The Black Caucus and Obama: One-Way Loyalty | Black Agenda Report

The Black Caucus and Obama: One-Way Loyalty

Glen Ford, BAR executive editor

07 Sep 2009

🖨️ Print Article

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Click the flash player below to listen to or the mic to download an mp3 copy of this BA Radio commentary.

On health care, Barack Obama “has become a heavy burden for even the Black Caucus to bear, as he searches constantly for allies on the Right.” As Obama threatens to jettison the issue of racial disparities from his “reform” proposals, Black lawmakers must reassess their loyalties.

The Black Caucus and Obama: One-Way Loyalty

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

“Obama has left the Black Caucus with little ground to stand on as they try to prop up his presidency.”

Nobody wants President Obama to succeed more than the 42-member Congressional Black Caucus. History, itself, made it inevitable that masses of African Americans would feel a profoundly vested interest in the fortunes of any Black person that made it into the Oval Office, especially one who garnered about 19 of every 20 Black votes. Back in October of last year, it was Barack Obama’s lobbying of individual Black members of Congress that caused the Caucus to shift from 21 to 18 opposed to the first bank bailout, to 31 to 8 in favor – and Obama hadn’t even been elected yet. Despite Obama’s dismissal of progressives on issues of peace and social justice – issues still dear to a core of Caucus members – Black lawmakers still feel that history demands their allegiance to this president.

Obama, however, takes such loyalties for granted, and has left the Black Caucus with little ground to stand on as they try to prop up his presidency. On health care, he has become a heavy burden for even the Black Caucus to bear, as he searches constantly for allies on the Right. Among the 64 progressivesthat vowed in August to vote against any health care bill that does not include a strong public option, 25 are Black. Under the leadership of California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, the Black Caucus issued a letter last week expressing “deep concern” that “a robust public option and myriad health disparity elimination provisions…may be stricken” in order to cut the cost of the legislation. Lee emerged from a conference call with the White House still insisting on a public option and emphasizing the need for measures to eliminate disparities in health care, through better data collection, greater diversity in the health care workforce, and more community health care workers. Yet the White House seems prepared to jettison health equity, to appease the Right. If that happens, the Congressional Black Caucus will utterly lose face.

“The Caucus has dedicated resources and prestige to documenting the huge racial disparities in health outcomes.”

The Black Caucus has made the health equity issue its own. In recent years the Caucus has dedicated resources and prestige to documenting the huge racial disparities in health outcomes, and exploring ways to confront the problem. This April, the Caucus held a health equity forum, at which Georgia Congressman John Lewis spoke of the need to launch a “health equity movement” to ensure that the issue is “an integral component of health care reform.” But the Caucus will be in no position to lead a “health equity movement” or anything else if it allows Obama to discard the equity issue without a fight.

As an institution, the Congressional Black Caucus has no choice but to resist the first Black president, or submit to voluntary irrelevance on an issue they have told their own constituents is vital to the community.

In their letter to the president, the Black lawmakers assured him they are “committed allies and partners in the fight to reform America's broken health care system.” It is Obama's commitment that is so very much in question.

For Black Agenda Radio, I'm Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles? Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.

More Stories

Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Ending Life Without Parole, Death by Incarceration, in Pennsylvania
11 Oct 2024
Quinn Cozzens joins us to discuss the case of Derek Lee, convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole for a killing he did not commit. Derek Lee is challenging his…
Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
Syria and Imperialism: A Revolutionary Blackout Network Conversation
11 Oct 2024
Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report Executive Editor, was recently a guest on the Revolutionary Blackout Network with hosts Nick Cruse and James Fauntleroy. This is an excerpt of their wide-…
Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
Eric Adams and the Death of Black Politics
09 Oct 2024
The indictment of New York City mayor Eric Adams is the latest example of moribund Black politics. Rich donors and corporate media decide who will be elected to office, while the people’s needs go…
Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
October 7th, The Election and Capitalist Crisis, A Conversation with Ajamu Baraka
09 Oct 2024
Margaret Kimberley and Ajamu Baraka discuss the US upcoming presidential election, and the historic events unfolding in Western Asia - where Israel continues its onslaught of the region with an…
Editors, The Black Agenda Review
ESSAY: Rethinking Race, Rethinking Class, Charles W. Mills, 1995
09 Oct 2024
“We need to give greater theoretical centrality to the fact that European conquest of the world has established what is in effect: global white supremacy.”