In 1974, 16-year-old Jay Homnick and his father attended a meeting in New York's Flatbush area. Schumer, running for State Assembly, spoke to an audience of local whites and Italian, Jewish and Slavic immigrants, who wanted to remove three city blocks of Avenue K apartments. Why? The tenants were almost 100 percent black. Schumer, according to a 2006 American Spectator article by Homnick, told the group that if elected, he had a plan. The apartment buildings would be renovated and sold as condos. The original tenants would be offered the right to purchase the new condos, but these blacks would be priced out of the market.
5) Former Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean, the Republican National Hispanic Assembly and the Asian American and Pacific Islander National Republican Association.
Dean, who once referred to the Republican Party as the "white party," considers the GOP racist. "The Republicans are all about suppressing votes," Dean said. "Two voting machines if you live in a black district, 10 voting machines if you live in a white district." During a meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus, Dean said, "You think the Republican National Committee could get this many people of color in a single room? ... Only if they had the hotel staff in here."
Republicans took 35 percent of the "Asian vote" in the '08 presidential race. The percentage of the GOP "Hispanic vote" fell to 31 in 2008, but 40 percent of Hispanic voters in 2004 punched the chad for the "white party."
4) Harry Belafonte and former Secretary of State Colin Powell.
"There's an old saying in the days of slavery," said Belafonte in 2002. "There are those slaves who lived on the plantation, and there were those slaves who lived in the house. You got the privilege of living in the house if you served the master. Colin Powell was permitted to come into the house of the master."
3) Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., and the Congressional Black Caucus.
After winning a district formerly held by a black representative, Cohen -- whose district is 60 percent black -- unsuccessfully tried to join the CBC. Congressional Black Caucus Chairwoman Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, D-Mich., said: "Mr. Cohen asked for admission, and he got his answer. ... It's time to move on. It's an unwritten rule. It's understood. It's clear."
2) House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel, D-N.Y., and Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican Party (both of whom happen to be black).
"It's not 'sp*c' or 'n****r' anymore," said Rep. Rangel after Republicans became the congressional majority in 1994. "They say, 'Let's cut taxes.'"
1) Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., and overweight black people.
Franken once wrote a book called "Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot." The master radio host has since slimmed down. But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, blacks have a 51 percent higher prevalence of obesity than whites.
Here's to hope and change -- with hops.