While speaking with Tavis Smiley of PBS, Texas Democrat Sheila Jackson Lee said conservative bloggers should "shut up" and "stop playing racial politics."
This from a member of the caucus that does little else but play the race card.
Seconds later, Jackson Lee went on to say that buy American should be "buy African American."
She also said that if Obama's jobs bill is passed, that contractors who "do not look like" her need to make sure that if they get federal money, their workforce "better be reflective of those suffering double-digit unemployment."
"I don't consider it discrimination, I don't consider it affirmative action," she added.
Smiley and Jackson Lee were responding to recent headlines over the President's remarks to the Congressional Black Caucus last Saturday.
Scott Baker of the The Blaze reported:
“Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your maching shoes,” he [Obama] said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. “Shake it off. Stop complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”
Topping the to-do list, he said, is getting Congress to the pass jobs bill he sent to Congress two weeks ago.
Obama said the package of payroll tax cuts, business tax breaks and infrastructure spending will benefit 100,000 black-owned businesses 20 million African-American workers. Republicans have indicated they’re open to some of the tax measures — but oppose his means of paying for it: hiking taxes on top income-earners and big business.
According to Smiley, conservatives are "taking such delight" in writing headlines like "Obama tells blacks to shut up and get in line."
Unfortunately, a Google search of that exact phrase for the last month produced no results whatsoever.
The closest one gets to that phrase is a blog post at Hot Air headlined "Barack to Blacks: Shut Up and Get in Line," written by a poster named Karl, who simply quotes the President.
Several conservative blogs noted Obama's words, but they all amount to the same thing - "stop complaining and get in line." Smiley may not like it, but that was the thrust of President Obama's message to the Black Caucus.
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