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.”
“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 was willing to give blacks a pass on Obama’s first election. After all, it was a historic occasion for blacks and the country at large, hence the large number of whites that voted for him as well. But, the second election, should have been, “fool me once shame on you - fool me twice shame on me”. But, didn’t happen. Now, the big question is; will history repeat itself and we will have to suffer through the “first woman president” - you know who. I shudder to think what this country will be like after two terms of Obama and possibly two terms of “The Beast”........
+1000
“I don’t see how a person not-of-color could possibly do the job that he’s doing.”
These folks are utterly racist and self-serving. Completely uninterested in the law.
Like you, I give it a pass on his 1st election, with all the "hope & change" bulls##t. However, I'll go to my grave believing the second election was stolen through massive fraud, esp in battleground areas.
> Whites are AFRAID!! WHo wants a bunch of blacks screaming on your front lawn???
Probably because they don’t think other white people will come to their aid if they tell the blacks to get off their lawn. Maybe its time to create an association for the protection of conservatives from violent and destructive behavior of liberals that includes members of every race. If an uprising occurs members of the local chapter are dispatched to do what the police will not do.
“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?”....
There’s always that “fringe element”. Indeed there are a lot of really good black people, the unfortunate part is they are the out numbered by the “takers”.
Reparations are needed! Fork it over whitey.
Further proof that you just cannot fix STUPID!
Black “culture”, whether found in a mud hut in Haiti or the Black Caucus in DC is, in essence, tribalism attempting to function in a white world.
Nationalism has triumphed over tribalism because it is a more advanced stage of human societal evolution. This difference is very useful to those willing to understand and apply it.
White voters can analyze an official in terms of performance. Blacks, being tribal, analyze in the earlier context of tribe. In the case of Obama, blacks see his blackness first. That they so do is proof that they are essentially tribal, not national in their perspective.
America, prior to the introduction of collectivism under Wilson?Roosevelt, was a nation of disparate peoples who insisted on seeing themselves as one people. Americans once made America their “tribe” and with that perspective of being one people became the most successful nation in history.
After the societal cancer known as collectivism was allowed into America, the descent down the path of societal evolution began. Under Obama, the path has steeped.
The Zimmerman show trial to appease the black tribalism demands is symptomatic of the return of America to the “GibsMeDat” mentality of tribalism.
Two examples may be instructive. American Blacks blindly support anything placing them in a superior position so long as they did not have to work for and pay for that position. Obama, and the Democrats prove this point.
Latinos, particularly those from Mexiico and Central America, agitate/’organize’/support “La Raze” (The Race) a political faction which seeks special, unearned benefits for their tribe.
As the world learned in Africa, tribalism can’t be allowed in a world of nation states, and that is why Africa once was vastly improved under the nation state. South Africa, and the starving remnant of what was once Rhodesia, are instructive examples of what black tribalism can do to a more advanced society if allowed dominance.
Detroit, and to a somewhat lesser extent Atlanta, Baltimore, Birmingham, DC, sections of Los Angeles, and Nagan’s “Chocolate City” New Orleans, ad nauseam - all are disintegrating under tribalism. The difference between Detroit and the others is only time. Given time, and allowed to remain tribal, what has happened to Detroit will be repeated in these cities as well.
Tomorrow does not look good.
Allows them to escape acknowledging that their pathologies are self-inflicted.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324448104578618681599902640.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Private schools k to 12, Columbia then Harvard Law. Your typical African-American experience for sure.
Obama and Holder have succeeded in creating greater racial animosity than has existed in this country since Reconstruction. Obama is the Great Divider... or maybe more accurately, the Great Racist.
“...has lived an african-American experience.” Yes...he has looted money from taxpayers, excessively spends taxpayer money on personal life, doesn’t like to work, has a history of drug use, has never held a “real” job, essentially is on the government dole, is often dishonest, is a racist who hates caucasians, agitates rather than leads and creates, apparently is very angry at America...yea...nobama continues to lived an african-American experience. I just wish he were in prison for the rest of his sub-worthless existence for what he and his commie minions are doing to Free America.
“how do you explain all the capable, charismatic black conservatives getting the cold shoulder from the black voters?”
No not all blacks feel race trumps all but IMO most do and yes there are the Ben Carsons of the world but they are few and far between in my opinion (I wish there were more). With all due respect if you worked around the blacks I do you might change you view a little. I live around 1.5 hrs from Sanford FL. there seems to be a different vibe since the not guilty verdict.
Private sector employers have higher standards and make more demands than public sector. If you get in a public sector job, you can sit back, top out at 300lbs, develop a bad back, and do very little work. That won't fly in the privately-owned workplace.
For a large section of the voting public, in other words, reality is totally irrelevant. The country is doomed.
Seeing the way the media twisted this, I have begun to wonder if we ever got the real story on Emmett Till.
These are mostly people who can not progress beyond tribal societies.
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.