Maxine Waters: ‘I Don’t Know Who The President Was Talking To, We’re Not Complaining’

California Congresswoman and former Congressional Black Caucus chair Maxine Waters has been critical of President Obama‘s approach to unemployment, particularly within black communities where the rate is nearly double the national average, and she found it “curious” that President Obama would call on CBC members this weekend to: “Shake it off. Stop complaining. Stop grumbling. Stop crying. We are going to press on. We have work to do.”

“I don’t know who he was talking to because we’re certainly not complaining,”  she said on CBS’s Early Show this morning, also pointing out that he has not been so stern in addressing other minority groups.

“I found that language a bit curious because the president spoke to the Hispanic Caucus, and certainly they’re pushing him on immigration … he certainly didn’t tell them to stop complaining,” she elaborated. “And he would never say that to the gay and lesbian community, who really pushed him on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

She emphasized the work CBC has done running town halls and job fairs across the country, and made it clear that their support is still with the President. “They want to know that we recognize, and that the president recognizes the pain that is in the African American community,” she said of the black and African American community’s concern. She noted that his speech, for the first time, included those words — black and African American — meaning that, “Oh, yes, he heard us.”

“We’re working,” she insisted. “We support him, and we’re protecting that back because we want to be enthusiastic about him when that election rolls around.”

Watch the segment, courtesy of CBS, below:

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