Posted on 07/22/2013 3:48:29 AM PDT by markomalley
To African-Americans, President Obama just gets it.
Obama’s notably personal comments on Friday about the verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman, and on race in America, struck a chord. They vividly underlined the fact that, for the first time, the person in the Oval Office has lived an African-American experience.
To black supporters, that is more important than Obama’s inability to narrow racial inequalities during his four and a half years in office, something that has frustrated members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), a former head of the black caucus, was in the middle of a phone interview with The Hill when Obama appeared at the White House briefing room podium to address the raw feelings exposed by the “not guilty” verdict on the man who had fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager.
Pausing to listen to an office television for several minutes, Rangel said: “I don’t see how a person not-of-color could possibly do the job that he’s doing.”
Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) said, “I was glad that he spoke about it in a very personal way. I thought it was very powerful conversation. He could really make a significant impact in terms of race relations and in terms of not sweeping this under the carpet.”
For the vast bulk of the African-American political class, the sense of identification and empathy with the nation’s first black president has almost always taken primacy over whatever disappointments they have with his record.
The disappointment is perhaps strongest on the economy, since black people are worse off now than they were when Obama first took office, according to virtually every major indicator.
They have fared worse than whites throughout Obama’s time in the White House. Their plight, therefore, cannot be pinned on the general malaise that has afflicted the nation since the financial crash.
In January 2009, the month Obama took office, black unemployment stood at 12.7 percent, outstripping white unemployment, which stood at 7.1 percent.
The national unemployment rate and the rate among whites have both ticked down since then, but African-American joblessness has actually worsened. It now stands at 13.7 percent, while the white rate is just 6.6 percent.
Statistics for home ownership tell the same story. The most recent figures, which cover the first quarter of 2013, show that 43.1 percent of African-American families own their homes, a decline of 3 percentage points since Obama came to power.
White home ownership also declined over the same period, but the fall (from 74.7 percent to 73.4 percent) was only about half of that experienced by black people.
The pattern repeats itself on income. Adjusted for inflation, white per capita income declined by only a negligible amount ($36) from 2008 to 2011, the most recent year for which figures are available. During the same period, black per capita income fell by $502.
Back in 2005, the first year of President George W. Bush’s second term, black per capita income adjusted for inflation was $801 higher than it is in the most recent figures.
Most black liberals lay the blame for the widening gaps at the door of history, and what they see as present-day Republican obstructionism. But Obama has not been immune from black criticism.
Academic Cornel West and broadcaster Tavis Smiley have leveled especially strong charges. Back in 2011, West accused Obama of being a “black puppet of corporate plutocrats.”
Obama’s remarks on Martin evidently did not alleviate Smiley’s dissatisfaction.
“Took POTUS almost a week to show up and express mild outrage. And still, it was as weak as pre-sweetened Kool-Aid,” he tweeted soon after Obama left the briefing room. But if Smiley and West have become the standard-bearers of black dissent, there has been a conspicuous lack of other prominent people rallying to that flag.
Rev. Al Sharpton, the activist and MSNBC anchor, has been among Obama’s staunchest defenders.
“Do people want rhetoric to make us feel better or action that makes our lives better?” he asked in a phone interview with The Hill.
Many people argue that because African-Americans have always been poorer than whites, it is natural that they would suffer more sharply in the Great Recession and its aftermath.
Sharpton offered a more specific observation, noting that black Americans have tended to find proportionately more employment in the public sector than the private sector, in part because of discrimination from private employers.
It was therefore virtually certain that blacks would be harder hit by the succession of cuts and fiscal crises that pared public sector jobs.
He added that a number of the White House’s top priorities, from the stimulus to ObamaCare, served to help poorer people most, and that many African-Americans benefitted.
“Have they done it in the names of African-Americans and Latinos, like I would do? No. But would that way have produced a more positive result? Probably less positive. The right would have said, ‘They’re just doing it to help them.’ ”
Among black progressives, there is also a wariness about fueling the fires of Republicans and conservatives who are seen as too often being personally disrespectful toward the president.
“Many progressives and Democrats will avoid like the plague giving ammunition to the professional Obama haters and the GOP,” said Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a political analyst and author.
Still, he added, “It would be totally irresponsible not to raise principled, political criticisms and offer constructive criticisms, whether it be on his drone policy or urging him to do more for the black poor.”
Black lawmakers are highly reluctant to voice those criticisms, however. Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) repeatedly criticized Obama in 2011 for being insufficiently concerned with blacks’ economic circumstances. But she was an exception rather than the rule — and has largely muted any expressions of negative recently.
“I was thinking you maybe wanted me to say bad things about the president,” Rangel noted at one point in an interview with The Hill, making plain he had no intention of doing so.
He acknowledged merely that any disappointment he felt was “only based on my expectations. I know that nobody else understands the problems we face as a people better than he does.”
They usually aren't so open in admitting it.
race trumps all
Of course it does the only real question is when will whites stand up against it?
Not much hope for change until the bums are thrown out.
http://junipersec.wordpress.com/2013/07/22/hater-in-chief/
“race trumps all”
Exactly right! Any none black who doesn’t believe it is naive.
I don't think it's so much a matter of "whites standing up against it" as a matter of whites ignoring it. Far too many whites are self-loathing. They have bought into the collective, multi-generational guilt that they have been taught by the hucksters.
When they lose that defensiveness and look at each situation for what it is then the hucksters will lose their power.
Try buying food and gasoline with empathy.
Exactly right!
Exactly wrong!
This is a myopic assessment. If race does trump all, how do you explain all the capable, charismatic black conservatives getting the cold shoulder from the black voters?
No, it's much worse than "race trumps all" It's "Ideology trumps all"
Can we really be surprised?
Look at the politicians that are elected in most black cities. Many are addicts and outright crooks.
Don’t you just love that blacks actually believe this fake understands what they go through? He has and still lives a privileged life. I guess I don’t understand the stupidity of the collective black mind set.
I’d take that one step farther and say that color trumps all, including race.
This is true. Some of my relatives still support Obama and won’t hear a negative thing about him. Now they will be a little critical of his gay marriage support but they still think he’s the best evah.
Its Obama worship.
Obama has shared exactly NONE of the “American black experience,” which is why he needs at all times to be calling attention to his suntan in order to distract the poor fools who voted for him. He is only half black, and that of unclear origin, and had a privileged white or foreign upbringing that has nothing in common with the “black experience.”
But he would never have won office if he had not had that extra dose melanin that kept him from being examined too closely because of the white guilt vote. Now that it is clear that that the country is falling apart on every level, it’s the thing he’s relying on to distract people and keep his devoted black base - who are disproportionately powerful in this country - fired up and distracted from the fact that they have never done worse in the last 40 years.
Nah. Cosby was never a communist, I think. Morgan Freeman probably neither.
It’s color trums everything. For *some* people.
thoroughly disgusted at my family
I actually heard someone say at a gathering that they switched from Bush voting to Obama Because he has SWAGGER. And everyone nodded their head in agreement.
Except for me of course. Rather than ruining a family thing with a political argument I simply moved to another part of the house.
But this is where we are now... Otherwise SANE and Articulate people are falling into this spell over this guy. It really brings to mind the ‘Great Deception’ mentioned in the bible.
2 Thessalonians 2:11-17
So God will send great deception upon them, and they will believe all these lies. Then they will be condemned for not believing the truth and for enjoying the evil they do.
There are many supposedly smart blacks like Colon Powell who one would think could use their own brain, but place a black in front of him and he goes into brain-race lock.
Racism is fine with blacks as long as it is their racism. I watched a n interview yesterday where this woman claimed blacks cannot be racist because they do not have power.
What an idiot. Racism is not about power, it’s about hate.
Black people hate white people. Not only in America, but all over the world. Every country with a black in it has them pissing and moaning and causing problems.
That aside, name me the last black conservative that was supported by the black vote over a white liberal. No, neither can I.
I'll make it easier. Name me any black conservative that was supported over a white liberal.
As someone who often works closely with black people, it says to me that they are so emotionally damaged - their entire culture is so distorted - that it’s all really hopeless. The people I know are intelligent, creative, accomplished - they seem to inhabit our world - but they are really living in bizzaro world.
Whites are AFRAID!! WHo wants a bunch of blacks screaming on your front lawn???
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.