Viewing the World Through Race-Colored Glasses

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Viewing the World Through Race-Colored Glasses

 24 February 2014 18:51

Written by DTN

Congressional Black Caucus member James Clyburn, who has a long history of "seeing" racism virtually everywhere, now claims that a state law is racist for stipulating that in order to win a primary election, a candidate must receive at least 50% of the votes. This law, says Clyburn, is "a very slick way" to "dilute the impact of the black vote" and "negate or minimize opportunity for African-Americans to win the primary."

•  Member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC)
• Former member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
• Commonly ascribes the actions of his political and ideological adversaries to racism
• Presided over a CBC delegation's friendly visit with Cuban president Fidel Castro in 2000

Born in July 1940 in Sumter, South Carolina, James Clyburn was elected president of his NAACP youth chapter when he was 12 years old. He later attended the historically black South Carolina State College, where he earned a bachelor's degree in history. During his college years, Clyburn (along with John Lewis) became a leading member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and helped organize numerous civil-rights marches, sit-ins, and demonstrations. Incarcerated more than once for his participation in these events, Clyburn met his future wife in jail. When his schooling was complete, he took a job as a teacher at C.A. Brown High School in Charleston.

After an unsuccessful 1970 bid for the South Carolina General Assembly, Clyburn in 1971 moved to the city of Columbia, where he served as minority advisor to Governor John West. In 1974 West appointed Clyburn as the state's human affairs commissioner, a post Clyburn held until 1992. During that 18-year period, Clyburn, a Democrat, twice ran losing campaigns for secretary of state (in 1978 and 1986). When congressional districts were redrawn following the 1990 census, South Carolina's Sixth District became majority-black. At that point, Clyburn resigned his job as human affairs commissioner to run for that Sixth District seat. He won the vote handily and has been re-elected every two years since then.

Clyburn is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), which elected him chairman in 1999. In June 2000, he presided over a CBC delegation's friendly visit to Cuban president Fidel Castro.

Clyburn commonly ascribes the actions of his political and ideological adversaries to racism. For instance, when South Carolina's Republican Governor Mark Sanford formally rejected federal earmarks for his state in early 2009, Clyburn alleged that Sanford was a racially insensitive elitist: “He [Sanford] happens to be a millionaire. He may not need help for the plantation his family owns, but the people whose grandparents and great-grandparents worked those plantations need the help.”

In March 2009, when Governor Sanford compared President Barack Obama's massive stimulus spending to the disastrous fiscal policies of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, Clyburn characterized the governor's remarks as “beyond the pale.” When reporters subsequently asked Clyburn if his use of that phrase was intended to imply that Sanford’s remarks had racial overtones, the congressman replied: “I’m sure he would not say that, but how did he get to Zimbabwe? What took the man to Zimbabwe? Someone should ask him if that’s really the best comparison.… How can he compare this country’s situation to Zimbabwe?”

In November 2012, Clyburn reacted angrily to criticism that Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham had directed toward U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice, who is black. Specifically, the senators suggested that Rice was "incompetent" and "not very bright" after she had presented a completely false narrative of a deadly September 11, 2012 terrorist attack that an al Qaeda-affiliated group had launched against the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, killing four Americans in the process. "Those are code words." Clyburn told CNN. "... Those of us who were born and raised in the South—we've been hearing these little words and phrases all of our lives and we get insulted by them."

In Clyburn's calculus, even a refusal to accept the theory of manmade global warming is evidence of racism because, as the congressman explains, “African-Americans are disproportionately impacted by the effects of climate change economically, socially and through our health and well-being.”

In February 2014, Clyburn detected racism in the “barriers” that allegedly made it exceedingly difficult for black candidates to be elected to statewide office in South Carolina. One of those barriers, he said, was a state law stipulating that in order to win a primary election and avoid a runoff, a candidate needed to capture at least 50% (plus one vote) of the ballots cast, even in instances where three or more candidates were running. Said Clyburn:

“That 50-percent-plus-one rule was put in, in order to negate or minimize opportunity for African-Americans to win the primary. It’s a very slick way to dilute the impact of the black vote.”

As a remedy, Clyburn called for South Carolina to change its law, so a candidate in such cases would need to win only 40% of the votes.

in 2009 Clyburn supported the 1,200-page American Clean Energy and Security Act, popularly dubbed the Waxman-Markey Act. This legislation's signature program was a “cap-and-trade” arrangement mandating steep reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions, coupled with punitive taxes on any businesses exceeding their predetermined emissions allowances. After Waxman-Markey was passed by a 219-to-212 vote in the House of Representatives, Americans for Tax Reform reported that Clyburn, shortly prior to the cap-and-trade vote, had tried to influence the votes of 13 uncommitted House Democrats by transferring a total of $28,000 in campaign contributions to their coffers.

In a February 2010 interview with Fox News, Clyburn offered this prescription for helping the U.S. economy emerge from the deep recession in which it was mired: "We're not going to save our way out of this recession. We've got to spend our way out of this recession, and I think most economists know that."

Interpreting biblical Christian precepts as divinely inspired justifications for expanding the welfare state, Clyburn said in September 2012: “What we’ve gotten from a lot of my Republican friends has been a lot of recitations of their faith, but when it comes time to fulfill what we find in Matthew 25—do ‘unto the least of these’—to [Republicans] there‘s something wrong with feeding people when they’re hungry. This is not the Christian way that you do things."

For an overview of Rep. Clyburn's voting record on a wide range of key issues, click here.

For additional information on James Clyburn, click here.

SOURCE: Discover the Networks