TheLoop21.com

By: Devona Walker | TheLoop21 (Add to your loop)
Thu, 07/29/2010 - 09:16

Charles Rangel has a legacy worth remembering, beyond recent ethics problems, John Kerry

There was a time in this country that black folks were more protective of its leadership. We realized that by the nature of being in power, they would be targeted. We only half believe the allegations against them. And we were wiling to give them the benefit of the doubt. That was, of course, before Rev. Al Sharpton and Tawana Bradely pulled the wool over our eyes. It was before the image of former Washington D.C. Mayor Marion Barry smoking crack in a crappy hotel room was burnt into our retinas.

Now, it seems the pendulum has swung too far in the opposite direction. If the tragic case of Rep. Charles Rangel is any indication, the black Community appears a little over eager in terms of throwing the veteran Congressman under the bus.

The Congressional Black Caucus has gone radio silent on Rangel. Ethnic media has come out and demanded that he’s gotta go. Democratic politicians are falling over themselves, returning political donations, all in an effort to distance themselves. The guy wen from being an iconic image of the Civil Rights Movement and black political leadership to virtual pariah all in a matter of months, and we haven't even heard his side of the story.

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The most serious violations against him:

• He failed to disclose between $300 and $800,000 in income and he used Congressional letterhead when he tried to get a namesake for himself at City College.
• Rangel also apparently occupied four rent-controlled apartments in Harlem. One of the apartments is used as an office; Mr. Rangel said two of the three others he uses as a residence — a one- and a two-bedroom, listed as two separate apartments in the state rent roll — had been combined before he moved in.
• Underpayment of federal, state and local income taxes by $10,000.
• Failure to report more than US$75,000 in rental income from an apartment he owns in the Dominican Republic.

Clearly, Rangel is no saint. Some of the allegations against him are pretty shady. Perhaps, he should step down, but for the sake of his own legacy, not the Democratic party.

And I can't help but think there are some similarities with this "rush to judgment" on Rangel and the spectacle we witnessed last week with the Obama Administration and Shirley Sherrod, as well as the even larger tragedy of the dissolution of ACORN last year on bogus charges.

Everyone is so busy with trying to exonerate themselves by dissing the guy, we haven't even stopped to compare the outrage over Rangel compared with nonexistent outrage over John Kerry's even more obvious ethics violation.