The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

(thehill.com) The Rev. Jesse Jackson on Wednesday night criticized Rep. Artur Davis (D-Ala.) for voting against the Democrats’ signature healthcare bill.

“We even have blacks voting against the healthcare bill,” Jackson said at a reception Wednesday night. “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”

[...]

Other members of the CBC found no fault in Jackson’s words. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) was in the audience. He called Jackson’s criticism of Davis “accurate,” but said he did not hear Jackson say “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.”

“If it is an issue that disproportionately impacts black folks, race has to be considered,” Cleaver said. Jackson, he added, “is expected by his constituency to call balls and strikes.”

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) called the remarks “vintage Jesse Jackson,” but said Davis’s vote against healthcare was consistent with a voting record more conservative than many CBC members.

“Artur Davis has a more conservative constituency,” Waters said. “Since he’s running for governor of Alabama, he reflects an even more conservative constituency.”

Rep. Sheila Jackson-Lee (D-Texas) said each man was doing what he considered the right thing.

“People have a right to vote their constituency, and people have a right to speak their conscience,” Jackson-Lee said. “Both happened.” (more…)

If the reporting by The Hill is accurate, notice that there were no CBC members who felt the need to apologize. Here, the CBC saw nothing wrong with Jackson questioning Davis’s race based on his vote on a stupid piece of legislation that will ultimately do Jack Squat for Black folks. In the meantime, the Right continues to allow this same bunch to scare them into apologizing for every stray Facebook post or comment made by some twerp Right-leaning hack for saying something sour about Black folks. In addition, you have your handful or so Black Conservatives who will trip over each other to pistol whip their own political side anytime this happens to prove to their Black Left-leaning counterparts that they are not “sell outs”. But anytime foolishness like this happens on the Left, no pistol whipping. No public calling out of their party. No demand for an apology. No commentaries about how this type of talk is driving Blacks away from the party. None of that. Instead, it is accepted as normal Black talk while Black Conservatives are the ones expected to play the role of the boy scout who keeps the Right in line when it come to race talk. On one hand, it is good to see that the Black Left (Progressives included) have such high expectations for Black Conservatives. But it’s too bad they are unable to hold the same high expectations for themselves and the party they support without feeling like they, too will be the lowly and lonely boy scout.