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The Price of a Black President
New York Times ^ | October 27, 2012 | By FREDRICK C. HARRIS

Posted on 10/28/2012 6:13:25 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer

WHEN African-Americans go to the polls next week, they are likely to support Barack Obama at a level approaching the 95 percent share of the black vote he received in 2008. As well they should, given the symbolic exceptionalism of his presidency and the modern Republican Party’s utter disregard for economic justice, civil rights and the social safety net.

But for those who had seen in President Obama’s election the culmination of four centuries of black hopes and aspirations and the realization of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of a “beloved community,” the last four years must be reckoned a disappointment. Whether it ends in 2013 or 2017, the Obama presidency has already marked the decline, rather than the pinnacle, of a political vision centered on challenging racial inequality. The tragedy is that black elites — from intellectuals and civil rights leaders to politicians and clergy members — have acquiesced to this decline, seeing it as the necessary price for the pride and satisfaction of having a black family in the White House.

To place policy above rhetoric is not to ask what the first black president is doing for blacks; rather, it is to ask what a Democratic president is doing for the most loyal Democratic constituency — who happen to be African-Americans, and who happen to be in dire need of help. Sadly, when it comes to the Obama presidency and black America, symbols and substance have too often been assumed to be one and the same.

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: black; blackpresident; election2012; racecard; racism; racists
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To: Tex-Con-Man

“Insane.”
//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////

Yes it is but the word utterly fails to capture the enormity of this absurdity. I really cannot think of a way to express it in words without lapsing into the drunken sailor mode of talking which I learned so well fifty years ago.


41 posted on 10/28/2012 8:58:22 AM PDT by RipSawyer (Free healthcare is worth FAR LESS than it costs.)
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To: Check6

Ammunition


42 posted on 10/28/2012 9:56:56 AM PDT by prov1813man (While the one you despise and ridicule works to protect you, those you embrace work to destroy you)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer

“There is another class of colored people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs — partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs...

There is a certain class of race-problem solvers who do not want the patient to get well, because as long as the disease holds out they have not only an easy means of making a living, but also an easy medium through which to make themselves prominent before the public.”

~ Booker T. Washington (1856-1915.) ~
Educator, Author, Civil Rights Leader


43 posted on 10/28/2012 11:06:56 AM PDT by kanawa
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To: ProtectOurFreedom

I just watch “Cops”.


44 posted on 10/28/2012 4:51:40 PM PDT by ebshumidors ( Marksmanship and YOUR heritage http://www.appleseedinfo.org)
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To: Oldeconomybuyer
As well they should

Really? Why don't they and you GFY!

45 posted on 10/28/2012 4:55:31 PM PDT by Altura Ct.
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