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Wednesday, March 03, 2010

The Perils of Black Power

Right now, black politicians are all over the news for misdeeds.

What is wrong with these black politicians? The headlines in the papers are dominated by black elected officials in trouble. There’s Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., stepping aside (temporarily) as chairman of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. Then there’s Marion Barry, the former Washington, D.C., mayor, stripped of his chairmanship of a city council committee. Finally, a couple of hundred miles north of the nation’s capital, there’s David Paterson, the governor of New York, under pressure to quit despite having announced he will not seek re-election.

In all three cases, it’s a matter of ethics—and power. Rangel was found to have violated House ethics rules by accepting trips to the Caribbean paid for by corporations. He took fire over the past couple of years for a series of embarrassing situations, including using a rent-regulated apartment in New York as an office and failing to pay taxes on a vacation home he owned in the Dominican Republic.

Barry, whose up-and-down-and-up-and-down career is worthy of a Philip Glass opera, was censured by the D.C. city council for awarding a city contract to a former girlfriend. The council, in an unusual rebuke, voted 12-0 to take away his chairmanship of a council committee and asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate possible criminal activity. This is small potatoes to a man who was once busted on camera for snorting cocaine, spent six months in a federal prison, and yet was re-elected mayor by an adoring grassroots constituency.

To read more please visit http://www.theroot.com/views/perils-black-power?auto=true