CBC Warns: Dems Making ‘Very Serious Mistake’ Taking Blacks for Granted

A former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus is issuing a warning to the Democratic Party: Start paying attention to black communities, or say goodbye to the party.

Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) says Democrats are ignoring not only urban areas, but rural areas, and there's a connection between the two seemingly disparate voting blocs. 

"We have failed miserably in dealing with rural America," Cleaver said in an interview on MSNBC. "And there is a symbiotic relationship between urban America and rural America that people don’t talk about as much as they should. When you look at the rural counties and look at the poverty rates in those counties and measure them with the poverty rates of urban counties, they’re very similar."

"Here in Missouri, I have a rural part of my district and urban, they’re about the same in terms of the poverty rate," Cleaver continued. "So we failed miserably, and if we don’t seriously and significantly look at ways in which we can touch the folk in rural America, we’re not going to win four years from now.” 

Cleaver, who is a former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, became very serious in talking about black voters in particular.

"With African-Americans the Democrats are making a very, very serious mistake. Many of us have told them over and over again, ‘You take African-Americans for granted,’ and they do, and I think that’s going to come back to hurt us in the long run,” he warned. 

Cleaver accused Democrats of openly touting their lack of concern for their black voters.

"Some Democratic candidates have actually said," they take blacks for granted, Cleaver told MSNBC's Ali Velshi. "And they have no idea how much resentment they generate when they make those statements. And then secondly, they act like it."

Cleaver even praised Republicans for providing black voters with a more aspirational message.

"Look, there are very few Republican African Americans, probably a hand full, they can probably fit in this studio. But the Republicans go a long way trying to lift them up," Cleaver said. "Now their voting practices and their theology of politics is, I think, alien to what African Americans would want to see. But they do, in an unconventional way, respond to them and try to talk to them. I know African American businessman who became enormously wealthy as a result of Republicans who have tried to help him and his business move along.”