(Photo: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Jobs, jobs, jobs is the topic that’s at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation’s annual legislative conference is offering some interesting forums on efforts to address this gnawing problem.

The Congressional Black Caucus will be front and center Wednesday morning when it hosts its For the People Jobs Commission in the Congressional Visitor Center. The group has assembled an impressive series of panels that will feature experts who’ll talk about programs and policies in place that can aid unemployed workers in their job search, helping them to locate where the jobs are. In fact, economic opportunity and jobs will be the theme of the conference’s national town hall meeting Thursday morning.

During President Obama’s run for office in 2008, young adults shook off their antipathy and helped make history. Once the election was over, however, their fervor died. But a Black family in the White House doesn’t mean that race no longer colors politics. Viral emails of watermelon patches on the White House lawn, doctored chimpanzee photos and birtherism are just a few examples of the persistence of racial animosity. But maybe a forum titled Hip Hop Activism in a Politically Polarized America, hosted by Rep. André Carson, will help get people excited again.

(Photo: AP/Reed Saxon, File)

For a while there, Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan) was threatening to lead a march in front of the White House during the Congressional Black Caucus’ annual legislative conference this weekend to protest President Obama’s response to the soaring African-American unemployment rate. He’s since backed down, because of the American Jobs Act that the president introduced last week — or so he says.

It’s more likely that somebody convinced Conyers that putting on such a spectacle was a really bad idea. But, according to Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, who chairs the Congressional Black Caucus, it would be a very different story under a different administration.

“If [former president] Bill Clinton had been in the White House and failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House,” he said in an interview with McClatchy newspapers.

Imagine the headlines that would fly around the Internet faster than you can press the “return” key if the CBC did lead a public protest: “Black Lawmakers March on Obama!” “Hundreds of African-Americans Protest in Front of the White House!”  “Minorities Think Obama Is Clueless on Jobs and the Economy, Too!”

And the viral videos! Conservative news programs would put them on a constant loop and talk show hosts Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh would be in heaven.

But the CBC is stuck between a rock and a hard place. At least a few members have, on occasion, whispered into Politi-Chick’s ear that they honestly believe the president hasn’t done nearly enough to target Black unemployment and live in fear that he’ll cave on the next big issue during critical negotiations with Republican leaders. Almost three years in, they’re still figuring out how to balance that fine line between criticizing administration policies and not appearing to criticize the man who leads the administration itself.

“This is an unprecedented circumstance where an African-American president who is an iconic, heroic figure enjoys a status with African-Americans that no one since Martin Luther King has enjoyed,” former CBC member Artur Davis told McClatchy.

I’m wondering if Obama, who has a pretty good sense of humor, will use the aborted protest as part of a joke when he addresses the group during Saturday’s gala dinner. If so, will it be a funny moment or plain old awkward?

(AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Rep. Allen West has chosen an interesting way to commemorate the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. He hosted a press conference at which most of the participants slammed Islam and screened a virulently anti-Muslim documentary, titled Sacrificed Survivors: The Untold Story of the Ground Zero Mega-Mosque. Produced in association with the Christian Action Network, the film focuses on a proposed Islamic cultural center that was to be built a few blocks from Ground Zero. Opponents say the entire area is sacred ground and in essence a massive grave.

The event featured individuals who for the decade have struggled to overcome the inexplicable loss of loved ones who were killed on that fateful day. Only those who have experienced such a tragedy can truly share their pain, and it is good for them to have forums in which to express it.  Some even acknowledged that there are no legal or constitutional reasons to prohibit what they’ve dubbed a “morally wrong mega-mosque,” but other sentiments shared were alarming and verging on jingoism.

One speaker declared that Islam is not even a religion–and West agreed. According to the Florida lawmaker, it’s a “theocratic political construct ideology” in desperate need of reform. He also said that he fears Americans have not learned anything from the attacks and are unwilling to confront the threat of Islamic extremists both here and abroad, because it is politically incorrect.

“I am not sitting up here condemning people who call themselves Muslims. Now is the time we have to challenge this ideology,” West said. “If we are to peacefully coexist they have to come into the 21^st century and push aside a lot of these seventh-century ideas they still hold.”

This week is supposed to be about healing, but such vitriol is far from soothing. And it begs the question: What would Harriet Tubman think?

(Photo: Courtesy of André Carson)

Something has taken hold of the Congressional Black Caucus this summer. Rep. André Carson (Indiana) sometimes appears to still be learning how to give a good quote on the cuff, and has on occasion even deferred to another member. But apparently, after spending the past month traveling the country with the irrepressible Maxine Waters as part of the CBC jobs initiative, he’s begun expressing himself in some most interesting and controversial ways.

At a recent CBC town hall meeting in Miami, Carson said that the Tea Party wants to take African-Americans back to a very bleak time in history.

“This is the effort that we are seeing of Jim Crow. Some of these folks in Congress right now would love to see us as second-class citizens. Some of them in Congress right now with this Tea Party movement would love to see you and me… hanging on a tree,” he said.

Fellow CBC member Rep. Allen West, the group’s sole Republican, dashed off a furious response to CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver Wednesday afternoon, in which he said that Carson’s statement was “unconscionable.” Moreover, an earlier remark by Waters’, in which she directed the Tea Party to “go straight to hell,” was “appalling,” he said.

West also is going to “seriously reconsider” his CBC membership if Cleaver doesn’t condemn their “hate-filled comments.” There’s no way that’s going to happen, so he may want to start drafting that resignation note.

As Waters said when she told the Tea Party where to go, “This is a tough game. You can’t be intimidated. You can’t be frightened.”