Some in the Black community do not
want to hear about any criticism of Black
politicians, but here it goes. This is about
transparency and accountability and ensuring
that we have Black leaders as opposed to
leading Blacks who take the money and run,
and ask what these folks are doing in our
name.
We should be proud of someone such
as Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) for assuming the Democrats’ top leadership
post, the first Black person to lead a
party in Congress. After years of waiting in
the wings to assume the leadership of his
party in Congress, Rep. Jeffries will do
well. At the same time, we must ask if he
will do well for and by Black people. We
must ask what any particular Black elected
official will mean for the masses of Black
folks and other marginalized people.
Without question, representation
matters. Having Black committee chairs, such
as Rep. Maxine Waters on the Financial Services
Committee or Gregory Meeks on the Foreign Affairs Committee,
or Bennie
Thompson on the Jan. 6 committee makes a
difference. And the new generation of Black
leaders on the Hill is promising, with young
leaders in the mold of community organizer
and state representative Summer Lee — the first Black woman going to
Congress from Pennsylvania — and activist Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida — the first Gen Z
member of Congress. Maryland Governor-elect
Wes Moore and Pennsylvania Lt.
Governor-elect Austin Davis are other examples of the
transformative promise of Black politics.
Looking at Congressman Jeffries,
his Brooklyn energy and swagger are
necessary to fight the Republicans. Take,
for example, when he dragged Supreme Court
Justice Clarence Thomas, asking “why are you such a hater?
Hate on civil rights. Hate on women’s
rights. Hate on reproductive rights. Hate on
voting rights. Hate on marital rights. Hate
on equal protection under the law. Hate on
liberty and justice for all. Hate on free
and fair elections,” Jeffries said.
That energy is a good thing for the
Black community when targeted against MAGA
Republicans, insurrectionists, white
nationalists and those who would take away
our rights and support those who want to
shoot us down in our churches, mosques and
synagogues. But it’s not so wonderful when
Black leaders channel that same kind of
energy toward progressives who are fighting
for the community or who accept
contributions from special interests who are
fighting against the interest of Black
people.
Although a member of the
Progressive Caucus with a record on civil rights and voting
rights, Rep. Jeffries has differentiated
himself as a “mainstream” Democrat as
opposed to those from what he calls the
“extreme left” and “hard-left democratic
socialists.” And he co-founded a Team Blue PAC to protect moderate and
conservative Democratic incumbents and keep
progressive challengers out of Congress.
Further, among his top contributors
is American Israel Public
Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the far-right pro-Israel
lobbying group that has spent millions
supporting Jan. 6 insurrectionists and election deniers, white nationalists, homophobes
and QAnon conspiracy nutjobs. The lobbying
group and other pro-Israel groups gave Jeffries nearly
$460,000 this election cycle. AIPAC also supports politicians
who promote the “great replacement theory,” which claims Jews are bringing
non-white migrants into the country and replacing
white people. AIPAC has also targeted
Democratic primary races, especially
candidates of color and Black women such as
Donna Edwards, Summer Lee and Nina Turner and progressive Jewish candidates
who are racial and social justice allies.
All of this would suggest that as a
Democratic leader, Jeffries would not speak
out against Israel’s “rising fascism and racism” under its Trump-aligned extremist
Netanyahu government, or the racist
treatment of Palestinian Arabs and Africans.
Jeffries has said he disagrees with Israeli and international human rights groups that call the nation an
apartheid state.
AIPAC’s sponsorship of Jeffries
helps the Black community about as much as
the pharmaceutical industry’s $1.6
million in contributions to Rep. Jim
Clyburn (D-S.C.) over a decade. Clyburn has
received more pharma money than any other member of Congress,
and perhaps this has an impact on his
positions.
After all, the South Carolina
lawmaker is one of the most vocal opponents
of
Medicare for All, which would replace private
health insurance with a free government plan
for all people. During the 2020 Georgia
Senate runoffs,
Clyburn curiously said if “we are going to run on
Medicare for All, defund the police,
socialized medicine, we’re not going to
win.”
Meanwhile, Medicare for All is popular in Clyburn’s state, which ranks 34th in the nation in health care, and
has the second highest rate of
medical debt in the country. Black people in
South Carolina and elsewhere have a higher risk of cancer, stroke, diabetes, heart
disease, hypertension and Alzheimer’s. Black women are more likely to have negative
health outcomes related to pregnancy and
birth, and their children are more likely to
die in their first year of life.
And Medicare for All is most
certainly a racial justice issue, as racism, poverty
and
lack of health insurance fuel racial health disparities
such as high Black maternal mortality, and
Black people, including Black essential frontline workers, are more likely to be uninsured.
And nearly one in three Black adults has a past-due medical bill.
Medicare for All would address these racial
health disparities, yet Clyburn apparently
was paid to oppose it.
Black America, we have been here
before. When Obama was president, a segment
of the Black population was reluctant to
criticize the first Black president because
being the first Black president was hard
work. Some complained that he was not looking out for Black
interests, and yet he certainly looked out
for Wall Street — as opposed to Black homeowners
who lost historic amounts of wealth in the
Great Recession. And in the end, maybe the
Black community did not gain as much as they
thought during the Obama years.
Representation matters, but
symbolism will only get you so far. We must
hold Black leadership accountable.
This commentary is also posted on The Grio
