“For Rent or Sale”: The CBC Weekend. We Will Be There, in Opposition to Racial Betrayal

Bill Quigley

29 Aug 2007

“For Sale or Rent”: The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's Annual Legislative Conference 045_lawn_jockey

by BAR Managing Editor Bruce Dixon

"Each September, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation sponsors its Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) in the nation's capital. "

Who owns Congressional Black Caucus Institute and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation? Is it the African American legislators who started these not for profit institutions to attract corporate donations? Is it the Black voters who elected those legislators? Or is it the dozens of favor-seeking corporations who who give to the CBC Institute and the CBC Foundation. Have the tails of CBCI and CBCF donors begun to wag the dog of the Congressional Black Caucus itself?

The ominous indications are that the CBC's donors are calling more shots than its constituents are piling up.

Only weeks ago the CBC Foundation was forced to cancel a Democratic presidential forum which would have been broadcast on the notoriously racist Fox News channel. Progressive activists revealed that the CBC Foundation had accepted several hundred thousand in contributions from the various arms of the Fox broadcasting empire, and presumably in return was willing to weather a nearly unanimous storm of criticism and disapproval from black and progressive activists and the CBC's nominal constituencies. Democratic presidential candidates proved more sensitive to the suggestions of the Democratic base than CBC honchos, and withdrew from the proposed forum, forcing its cancellation.

Each September, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation sponsors its Annual Legislative Conference (ALC) in the nation's capital. Billed as “black America's premiere political and social networking event," the four-day conference, "CBC week" as it's called, attracts 20 to 30 thousand people. Students, politically active and connected citizens, corporate representatives, vendors, legislators, big-name entertainers, literati and gliterati all gather for this yearly series of “networking” luncheons, well-appointed V.I.P. receptions, speeches, celebratory dinners, see-and-be-seen parties, panel discussions and so-called “braintrust” workshops.

Just as in the CBC-Fox News scandal, at the CBC's 37th Annual Legislative Conference, one doesn't have to look far for plain and egregious connections between corporate contributions and corporate priorities on the back end, and otherwise inexplicable CBC Week programming decisions. As of Wednesday August 29, there are a total of 59 public policy issue "braintrust" sessions scheduled.

Rep. Artur Davis, the pro-war black Alabama Democrat who recruits candidates for the right wing Democratic Leadership Council is the chief "braintruster" of a session called "Breaking the Glass Ceiling: The Future of Black Politics." Rep. Bobby Rush, who co-sponsored legislation in 2006 to strip local communities of the power to negotiate cable franchises, allowing cable and broadband providers free rein to redline and deny broadband access to African American communities, and which would end network neutrality, heads up the "telecom braintrust." Since 1998, according to SourceWatch, Rush has received over $200,000 in campaign contributions from telecom interests, not counting the not for profit with which he is closely associated, which snagged a million dollar gift from the charitable arm of one of the nation's biggest phone and broadband providers.

"One doesn't have to look far for plain and egregious connections between corporate contributions and corporate priorities on the back end, and otherwise inexplicable CBC Week programming decisions."

Instead of explaining to thousands of African Americans at CBC Week how the paradign of "homeland security," militarizing and privatizing police, immigration and the prisons lines the pockets of Halliburton, the Corrections Corporation of America and Blackwater; how it diverts resources from African American needs, and presents clear and imminent dangers to the limited freedoms we still enjoy; or investigating what Blackwater mercenaries did when deployed in Louisiana after Katrina. Mississippi's Bennie Thompson, chair of the House Homeland Security Committee is conducting the "braintrust" workshop on how blacks can do business with the Department of Homeland Security, presumably as Blackwater or Halliburton subcontractors.

There are no less than five workshops for the black business class on contracting with the federal government, Wall Street, doing business overseas and franchising. The lone "braintrust" session on Katrina is chaired by the thoroughly discredited "Dollar Bill" Jefferson the representative from New Orleans, as if the destruction, dispossession and exile of hundreds of thousands African Americans on the Louisiana-Mississippi Gulf Coast was merely a local issue rather than the fast-forward version of urban privatization and "revitalization" underway in dozens of metro areas, and as if the neglectful killers of uncounted thousands of mostly black American citizens deserved impunity rather than relentless investigation and prosecution.

More than 70% of black America, according to polling in 2003 opposed the war before it started and a larger percentage than that oppose the next war looming in Iran. But since CBC's donors carry so much more weight than its constituents, organized discussions of this fact and its policy ramifications are off the table.

There are no "braintrust" workshops on media justice, on radio station ownership and programming diversity, none on payola.

African Americans are one eighth the nation's inhabitants, but nearly half its prisons and jails, and continue to be disproportionately policed, prosecuted and jailed, most often for nonviolent, drug-related offenses, though the white rates of illegal drug use are virtually identical with black ones. While the disproportionate incarceration rates and their rebound effects are direct and vital concerns of virtually every black family, they are off the radar of the biggest CBC donors, and so far, invisible at CBC Week. If CBC's "braintrusters" are scheming up on how to roll back, repeal or outlaw two and three strikes legislation, mandatory minimums, or coming up with nationwide strategies that will restore the vote to millions of blacks with felony convictions in GA. TN. FL and other states, they're doing it someplace other than at CBC Week.

There are no "braintrust" workshops on media justice, on radio station ownership and programming diversity, none on payola. There are none on pending low power FM legislation which would open up the airwaves to local music by local artists, as well as the non-corporate news and information our communities demand. And of course, a lopsided majority of African Americans, if asked, favor the impeachment of the president. But you wouldn't know it from the menu at black America's premiere political and social networking event. Nearly half the new HIV infections are African Americans, but the HIV epidemic warrants only one panel. Education also gets only a single panel, chaired by the profoundly undistinguished Rep. David Scott (rhymes with "not") of Atlanta.

The bright spots - or perhaps we should say the black spots - are present, but far too few. Chicago's Rep. Danny Davis is conducting a day-long session, three "braintrust" segments on re-entry for ex-offenders. Detroit's John Conyers has a single health care session (but again, nothing on impeachment), John Lewis has one on nonviolence and Maxine Waters has one on the Judiciary. And it should be said that not all donors to the CBC Institute and the CBC Foundation are corporate villains. The ACLU is a donor, as are the Centers for Constitutional Rights and several labor unions.

The honchos running the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation may not know know or care how to roll back the nation's policies of racially selective mass incarceration, or other issues that matter to millions of ordinary black families who will not be at CBC Week, or to many of those who will attend. What they do care about, and what they know very well indeed, is how to market the occasion. The following table from the CBC website lauding the many corporate "branding opportunities" available at CBC Week is indicative of what's driving the bus at the CBC Foundation these days.

BRANDING OPPORTUNITY		QUANTITY
$250,000	Annual Awards Dinner Co-Host	Two title sponsors
$150,000	CBC Spouses Evening Fashion Show	One title sponsor
$100,000	CBC Spouses Benefit Concert	Exclusive title sponsor
$100,000	CBC Spouses Celebration of Leadership	Exclusive Title sponsor
$75,000 each	After Dinner Gala	Two title sponsor
$50,000 each	National Town Hall Meeting	Two title sponsors
$50,000	Official Conference Portfolio	One title sponsor
$50,000	The Black Party	One title sponsor
$50,000 each	ALC Webcast (co-sponsors)	Two co-sponsors
$50,000	Welcome Ceremony	Two title sponsors
$45,000	Pre-Dinner VIP Reception	One title sponsor
$40,000	Awards Dinner Video	One title sponsor
$40,000	Community Breakfast	One title sponsor
$40,000	CyberCafe	Exclusive sponsor
$40,000	Gospel Extravaganza	One Title sponsor
$40,000	Corporate Lounge & Exhibitor Reception	One title sponsors
$35,000	CBC Spouses Fashion Show Program Journal	One title sponsor
$35,000 each	Emerging Leaders Empowerment Series	Four co-sponsors
$30,000	ALC Souvenir Journal	One title sponsors
$30,000	CBC Spouses Issue Forum	One title sponsor
$25,000 each	Audio/Visual for Issue Forums & Braintrusts	Four title sponsors
$25,000	Annual Awards Dinner Program Booklet	One title sponsors
$25,000	Jazz Concert	One title sponsors
$20,000 each	CPAR Future Focus Series	Four title sponsors
$10,000 each	Jazz Concert	Two co-sponsors
Call for details	Attendee Email Blasts
Call for details	Door Drops
Call for details	Shuttle Wraps
Call for details	Shuttle Headrests
EXHIBIT SHOWCASE SPONSORS:
$10,000 each	Authors’ Pavilion	Two title sponsors
$15,000 each	Health Pavilion Showcase Sponsors:	Two title sponsors
$20,000	Performance Pavilion	One title sponsor
$7,500	Hotel Key Card	One per hotel (3 hotels)

"Back when members of the Congressional Black Caucus used to be more tightly tied to their constituents the caucus justifiably referred to itself as the 'conscience of the congress'."

For what it's worth, the CBC Institute and the CBC Foundation also sponsor scholarships, fellowships and internships for young black public policy professionals. One of them is a Wal-Mart branding opportunity. Bringing up young black public policy professionals is, all other things being equal, a good thing. But all other things are not equal. The question ought to be asked: If a young economist knows that Wal-Mart pays for his education and internship, does that make him more or less likely to stand for the interest of low-wage black workers and their communities, or more likely to consume and dispense the corporate kool-aid? If Lockheed or Viacom or the Corrections Corporation of America do the same for others under the flag of the Congressional Black Caucus, who will own these new black policymakers? Us? Or them? And who's using who? Is the Congressional Black Caucus using these donations to do good in the hood? Or are they a Trojan horse?

Dr. Martin Luther King used to call African American communities the living soul of the nation. Back when members of the Congressional Black Caucus used to be more tightly tied to their constituents the caucus justifiably referred to itself as the "conscience of the congress." We at Black Agenda Report wouldn't like to believe that the dogs of our America's longstanding culture of institutional corruption have swallowed that conscience whole. But their teeth marks are all over the Congressional Black Caucus Institute, the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, and the CBC's 37th Annual Legislative Conference.

Black Agenda Report will be present at CBC Week this year to deliver the fall 2007 report card on the performance of the Congressional Black Caucus. If you're in DC, join us Wednesday, September 26 at Duke's Restaurant beginning at 7 PM, along with former publisher and editor of Emerge Magazine George Curry who will hand out 2007's Lawn Jockey Awards to the several lowest scoring members of the CBC, in the tradition of Emerge's famous 1993 cover depicting Clarence Thomas as "Lawn Jockey for the Far Right." Tickets are $30.

It will be a day or two before we have the page up enabling you to reserve a seat and pay online via PayPal or credit card. If you want to be notified when that page goes up, email us at publisher(at)blackagendareport.com. Make your message subject "Lawn Jockey."

Bruce Dixon is Managing Editor at Black Agenda Report, and can be contacted at bruce.dixon(at)blackagendareport.com

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