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GOP’s West Criticizes Samuel Jackson’s Comments

GOP’s West Criticizes Samuel Jackson’s Comments

By: Frederick Cosby, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com

Samuel L. Jackson says the Tea Party’s hostility toward Obama ‘boils down pretty much to race.’ (Photo: Retna)

Rep. Allen West, one of only two black Republicans in the House of Representatives, blasted actor Samuel L. Jackson Wednesday for accusing the Tea Party of being racist.

“I think Samuel Jackson needs to pay more attention to the upcoming release of the movie ‘Avengers’ next summer and not [get] concerned with the politics and policies of the failed administration,” West said on Fox News Wednesday.

Jackson - who had cameos as Col. Nick Fury in the “Iron Man,” “Hulk,” “Captain America” and “Thor” movies and will reprise the role in “The Avengers” superhero blockbuster next summer - echoed the sentiments of fellow actor Morgan Freeman in calling some Tea Party members racist and hostile towards President Barack Obama.

“I think everything right now is geared toward getting that guy out of office, whatever that means,” Jackson told New York magazine. “It’s not politics. It is not economics. It all boils down pretty much to race. It is a shame.”

West, a tea party favorite and the only GOP member of the Congressional Black Caucus, said Jackson’s criticism was narrow and shortsighted given the nation’s high black unemployment rate that’s nearly twice the rate of the national average.

“Samuel L. Jackson, I guess, disregards the 16.7 percent unemployment rate in the black community, a 20 percent unemployment rate for black adult males and a 45-46 percent unemployment for black teenagers,” West told Fox News. “I think the racism that he is talking about is coming out of the White House and this administration.”

West said Jackson, Freeman and others shouldn’t “scapegoat” the Tea Party movement. He insisted that Tea Party supporters and conservatives are working to reduce the black unemployment rate and sited businessman Herman Cain’s Republican presidential campaign as an example.

Cain is the only black candidate in the GOP field.

“I think that what you’re seeing with Herman Cain is someone that is against the tide. He is not a career politician, he is coming forth with common sense solutions with what is happening in our country,” West said.

Cain, who has surged in recent polls after winning the Florida straw poll, made headlines earlier this week when he called Texas Gov. Rick Perry, another GOP presidential candidate, “insensitive” for allowing the word “Niggerhead” to remain painted on a large rock at the entrance of the governor’s family hunting camp.

“There isn’t a more vile, negative word than the ‘N-word,’ and for him to leave it there as long as they did is just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country,” Cain said in a television interview last Sunday.

But after getting beat up by conservative bloggers, Tea Partiers, and talk radio hosts like Rush Limbaugh and after meeting with New York real estate mogul and White House flirter Donald Trump, Cain backtracked from his strong statements about Perry.

“All I said was the mere fact that that word was there was ‘insensitive,’” following his New York meeting with Trump. “That’s not playing the race card. I’m not attacking Gov. Perry. Some people in the media want to attack him. I’m done with that issue….I really don’t care about that word…They painted over it. End of story. I accept Gov. Perry’s response on that.”