Black lawmakers have such a “sense of identification and empathy” with President Barack Obama that they are allowing him to get away with pretty much anything.

Or so said a recent article in the Hill, one of Washington’s top political newspapers, that such empathy was evident following Obama’s alleged impromptu remarks about the not guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial. Representative Charles Rangel (D-NY), who has represented Harlem in Congress since Obama was five years old, said: “I don’t see how a person not-of-color could possibly do the job that he’s doing.”

This reaction, shocking to no one, is nonetheless troubling because Obama’s economic performance — particularly as it has affected black communities — is sub-par at best.

The Hill listed several economic indicators — including declining income, declining home ownership rates and the high unemployment rate — to demonstrate just how poorly black Americans have fared under the nation’s first black president.

Remember how bad George W. Bush’s presidency apparently was for blacks? At the same point in Bush’s presidency, blacks were earning an average of more than $800 more (adjusted for inflation) annually than they are now under Obama. Black unemployment has risen under Obama’s watch.

Yet, for the black politicians, it appears racial identification takes precedence over prosperity.

Black politicians are also reluctant to criticize Obama — constructively or otherwise — for fear of emboldening his critics. So often, it seems, black politicians and the black intelligentsia prefer a salve of racial identification over the hard and responsible task of holding leaders accountable. These racial chieftains are again publicly — and foolishly — embracing race and passivity rather than fighting for economic opportunity for black America.

It’s not the first time members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), for instance, have chosen commonality with the President over a better program for black opportunity. Last summer, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver (D-MO) noted: “With [such high] unemployment, if we had a white president we’d be marching around the White House.” Cleaver added: “The President knows we are going to act in deference to him in a way we wouldn’t to someone white.”

So Obama’s blackness trumps his failure to get black people back to work?

To trivialize the economic plight of so many Americans is disrespectful and shameful. It’s worse when that same group idolizes Obama and wills itself to believe he is virtually infallible.

Since Obama became president, the unemployment rate for blacks fell below 13 percent only once — in his first month in office, in January of 2009 — and has risen above 16 percent 11 times during his presidency. Furthermore, the unemployment rate for black teens has yet to drop below 30 percent and has risen above 40 percent 29 times.

CBC members are apparently not too concerned with the unemployment rates in their respective districts, even though their constituents have fared quite poorly during President Obama’s “recovery.”

Keep in mind that the national unemployment rate last June was 7.6 percent overall, and 13.7 percent for blacks. According to the data service ProximityOne.com, the average unemployment rate for the districts represented by a CBC member is 13.8 percent.

Furthermore, CBC members represent many of the districts suffering from the highest unemployment rates. Yet these so-called leaders studiously avoid pressuring the President to reduce regulations or implement other policies that could diminish the absurd levels of unemployment among their constituents.

But the CBC has chosen to become a national embarrassment — not only to their constituents, but to Congress as a whole. And that’s saying something.

Black Americans who continue to support political charlatans are complicit in their own socio-economic asphyxiation.

As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s unforgettable “I Have a Dream” speech, blacks must rethink their reflexive and emotional embrace of racial identity politics. Refusing to do so in favor of continuing to idolize and commodify race will inevitably send black America into moral and political irrelevance.

Those who facilitate incompetence with an empathetic allegiance to poor leadership will have no one to blame but themselves.