Black folks won't benefit from a just-passed $18 billion jobs bill, says Rep. Elijah Cummings, a Democrat from Maryland.

Because the bill largely consists of tax breaks for small businesses, Cummings said African-Americans won't be affected.

"The problem in the African-American community I don't think will be helped a lot by that bill," Cummings, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, told MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell.

According to The Hill:

The main provision of the bill is a new tax break for small businesses that hire new workers. The measure provides $13 billion to fund the tax break, which exempts small firms from paying the Social Security payroll tax on each new worker and also provides a small firm with a $1,000 tax credit for each new worker who stays on for a year. "We have found a way to hire workers, help businesses that hire them with tax cuts and keep it budget-neutral," said to New York Democrat Sen. Charles Schumer .

Cummings is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. The group of black legislators has accused President Obama of ignoring the needs of African Americans, 98 percent of whom support the president according to some polls, especially when it comes to unemployment. The unemployment rate for African Americans was 15.8 percent compared to 9.7 percent nationally. The unemployment rate for Black men is17.8 percent with 1.4 million out of work. That is astronomical, sickening and probably much higher.

Cummings said he is still in favor of the bill but will be pushing hard for pending legislation that "focuses on impoverished communities and helps retrain workers," The Hill writes.

Cummings is both right and wrong.

I'm looking out the window of my apartment in Harlem, and I don't see too many folks walking around wearing green. St. Patrick's Day is not the most celebrated holiday in the African-American community, but as author Noel Ignatiev points out in an interesting piece on The Root, Black and Irish had a lot in common but failed to coalesce around their common interests.

Like Blacks, the Irish were oppressed when they came to this country. Blacks were in slavery, but the Irish were also given dirty, dangerous jobs and confined to the lowest rungs of society. They sometimes were given jobs that slave masters thought were not worth risking a slave for. At first, there was a somewhat forced relationship at the bottom of America's melting pot.

Ignatiev writes:

(Irish) commonly found themselves thrown together with free Negroes. Blacks and the Irish fought each other and the police, socialized and occasionally intermarried, and developed a common culture of the lowly. They also both suffered the scorn of those better situated. Along with Jim Crow and Jim Dandy, the drunken, belligerent and foolish Patrick and Bridget were stock characters on the early stage. In antebellum America, it was speculated that if racial amalgamation was ever to take place, it would begin between those two groups. As we know, things turned out otherwise.

In 1841, 60,000 Irish in Ireland issued an address to their compatriots in America, calling upon them to join with the abolitionists in the struggle against slavery. Six months after the address, the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison wrote what may be the saddest words ever written about the Irish Diaspora: "Even to this hour, not a single Irishman has come forward, either publicly or privately, to express his approval of the address, or to avow his determination to abide by its sentiments."

Instead, Irish began to fight freed Blacks over jobs on the waterfront and in the factories. The Irish did not support the abolition of slavery. Ignatiev, the author of "How the Irish Became White," argues that Black and Irish fought over jobs, because the labor market was artificially altered by the presence of slavery.

"Some have pointed to competition for jobs as the cause of Irish animosity toward blacks. But in the wage system, all workers compete for jobs. It is not free competition that leads to enduring animosity, but its absence. The competition among Irish and black laborers failed to lead to unity because it did not take place under normal labor market conditions but was distorted by the color line. However much the Irish were oppressed as a race in Ireland and exploited as workers in America, once landed in Boston, New York or Philadelphia, they enjoyed one marked advantage over refugees from Southern slavery: No one was chasing them with dogs," Ignatiev writes.

Race was used to divide two groups of people who should have been on the same side. Imagine the force and speed with which social change could have been achieved in this country if people of the same class had joined together to fight for changes that would benefit all. Instead of fighting for a place at the table, Blacks and Irish bickered over the scraps.

Maybe President Barack Obama's research team should have done a little more work. It seems that the Ohio woman he highlighted during a public relations push for health care reform-as someone who would have to choose between keeping her home and caring for her health-may be eligible for Medicaid.

The director of the Cleveland Clinic said that Natoma Canfield's income is low enough to likely qualify her for Medicaid.

"It appears that I think she'll be fine," said Lyman Sornberger, the hospital's executive director of patient financial services, to the Associated Press. "By nature of the fact that she was not early on rejected by either program, that's a key indicator that she will most likely be eligible."

Obama traveled to Ohio Monday to use Canfield's case as an example of why health care reform is so necessary. White House press secretary Robert Gibbs also hyped Canfield's story.

According to the Associated Press:

Obama is not wrong in saying that a patient in Canfield's situation might have to choose between her home and health care, said Eileen Sheil, a spokeswoman for Cleveland Clinic."But this patient is probably not the best example of someone in that situation, although we have patients in that situation who haven't yet qualified for Medicaid or didn't have the resources" to pay for care," Sheil said.

There are plenty of things about Canfield's story, though, that are worth noting in relation to the battle for health care reform. Just because she isn't the perfect tear jerker story doesn't mean that she doesn't represent the struggles of millions of Americans.

Donald Alva Oliver

Case Type: Endangered
Date of Birth: November 21, 1985
Missing Date: January 1, 2006
Age Now: 24
Missing City: Las Vegas
Missing State: Nevada
Gender: Male
Race: Black
Complexion: Medium
Height: 6-1
Weight: 160
Hair Color: Black
Hair Length: Medium
Eye Color: Brown

Location Last Seen: Donald was last seen at approximately 10 p.m. at a family member's residence in the vicinity of the 1800 block of Robin St. in Las Vegas, Nev.

Circumstances of Disappearance: The rental vehicle he was driving, described as a red Ford Mustang, is also missing. He may be in the Oklahoma; Texas; or Phoenix, Ariz., area.

Last Seen Wearing: A black hooded sweater, black T-shirt, blue jean shorts or blue jeans, white socks. Black K-Swiss athletic shoes or blue and gray Nike Air Force shoes. Two gold leaf earrings, gold teeth grill.

Identifying Marks or Characteristics: Scar on chin, scar on top front of head, pierced ears.

If you have information regarding the whereabouts of Donald Alva Oliver, please contact the Black and Missing Foundation's tip line.

The pictures that Charles Moore took helped catapult one of the most important movements in history in to the national and international consciousness.

As a photographer in Alabama during the Civil Rights Movement, Moore captured a photo of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. being led away by police as they twisted his arm behind his back. Moore later joined Life Magazine and traveled around the South capturing some of the most important and violent events of the movement. Using short lenses that required him to get close to the action, Moore helped provide a close-up look at history that helped to influence history.

"I'm proud to say my photographs have helped to make a difference in our country and our society, and to show that we're all children of the same God," Moore said in a 2005 interview with the Montgomery Advertiser.

Moore, 79, died Thursday, but his contributions live on.

According to the Associated Press:

Moore photographed the riots at the University of Mississippi that coincided with the enrollment of James Meredith as its first black student. In one, white students hold a Confederate battle flag aloft as they jeer. The next year, in 1963, Moore was in Birmingham when black children and teenagers marched through city streets demanding an end to legalized segregation. They were met by police with snarling dogs and firefighters who pounded them with streams of water from fire hoses. In 1965, he photographed Alabama state troopers in masks tear-gassing voting rights marchers in Selma. The confrontation, which became known as "Bloody Sunday," received worldwide attention, partly because of Moore's photography.

"There are images of Charles in the middle of the scrum while other photographers are on the sidewalks, missing the action," Hank Klibanoff, who won a Pulitzer with Gene Roberts for their book "The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle and the Awakening of a Nation," told the Associated Press.

In other words, Moore risked his own personal safety to document the movement. And it was the national and international coverage of the Civil Rights Movement that helped shame leaders in this country and spur outraged residents into action. Photos of peaceful protesters being beaten by police, blasted with powerful fire hoses and threatened by the Klu Klux Klan helped spark powerful international, and eventually, national reaction.

The selfishness of our legislators never ceases to amaze me. Just as the White House is pushing to have Congress pass the health care reform bill and take out the pork and specialized deals, legislators are pushing back.

Over the weekend, President Obama's chief political advisor, David Axelrod, conceded that the some of the special deals might have to go back in to the bill.

According to the Associated Press:

Axelrod also indicated the White House was backing down on an attempt to get senators to rid the legislation of a number of lawmakers' special deals.Taking a new position, he said the White House only objects to state-specific arrangements, such as an increase in Medicaid funding for Nebraska, ridiculed as the "Cornhusker Kickback." That's being cut, but provisions that could affect more than one state are OK, Axelrod said.

That means deals sought by senators from Montana and Connecticut would be fine - even though Gibbs last week singled them out as items Obama wanted removed. There was resistance, however, from two powerful committee chairman, Democratic Sens. Max Baucus of Montana and Chris Dodd of Connecticut, and the White House has apparently backed down."The principle that we want to apply is, are these applicable to all states? Even if they do not qualify now, would they qualify under certain sets of circumstances?" Axelrod said.

For all of those who questioned why President Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize, (me included) there's a bright side.

Several very worthwhile charities will benefit from the $1.4 million award that comes with the prize, including six groups that help kids get to college, Haitian relief efforts and the place where soldiers killed overseas are returned to.

Even Obama was stunned that he won the prize. It is normally awarded for those who have accomplished a great feat. The committee, however, gave Obama the prize for "changing the tenor of international politics and for pursuing goals Obama says will require worldwide effort, such as nuclear disarmament and reversing global warming," the AP writes.

A lot of America's goodwill and standing in the international community had been squandered by former President George W. Bush, when Obama took office. We invaded Iraq under completely false pretenses and refused to cooperate with the rest of the world on global warming. Our president, with his many gaffes, was not taken seriously around the world. Even the election that put Bush in office was questioned.

Obama was able to change that. He's articulate, thoughtful, knowledgeable and has traveled and lived outside of this country. He is able to explain his decisions and is an impassioned speaker. However, at the time of the award, many thought that was the extent of Obama's appeal.