In a summer that saw a debt limit crisis, controversy of summer vacations of Congress and the President, and hurricanes and earthquakes in Washington, one should expect fireworks from political leaders.  Our two political parties are so stuck in gridlock that even choosing a night for the President to address both chambers of Congress is near impossible.

In this environment, Maxine Waters, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and a congresswoman representing a district in the greater Los Angeles area, went on a trip during the congressional recess and made headlines.  The first stop of note was in Detroit – a city that is still ravaged by unemployment, brain drain, crime and limited growth.  Despite the auto bailout that has helped put off the demise of the domestic automakers, Detroit is still very deep in recession.  It was at a town hall in Detroit that Maxine offered, “We do not put pressure on the president because y’all love the president,” Waters said. “You are very proud to have a black man as president for the very first time in the history of the United States of America. … The Congressional Black Caucus loves the president, too. We’re supportive of the president, but we’re getting tired. We’re getting tired. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don’t know what the strategy is.”  Later, Waters would ask her audience to “unleash” the CBC on Obama.  TOC could write multiple full-length books breaking down how asinine these statements are, but time is not available.  Instead, we can take a brief review here.

First, it is insulting that Maxine feels the need to “talk down” to the participants and use the slang “y’all” in what is supposed to be a professional, formal forum.  Does she not think her audience can handle the formal “you?”  Does she look at them as the great “unwashed masses” that she has mercilessly come from DC to save?  Can she not use the same terms in front of these people that she uses with her Congressional colleagues or potential campaign contributors?  If her audience cannot handle formal English, is that not a crisis that she should be focusing on instead of whether or not we “love” the President?  If a majority African-American audience struggles with formal English, why is she confused about the strategy and waiting for Obama?  Should it be obvious that her audience needs tools necessary to participate in a now global market for labor and knowledge?  For what is Maxine waiting?

Next, why is it that she says “we” do not put pressure on Obama because “y’all” love the President?  So, we have a representative of the people that, hopefully, recognizes the people need jobs and the tools to get those jobs.  While it is true that Maxine does things to bring jobs to poorer districts, marginal job fairs and town halls are not enough.  Why on earth has she not been pushing the President – because people love him?  This reads as an excuse – as if she is saying she cannot do what she implies is right (hold Obama accountable to something) since it would be unpopular since Obama is loved.  Leadership is not not doing what you are implored by circumstances to do since it may be unpopular at first.  A classic example of what is wrong with those we send to Washington is that they choose to do what is politically expedient instead of what is thought to be right.

Waters goes on to say that you are very proud to have a black man as President. Consider that she does not say a black man that has a record for supporting black initiatives on a grand scale, even though he was in the Senate before becoming President.  Let’s ignore the implication that the “unwashed masses” have blind love for Obama while the CBC’s love for him is tempered with the expectation of accountability.  Thank goodness we have Maxine to not only speak down to us in our language, but also to hold Obama accountable since we cannot do it.  We are too blinded by this pride that we cannot hold Obama accountable – we need the CBC to challenge Obama’s lack of results in the African-American community.  The implied problem is that she cannot do her constitutionally-directed duty to check the President and her social duty to support unemployed African-Americans because the “unwashed masses” love him too much.  Later, Maxine told the audience to unleash the CBC on Obama – does her duty to her constituents, her people and her country not require that anyway?

The problem with Waters here has several layers.  First, her fear of political retribution in doing her job limits her from doing what she is supposed to do.  She has to implore people to “support” her in pushing Obama to create a plan to address African-American employment instead of doing it on her own.  Second, she seems to have a complete lack of both respect for and acknowledgement that her audience (and the general African-American population) can separate their pride for the first African-American president and their ability to hold him accountable.  Basically, “y’all” need the CBC to do something, but since you love him so much we cannot do what needs to be done so please get over it and unleash us on him.  Seems to me that African-Americans are smart enough to know something is wrong at 1600 Pennsylvania, despite our obvious pride with the first African-American President.  Next, why is it that we are waiting to get a strategy now?  African-Americans were in a disadvantaged position during the Election of 2008, so why was Maxine not shouting for a strategy or an agenda then?  One clearly does not exist; if it did, we would expect Maxine to have blessed it and expected Obama to adhere to it.  I am not aware of such an agenda.  What would have been expected of the CBC in 2008 is the request for such an agenda before CBC members campaigned for and supported Obama.  Alas, that is not the case, as political party affiliations and riding on the coattails of the exuberance of 2008 were too important.  Strange, back then it was the CBC members that had a lot of love for Obama to not address the need for an “African-American strategy.”

The CBC and TOC strongly disagree on what is required to bring the African-American community to par with the rest of the general population when it comes to employment and education.  We will not talk about differences in what the solutions to the problem are now (in a later post).  The point for now is that we need to have leaders focus on seeking a solution, which Maxine still needs to be “unleashed” to do (ideally double-digit unemployment in her district and in Detroit are enough, but the CBC has to get over the “unwashed masses” love for Obama).

After almost a quarter-long hiatus due to massive personal and family changes, the TOC has returned to, hopefully, raise challenging questions to readers and elevate conversations to another level.  The first post-return blog entry starts with two people that heavily dominated the news feeds earlier this summer, Caylee and Casey Anthony.

As most of you know, Caylee Anthony was a toddler that was found dead after her mom, Casey, falsely reported her missing.  After a long trial, Casey was found not guilty of murder but convicted of felonies involving misleading police.  In the meantime, 5 year-old Mariah Smith went missing in Southeast Michigan.  It was not clear who took Mariah, but there was little doubt that foul play was afoot.  A burned body turned up on a property not too far from where Mariah was last seen (later proven to be that of Mariah’s).  This was a heinous case indeed.

Why have you not heard of the Mariah case and you saw wall-to-wall coverage of Caylee’s?  Why is it that you were told everything about the prosecution, the defending attorneys, the judges, the misled search party, but you have never heard of Mariah?  We remember JonBenet Ramsey from 1997 but cannot name the countless children from poor and/or minority communities that have been abused or murdered between the cases of Jonbenet and Caylee.  There are obvious and justified shouts of racism and unfairness when the media shows such a bias towards certain cases.  The argument of the media covering what the public wants does not work – most people knew neither Mariah nor Casey before their demises, so how could the public decide?  The argument that certain people have more resources to attract attention is poor as well.  Should money determine which injustice is covered?

TOC raises this question not just to raise awareness of this lack of journalistic integrity, but also to warn passive consumers of information.  The power of the press is incredibly potent.  A nation became so heavily focused on this one child – the public, through the media, had developed a bond and sadness for the memory of Caylee while Mariah could not get ANY national attention (do a google search for Mariah Smith and count the number of pages from CNN, MSNBC or other major news websites that have Mariah’s story).  Imagine what happens when the press decides to apply this concept to politics and public policy.  It is not the TOC’s desire to say that the media has a right-wing or left-wing bias – TOC believes that the media will have bias to whomever or whatever is popular and not challenge popular opinion – but TOC does want to raise concerns over how we form opinions and make decisions.

Two real-world examples are material here.  First, consider the race for the Democratic nomination in 2004.  Howard Dean, the former Governor of Vermont, was leading in the polls in front of John Kerry.  In a showing of human emotion (we do want our candidates to be human, right?), Dean gave the now-famous “Dean Scream” about going to Iowa and South Carolina and some other places and then to Washington DC.  Nobody can say for sure if the endless playing of this rant on the news networks caused his collapse in the polls, but some feel it played an all-important role.  In a time that the nation was wrapped in two wars, starting to lose ground to China and, unfortunately, cementing the final pieces of the puzzle that would lead to the housing collapse 4 years later, it seems ridiculous to choose candidates for higher office based on a supposed rant, not to mention that the “rant” was due to Dean shouting since the hall he was in was so incredibly loud that he could barely hear himself talk (no news media outlet told you that the microphones for television were right on Dean and that the feed suppressed the crowd noise, so viewers could not tell how much noise Dean had to shout over).  The Democrats went on to choose John Kerry for the nomination, and he could not provide a clear, non-Bush alternative to voters (remember the flip-flopper?).  Another example involves now-President Barack Obama and the campaign of 2008.  Obama won on populism and an anti-Bush sentiment throughout the nation.  It’s interesting to consider how much “homework” we as a nation did now that Obama’s popularity has dropped below 40%.  Imagine if the news media had chosen to play Obama’s “57-state” gaffe over and over as they did Howard Dean’s “Dean Scream.”

These examples reveal how powerful the news media is in inciting emotion, opinion and affecting public policy.  Is this really how the media should affect our lives?  Should the media be a tool to tell us about Caylee’s and Mariah’s demise?  Should the media use its time to clarify where candidates stand on issues instead of lazily recycling sound bites and paying pundits to break those sound bites down?  Should the media not focus on gaffes, or at least give equal attention to all gaffes (note that no network carried Obama’s 57-state gaffe – please attempt another google search if there is doubt)?  The reason the networks get away with this is that we, as consumers of information, have not demanded equality and clarity in distributed information.  That’s how we get hours and hours of Casey coverage and no discussion of Mariah.  That’s how we remember Dean’s rant from 2004 but not his or Kerry’s plan to ensure stable housing in the nation.  That’s how we confuse Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin with the real one.  Take time to consider the power the press has and demand it back by using multiple outlets, watching MSNBC and Fox News and looking for supporting information on the web on reliable sites.  In the meantime, your lives will not be positively or negatively impacted if Casey has to serve probation and that will not help us to help the Mariahs out there.