Bush Administration Housing and Urban Development Secretary Alphonso Jackson was booed today while addressing the National Baptist Convention USA. The AP reports:
The booing started when Jackson, who is black, told the annual meeting of the National Baptist Convention USA that the Republican Party is committed to helping blacks.Some of the ministers laughed at Jackson's comment. Then a chorus of boos started and went on for about a minute until a church official stepped to the podium and asked the audience to stop.
Jackson said afterward that the National Baptist Convention is made up mostly of older people who are set in their ways, so the booing didn't surprise him. He added, "The so-called black leadership — Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond — creates and continues black victimization."
Why would people of faith boo the HUD secretary? Since George W. Bush took office there has been an on-going effort to cut back programs designed to help people lift themselves out of poverty.
Jackson says that his party wants to help back communities, but the president has refused to meet with the Congressional Black Caucus and the NAACP. No wonder the ministers broke out in laughter. They know the record of the last four years.
In May of this year, Jackson told Congress that 'being poor is a state of mind, not a condition." He used this reasoning to argue for cutbacks in social service programs.
When the booing got loud and the pressure intense Jackson did what all good Bush employees do: he attacked the audience by labeling them as “older people who are set in their ways,” according to the AP.
