Disband The Black Caucus - Investors.com

Next week, the Congressional Black Caucus will hold its 41st annual conference in Washington. It should be its last. The race-baiting group is alarmingly corrupt and out of control.

Founded in 1971 by 13 civil-rights leaders as "the conscience of the Congress," the caucus has strayed far from its original mission. Now boasting 42 politicians — including some of the most radical and unethical in Congress — it chiefly serves its own interests.


Its lavish annual gala is an unseemly shakedown of corporate donors unwittingly funding a war chest for Marxist causes. While the living conditions of average African-Americans worsen, this elite black power club has empowered and enriched its own.


The group has become an embarrassment not just to the black community and the civil-rights legacy it deigns to uphold, but the Democratic Party from which it draws almost all of its members. It should be disbanded. Here's a bill of indictment:

• Hate speech: The caucus is run by racial arsonists spewing dangerous rhetoric.

Its whip, Rep. Andre Carson, last month likened Tea Party members to Klansmen who want to see blacks "hanging on a tree." Another member, Rep. Frederica Wilson, targeted the Tea Party as "the real enemy." The caucus' doyen, Rep. Maxine Waters, poured her trademark kerosene on the fire, adding: "The Tea Party can go straight to hell."

Rep. Allen West was so disgusted by the "hate-filled comments" he threatened to quit the caucus. He admonished fellow members to "follow the example of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., not the example of Rev. Jeremiah Wright." (The group's lone Republican, West says he only joined the caucus out of respect for his late parents.)

• Racism: Membership is closed to other races. The exclusively black group is the only one on the Hill that enforces a pigment test: No whites or other minorities allowed.

When a white lawmaker representing a mostly black district was turned down for membership, Rep. William Lacy Clay, son of the caucus co-founder, explained that it's an "unwritten rule" that you must be black to join. It's the sole criterion of membership.

• Corruption: Four caucus members show up on the left-leaning Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington's list of the "most corrupt" lawmakers. Several have been brought up on ethics charges or come under Justice Department investigation, including:

Waters, who stands accused of improperly lobbying Treasury officials to bail out a black bank, OneUnited, where her husband owned stock and served on the board, recently called bankers "gangsters" and threatened to "tax them out of business" if they didn't forgive minority mortgage delinquencies. She should know about gangsta bankers: The Los Angeles Times reports her OneUnited CEO pal Kevin Cohee in 2007 was charged with crack possession. The same year, the paper says, police also arrested him on a rape complaint.)


Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., convicted last year of 12 ethics violations. Among other things, the former Ways and Means Committee chair accepted gifts from donors with business before the tax-writing body. He also failed to pay taxes on rental income, and filed bad financial disclosure papers.

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