AS I WAS SAYING....
IF ever there was an
issue that illustrates that African Americans are not a monolithic group that
thinks and follows lockstep with the first Black president or with the
Democratic National Party, it’s the divisiveness evidenced by the Congressional
Black Caucus in recent days. The organization was prepared to deny its support
for a congressional resolution authorizing the President Barack Obama’s curious
hawkish moves to launch an American military strike in Syria ostensibly to
punish its leader Bashar Assad for reportedly using chemical weapons in their
ongoing civil war.
The CBC is “not at all a
monolithic vote….,” Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-NY) told USA Today after members were
invited to a Monday briefing by National Security Adviser Susan Rice who was
seeking their crucial support. So important is this House voting bloc which
normally can be taken for granted, that the president even made a surprise
visit with the group and talked them for an hour of the 90-minute sell session.
Now, just in time for
the Congressional Black Caucus 43rd Annual Legislative Conference
next weekend in Washington, D.C., the 43-member organization has gained elevated
presence and relevance on the national stage, and not for usual domestic
affairs but for the upcoming foreign policy vote in Syria.
Despite President
Obama’s lack of attention to specific issues concerning African Americans and
his penchant to chastise his most supportive constituency in public, including
during his flat remarks during the 50th Anniversary March on Washington
commemoration ceremony, he and his policies like Obamacare remain popular among
African Americans. Black support was a given. Until now.
Polls, including one
online survey conducted by the AFRO, indicate African Americans do not support
military action in Syria by this Black president any more than they have with
any other president since Vietnam. Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), who has been
in the forefront of media reports on this issue, told reporters that 95% of the
calls coming into his office are against military action.
“I have to consider my
constituents and my constituents are opposed,” Cummings said although he added
that he was willing to wait and make a decision after the president’s televised
speech Tuesday.
By Tuesday, the president
had tamped down his rhetoric in a rather underwhelming speech in which he
called for delays in the congressional votes to allow late diplomatic solutions
with Russia and Syria to hold.
Recognizing the
difficult position that African American lawmakers find themselves in, CBC
Chairwoman Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) last week sent a muzzling email to members
asking them to “limit public comment on this issue” until they could get more
information, her office confirmed for The Hill. In a statement, she said “I
expect every member of [CBC] to be extremely deliberate and thoughtful” in
their decision.
Like the majority of
Americans, Blacks are war weary, they fear escalation and retaliation of Middle
East conflicts, and the hefty funding needed to fight war being diverted from
vulnerable domestic programs and the loss of troops, many of them black and
poor soldiers, despite the president’s assurance of “no boots on the ground.” Some
even note that the international community, including America, did not
intervene in Rwanda and Darfur genocidal conflicts under the auspices of
humanitarian aid, so why hit Syria?
Still, with Republicans,
traditional hawks, oddly opposing military action by this president who has presented
as much evidence of chemical warfare as former Republican presidents presented
of weapons of mass destruction before their military strikes without prior
congressional approval and with reluctant or nonexistent liberal support to
pass a military resolution, the Obama administration must garner greater from
African American politicians.
Anti-war leader Rep.
Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) has been making the media rounds from Candy Crawley’s
“State of the Nation,” to Chris Matthews “Hardball,” making the case against an
“unwise war,” and touting a letter she penned to President Obama seeking
congressional debate and a vote before he acted in Syria. Sixty of her
colleagues signed the letter and she told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow this week that
she was glad the president delayed action until congressional review. Lee made
headlines as the only member of Congress who voted against military action
after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. She is chiefly concerned with
escalating regional repercussions.
“I reject the idea that
a military response is the only action we can take,” she told talk show host
Melissa Harris-Perry.
Charles Rangel (D-NY)
has also been a vocal critic of military strikes because “I haven’t really felt
that America’s security’s being threatened at all…not even indirectly,” he told
reporters.
But Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.), who is on the
House Intelligence Committee, is one of the few CBC to favor the president’s
proposal, reportedly said “we can’t sit idly by…we must act with clear and
strategic action.”
Rep. James Clyburn
(D-S.C.), Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) and Rep John Conyers (D-Mich.) have
not tipped their hands on whether the support the use-of-force resolution.
Clyburn tweeted that he “reserved judgment.”
Not being a “monolithic”
voice is sometimes a progressive and productive place to be in the polarized
political arena. The larger question will be whether the CBC can sustain its
elevated status when the Syrian dust settles.
Rep. Donna Edwards,
(D-Md., is as one of the co-chairs of the CBC Foundation’s legislative
conference where this year’s hot topics were expected to be domestic issues
such as voting rights, criminal justice disparities, student loans and survival
of historical black universities and colleges (HBCUs). The sessions, which
begin on Sept. 18, were set months in advance and do not include anything discussions
on Syria. Human trafficking, Haiti and Somalia and immigration reform were to
highlight the foreign affairs debates.
But with the CBC’s
heightened and unusually unpredictable action regarding its tepid support for
President Obama, undoubtedly the Syria question and international policy will
take center stage this year, as it should.
