On Thursday, Representative Emanuel Cleaver II, Chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, addressed a forum on voting rights at the CBC's Annual Legislative Conference. The Democrat from Missouri expressed his anger about Black Americans who refuse to vote saying, "They are not worth the color if they don't vote. They ought to give us their color back. Their African-American credentials need to be snatched if they don't vote." Come again? Is Representative Cleaver asking for their Black Cards back?
Cleaver continued, "That’s an insult to the ancestors and the people who brought us to where we are right now. There’d be no Black Caucus but for the black men and women who fought and died that we might have an opportunity to gather here in Washington that there would be 42 members of the Congressional Black Caucus.”
Although Cleaver's comments were not out of the blue, the idea of snatching Blackness definitely caught a few people off guard. Representative Cleaver's pleas to African American voters were in response to the voter identification laws passed by many state legislatures that will make voting in November especially hard for many Blacks.
There are probably several other reasons to snatch back Blackness. But refusing to vote is a great one. We're talking to you, Lupe!
