Posted on 10/23/2011 7:28:08 PM PDT by neverdem
When Barack Obama was elected president, millions of Americans believed that the United States finally was entering a postracial period. But we are seeing old divisions return.
When Barack Obama was elected president, millions of Americans believed that the United States finally was entering a postracial period when race no longer mattered in any serious way. But the Obama presidency has, ironically, heightened racial tensions, and we are seeing old divisions return.
One of the most unexpected developments resulting from the Obama presidency has been the resurgence of conflicts and name-calling among blacks themselves. Not since the heyday of the Black Nationalist movement of the 1960s and 1970s has there been such bitterness among blacks about who is "authentically black" and who is not.
The source of this renewed infighting is the dashed hope that Obama, the first black president, would improve life for blacks - "his people." Life has not improved for blacks under Obama. The unemployment rate among blacks is 16.7 percent, nearly double the national average. Forty percent of black children are living in poverty, and the housing crisis has hit blacks harder than other groups.
Many blacks are disappointed and angry, and those who speak out and question Obama's performance are having their loyalties to "the race" and to the first black president challenged. Some are being called, among other insulting names, "Toms," "traitors" and "sellouts."
Media personality Tavis Smiley, Princeton University professor Cornel West, California Democratic Rep. Maxine Waters, and former pizza CEO Herman Cain, a Republican presidential candidate, are four of the most outspoken critics of Obama's performance.
During the summer, Smiley and West conducted a 15-city "Poverty Tour." On their website, they say the tour was "to highlight the plight of poor people of all races, colors and creeds so they will not be forgotten, ignored, or rendered invisible during this difficult and dangerous time of economic deprivation and political cowardice."
Referring to Obama's debt ceiling deal with the GOP, West said the measure was a "war on the poor" and that Obama "has no backbone." Later, he said of Obama: "He can speak to Jewish voters. … He can speak to gay voters. … Why can't he speak to black voters?"
Waters, while critical of the president, has not been as harsh. "The Congressional Black Caucus loves the president, too," she said. "We're supportive of the president, but we're getting tired. … We want to give the president every opportunity to show what he can do and what he's prepared to lead on. But our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. We don't know what the strategy is."
But West, Smiley and Waters are being excoriated. During one of his recent syndicated radio segments, comedian Steve Harvey, for example, accused West and Smiley of using personal vendettas to undermine Obama's re-election prospects. He mocked the outspoken duo as being affiliated with UTLO.org, an imaginary website whose initials stand for "Uncle Tom Look Out."
The Rev. Al Sharpton, an Obama loyalist, who has a radio show and a television program, issued a stern warning to the president's black critics. "I'm not telling you to shut up," he said. "I'm telling you: Don't make some of us have to speak up."
And then there is Obama critic Herman Cain who, in addition to claiming that racism in the United States "doesn't hold anybody back in a big way," said that Obama has "never been a part of the black experience in America" and that black voters are "brainwashed" for being loyal to Obama.
On the Joy Behar Show, entertainer and civil rights activist Harry Belafonte attacked Cain, along with black Republicans in general.
"The Republican Party, the tea party, all of those forces to the extreme right have consistently tried to come up with representation for what they call black, what they call the real Negroes and try to push these images as the kinds of voices that America should be (looking) to," Belafonte said. "So we've got Condoleezza Rice. We've got Colin Powell. They are heroes for some people, but for a lot of us they are not. And Herman Cain is just the latest incarnation of what is totally false to the needs of our community and the needs of our nation. I think he's a bad apple and people should look at his whole card. He's not what he says he is."
The fear for black leaders is not that the internal squabbles will cause Obama critics to vote Republican. It is that too many will stay home and deny the first black president the votes needed for him to return to the White House.
the main reason Barry doesn’t care about blacks is that they don’t make up enough of the voting bloc. He can use them but, in the end, they don’t matter enough to help him get reelected.
Well, a lot more bad sh** can happen between now and Nov. 2012 to help them turn loose of their “hope and change”. I’m not saying they will vote Republican; I’m saying many will stay home. The new has worn off and they’ve not gotten their Cadillac.
Baloney! Until 2008, whites ALWAYS voted overwhemingly --way over 90%-- for a white presidential candidtate! /s
“The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us. Gen. Banks was distressed with solicitude as to what he should do with the Negro. Everybody has asked the question, and they learned to ask it early of the abolitionists, “What shall we do with the Negro?” I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played the mischief with us. Do nothing with us! If the apples will not remain on the tree of their own strength, if they are worm eaten at the core, if they are early ripe and disposed to fall, let them fall! I am not for tying or fastening them on the tree in any way, except by nature’s plan, and if they will not stay there, let them fall. And if the Negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! If you see him on his way to school, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going to the dinner table at a hotel, let him go! If you see him going to the ballot box, let him alone, don’t disturb him! If you see him going into a work-shop, just let him alone, – your interference is doing him a positive injury.” Frederick Douglass
“Obama and the Democrats will get 85%-90% of the black vote.
That alone will insure him a second term.”
Not unless he gets help elsewhere. Blacks still only represent 15% of the American population, and only 50% of that number votes (correlating to the percentage of all Americans that bother to show up).
I think either one of two possibilities exist, Like an earlier poster said, if G.W. Bush can pull 16% of the black vote, Herman Cain has the opportunity to double that, or they stay home in droves because there is no excitement in the Obozo camp. They have all seen, the magic unicorn isn’t coming to poop skittles into their pockets to pay their rent, grocery bill, or put gas in their car. I know it’s anecdotal, but I hear story after story about black around the country angry that the “first black” president has been such a failure, and since the rise of Cain as the front runner for Conservatives, the media ploy of, “It’s whitey’s fault,and the evil white Republicans wanted the black president to fail” aren’t flying nearly as well as they did a year ago.
So buck up. Don’t be a defeatist.Until 11/6/12 we still have a chance, unless he deliberately starts the 2nd Civil War. I’m looking at this as an opportunity to educate, and free some of the black voters from the DNC Plantation.
If Cain gets the nomination, then the Republicans should get at least 15% maybe 20%.
You forgot the /sarc. The black community has collapsed because the black family structure has imploded. Black males get all the sex they want with no attendant responsibility for the children they sire. The majority of black kids grown up in female households always on the edge of poverty.
Great posting — both paragraphs!
The 95% was 3 yrs ago - things have changed. One of my sons, a long hauler, talks with blacks across the country on a daily basis. He sees a sea change in blacks as to Obama from 3 yrs ago.
You know, before retiring I worked in two major corpporations for a total of 35 years. I worked with people from all over the world who had come to this country to take advantage of the educational and job opportunities and did a great job of assimilating into this country. The Jesse Jackson and Al Sharptons are doing their level best to keep their race from doing the same. As a co-worker of Indian decent told me...The streets of America are still paved with GOLD. Some Americans are just to lazy to bend over and pick it up.
That would be good news if true. My experience is very different. I talk to some of my co-workers who happen to be black, all college-educated, go to church on Sundays, all of them are veterans, etc. They should be conservative voters. You think they would’ve gotten it by now, but nope, they haven’t. Hope and delusions die hard.
Basically, they have stopped gushing about Obama and are very quiet about it, but they seemed inclined to vote for him out of some misguided ethnic loyalty anyway.
I think black voter turn-out will be down, but it will still be in the 90% range for Obama.
Why is the Boehner House of Representatives continuing to appropriate money for these czars?
Well stated - I agree totally!
“He can speak to Jewish voters. … He can speak to gay voters. … Why can’t he speak to black voters?”
“Herman Cain who, in addition to claiming that racism in the United States “doesn’t hold anybody back in a big way,” said that Obama has “never been a part of the black experience in America” and that black voters are “brainwashed” for being loyal to Obama. “
Obama has no loyalty to the urban black culture because he ain’t one! He was raised by white commie women, went to Muslim school, sent to eastern commie colleges, why does anybody think he would be any different?
What a load of crap! Blacks seem for the majority of them to have their hands out constantly, they thought Obie would fill them.
I believe more and more they are a failed race.
Bush’s neglect to enforce existing SEC and bank regs allowed the mortgage scam to fester and spread, and eventually the whole banking system imploded causing an economical meltdown. FBI warned Treasury of liar loans in 2004 when they became concern about them after finding widespread usage of them by white collar criminals they investigated. No one in Treasury did anything. If Obama wanted to be real popular with the American people he should have loosen up business regs, lowered taxes and refrained from adding more gov programs that will add to cost of doing business in a Recession so business can pay down their debt and establish a financial foundation for recovery. Even ancient emperors understood the concept of a tax holiday on provinces hit by natural or economical disasters. Furthermore, in lieu of catering to crying Treasury Department that any criminal prosecution of scheming bankers will hurt Wall Street morale because the schemers are also the only experts who know how to dismantle the derivative laced debt. Obama relented and all the Wall Street bankers got were fines/settlements that are fraction of all the ill begotten profits they made from liar loans, false documents and prospective on mortgage backed securities rated AAA when they were actually junk plus all the robo signing of titles. At least Bush 41 and Clinton had up to 900 bankers and investors on trial for the Savings and Loan Crisis of the 1980’s and hundreds of investigated banks immediately shutdown after a regulatory audit. There was no changes to accounting rules to hide bank losses and the RTC took over all bad assets and sold them off in monthly auctions. Today banks get bailouts, changes in accounting rules and encouraged to hold all foreclosed properties with taxpayers money to placate the Real Estate interests. In other words Obama was worst then Bush. Bush did not monitor his admin when they neglected their duties. Obama knew of the mistake made by Bush and did nothing to remedy it, instead he worked with the Bankers who broke most of the rules and committed most of the fraud. Obama had a chance to be America’s second Teddy Roosevelt, but he squandered the chance. Time for a new butt kicker, and the GOP got one name Herman Cain.
Now, lets take it that this guy's political viewpoints differ from you.
even then, at some basic level you think "ok, someone who looks like me is there". But it takes a lot of guts and soul-searching for our fellow black conservatives to stand up and say "he has the same color skin as me, but beyond that we are NOT alike."
And that is where we in the GOP have a job to do -- to show to all our fellow Americans that the GOP doesn't have any blacks or whites or Asians in the party - we're color-blind. We only see the intrinsic worth of a person.
I heard the same thing from a truck driver I know just a few weeks ago. He works with whites, blacks, Hispanics etc. and he said that the black people he knows are not happy with Obama.
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