial level of malfeasance from a black politician, just as they do from a machine one.
I suspect that all of these factors together contribute to a perception of invulnerability that promotes progressively higher levels of misconduct.
JEG,
It says that skin color was the most important thing to most of them. That’s what it says.
When skin color is the most important thing about a person, we call that….?
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