NAACP leader blasts Gingrich's food stamp comment

NAACP President and CEO Benjamin Todd Jealous on Friday labeled as "inaccurate and divisive" a statement by Newt Gingrich that African-Americans should "not be satisfied with" food stamps.

The move marks the second time this week that the NAACP has criticized one of the GOP candidates. It also rebuked Rick Santorum for a remark in which he appeared to single out African-Americans as recipients of federal aid. Santorum has denied he was singling out blacks.

Of Gingrich's remark, Jealous said: "It is a shame that the former Speaker feels that these types of inaccurate, divisive statements are in any way helpful to our country. The majority of people using food stamps are not African-American, and most people using food stamps have a job."

Gingrich, like Santorum, vehemently denied his remark had any racial overtones or that he was engaging in class warfare. "I would welcome a request, an opportunity to go to speak to the NAACP convention because I thought there ought to be a conversation,"Gingrich said on CBS' "The Early Show" on Friday, and followed that he would speak to Latinos or any other minority group that wanted "paychecks over food stamps."

Jealous said Gingrich had been invited to speak to his group several times when he served as speaker, but declined the invitations. "If he is invited again, I hope that he would come, with the intention to unite rather than divide," he said.

Jealous and other critics of Gingrich's remark have noted that more whites than blacks receive food-stamp assistance. Whites accounted for 34.4 percent of food-stamp recipients in 2009, compared to blacks who accounted for 21.4 percent of recipients, according to an October 2010 government report.

Gingrich has sought in his recent comments invoking the NAACP to demonstrate his commitment to reaching beyond traditional GOP groups to Democratic constituencies.

But Oscar Eason, president of the NAACP State Conference of Alaska, Oregon and Washington State, called Gingrich's most recent statement racist.

"It goes right to the heart of real racism -- that African Americans are lazy and don't want to work and depend entirely on handouts," Eason told CBS Radio.

Gingrich, in remarks to reporters Friday in Newport, N.H., continued to insist there was nothing racist about what he said. "If you talk openly and honestly about the failure of liberal institutions and the way that they hurt the poor, there becomes a sudden frenzy of a herd of people running over screaming racism, racism."

He added: "I think you would have to be nuts to read those two paragraphs to conclude anything except that I was saying that every young American deserves the right to pursue happiness, every young American deserves the right to get a job. Every neighborhood in America deserves a chance to get paychecks instead of food stamps. And I was saying something which I thought for a Republican candidate was refreshingly positive, which is I would be happy to go to the NAACP convention and talk about creating greater opportunities for all Americans."

Full CBS News coverage: Newt Gingrich

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Newt Gingrich on the campaign trail

[freemarket2012]

Just numbers from US gov:
White 79.5% of population receiving 35.7% of food stamps
African American 12.9% of population receiving 22% of food stamps
Hispanic 16% of population receiving 10% of food stamps

Race Household Head receiving food stamps
White, not Hispanic 35.7
African American 22.0
Hispanic, Any Race 10.0
Asian, not Hispanic 2.4

Percentage of population: U.S. Census Population
Whites (includes "Some other race") 79.5%
Non-Hispanic Whites 64.7%
Hispanics/Latinos (of any race) 16.0%
African Americans 12.9%

Blacks have a 380% higher chance of recieving food stamps than whites and 150% more than Hispanics. Just numbers from US government.

[Uma_Spankhurst]

Slick use of that government report. You can't draw ANY conclusions about race & food stamp use based on it because, according to the report, 21.5% are listed as race unknown (page 59). But then the author of this piece knew that few people would click through to dig the data out of a 129 page report. It's exactly this kind of dishonesty that is costing media credibility every day. No wonder media is almost as loathed as Congress is. They lie just as much!

[Cevale]

The only thing worse than Newt Gingrich's remarks was Ben Jealous' reply to them ! Here was have an historical racist politician who weaseled his way out of appearing before the assembled NAACP on two prior occasions when he was House Speaker and when asked by Ed Shultz on live TV if he would take Newt up on his offer to appear before the group, Ben replied " We are not there yet" Excuse me Ben ? Here we have a guy with a 25 year history in incendiary remarks directed specifically at the black community, an offer by no less than the great offender himself to answer for his racially charged remarks and Ben Jealous gives this guy an out? Maybe it's time Ben gets called out for missing the opportunity to hold Gingrich accountable for his decades of derisive politics. Im heated that he let Newt slide by responding in such a feckless manner. Anyone else as outraged by Ben's cowardice? Can anyone defend his comment re : "Not there Yet ? " With such a cowardly response will Ben ever " Get There ?

[leonjonessr]

Cevale, you should go back and do some research and see who ran Detroit and Chicago and Memphis and New Orleans and St. Louis and so so many other towns where Blacks were always 'taken care of' by some Democrat politician, only to end up killing one another, not being exposed to the best education availabe to other ethnic groups and being a pawn for a few Mobsters in the community. Detroit was run by Democrats for many many years, and you nor any other Blacks ever call out the perpetrators who took taxpayers' money and stuff their own pockets. We as Blacks have always been told we were the victims, when all we needed was someone like Newt to shoot straight and hoodwink us. We need jobs not welfare, education not pandering, the truth not lies. The racists are not always white.

[thirty9nholding]

I would like to say i am getting tired of the lame concept that Republicans want to 1. Starve the elderly, are racist, hate the latino's etc. This is just pure malarky. The best way for everyone to get ahead is to free up business to hire. Also less illegal persons would free up more jobs. The other problem is there is a big share of people who pay no taxes. That is wrong as well everyone should pay at least a small amount. So lets kick O'bama out, cut taxes on individuals, Corps (buy the way Corps do not pay taxes the purchers of their products do). Thus creating more jobs and prosperity for eveyone

[leonjonessr]

thirty9nholding, you are spot on. This is a trick to distract from the failed policies of the boy-child in the WH. I am a Black American and I know racism when I see it. This is just a ploy to talk about a bunch of nonsense day in and day out so that no one will notice that the economy is beginning to accelerate only because this incompetent president has his hands tied with an apt GOP Congress in the House. Why are we not talking about the inaccuracy of the employment numbers. This 8.5% figure is a joke. The rate for Blacks is at or near 30%. And this president is trying to keep the Keystone jobs from materializing. We should all know by now that the government cannot create jobs. The private sector creates jobs. Every job in the government sector is a temporary position set up to carry out some government regulation that will take more money out of the private sector.

[amondo79]

Newt knows that he has an audience for this stuff. He knows that he could have made the point without specifically referencing blacks. Has anyone noticed that the angriest people in the country have been middle class whites and that the "poor" blacks have little complained about the recession. Surveys suggest they have remained the most optimistic in the downturn. Why are white people so obsessed with them? Its the underlying greed that stokes the fear that a crumb might fall from their table into undeserving hands. "White" is still an ugly word.

[leonjonessr]

amondo79, if you will lie about that you will lie about anything. You are wrong about poor blacks not complaining. I work in the poor community and they do complain just as other groups do. Get your fact straight before you blurt out lies.

[spritquest]

Sharpton, Jackson, and Obama talk about high unemployment among blacks, and the NAACP echoes "Amen".

Gingrich says that blacks would rather not be unemployed and gets the NAACP on his back.

Ah, wait, he's white. NAACP attack on non-liberal?

[TKWS11]

Wow, did the racists come out to comment on this one or what? When all us "working folk" realize that race was created to separate and divide us and keep us at each others throats then we can come together and make a difference. But, oh, yeah, I forgot, you have to have somebody to look down upon to make your self feel better...Good luck with that =)

Also, what is the deal...why is there a constant attack on the Blacks in this country, please get over it, we are here, we go to school, work, etc., just like everyone else! Leave us alone! I guess everyone has to bully someone! Then you all have the nerve to wonder why todays kids are so messed up...look at their examples!

[leonjonessr]

TKWS11, ditto.

[gramljon]

"He added: "I think you would have to be nuts to read those two paragraphs to conclude anything except that I was saying that every young American deserves the right to pursue happiness, every young American deserves the right to get a job. Every neighborhood in America deserves a chance to get paychecks instead of food stamps."
If that is what he intended, then why didn't Gingrich say that. Why single out Blacks in his comments. Why didn't he say everyone? Because he was playing the race card andf conjuring up images of Blacks receiving welfare in order to rescue his dying Iowa campaing. Shame on you Newt!

[franknkissy]

Here we must request from Newt - while we seek work or find ourselves too disabled to find or keep employment - what does Mr. Gingrich suggest - that we eat his traditional Republican CRAP !

[JM1965]

When you consider that the black population makes up 13% of the people in the US and whites make up 66% of the people, 21.4% of blacks on food stamps is a very high number compared to 34.4% of whites. Do the math. This country does need to put people back to work, making a pay check and not relying on handouts, regardless of race.

[TommyR1]

Ahh. I did the math. It's 21.4% and 34.4% of people on food stamps. Not 21.4% of blacks and 34.4% of whites. There is a difference