The Congressional Black Caucus likes to cast itself as the guardian of black America's voice in Congress. Yet, the party that speaks most passionately about representation and inclusion often seems far less interested in either when the “wrong” people start speaking for themselves.
Reps. Burgess Owens (R-Utah), Wesley Hunt (R-Texas), Byron Donalds (R-Fla.), and John James (R-Mich.), who are all black, have been denied membership or any meaningful participation in the caucus that’s supposed to be for black members of Congress. The same caucus that screams about suppressed voices is doing its own suppressing, just with a partisan filter.
It gets worse.
Owens and Donalds had moved to rename the Capitol's press gallery after Frederick Douglass, the legendary civil rights leader, and members of the Congressional Black Caucus refused to co-sponsor the resolution.
Owens thinks he knows exactly why.
"Democrats know Douglass was a Republican," Owens said. "They don't stand up for the things that really should make a difference. They stand up for everything the Democratic Party wants, which means the black community is not always in a good place."
That's the caucus in a sentence. Not a black caucus. A Democrat caucus that happens to be black.
Owens, who sits on the House Education and Workforce Committee, says the pattern is most visible in school choice. He predicts caucus members will vote against giving black families the freedom to choose better schools for their kids, not because the policy is bad, but because the party tells them to.
"That means they are going to vote against school choice," Owens said, warning that "our kids are going down so fast, so far because they're not getting the right education."
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"Unfortunately, for the left, their priorities are power and profit," Owens said.
And he means that literally.
His argument is that keeping black communities dependent, struggling, and pessimistic is a feature of left-wing politics, not a bug. "Marxists and socialists hate faith, family, and free market education because that sense of independence takes away their power and ability to make profit," he said. When people "feel hopeless, feel desperate, then they depend on you."
The latest example of that political class at work: the caucus is urging young black athletes to boycott Southern universities as payback for new congressional maps. Owens, who was the third black athlete to earn a football scholarship from the University of Miami, calls the push an act of "black elitists" willing to crush the dreams of young athletes to protect their own standing. They want to "take the dreams of young black people away so that they can keep theirs."
Byron Donalds puts the broader problem even more bluntly. He says the caucus and the Democrat Party lean on racial grievance because their actual policy ideas can't stand on their own merits.
"Democrats always use race [as a] political crutch," Donalds said, arguing they exploit the emotional weight of American history "for political gain." He calls the tactic "sick" and says voters are starting to notice. "I think that's why you're seeing more and more people walk away from the Democratic Party," he said.
At this point, maybe we should stop calling it the Congressional Black Caucus altogether. The Congressional Liberal Black Caucus is more accurate.
