Despite pressure from black activists, black support for Obama’s race-neutral stance is high
March 22, 2010
In this banking center walloped by the Great Recession, where unemployment just hit a 20-year high and as many as one in three black people are out of work, blacks could easily be frustrated with President Barack Obama’s insistence that a rising economic tide for all will lift African-American boats.
Yet despite surging discontent among some black advocates over Obama’s refusal to specifically target rising black unemployment, it’s hard to find average black folks here who disagree with the president’s approach.
“He has been addressing the black agenda as far as health care, education, all that,” said Tamera Gomillion, a bill collector who has been struggling to pay her own bills.
“It took eight years to get into this mess, so it’s going to take time to get us out,” she said. “I voted for him, and I’ll do it again.”
The drumbeat for Obama to embrace a black agenda grew loudest Saturday, when PBS host Tavis Smiley convened a public meeting of prominent black activists and intellectuals in Chicago to demand policies tailored to the needs of blacks who have been hit disproportionately hard by the recession.
Obama has refused from the beginning of his candidacy to separate the solutions to black America’s economic problems from the country’s at large. After he settled into his presidency, this stance placed him at odds with activists and the Congressional Black Caucus who once were the voice of black America.
But now, “nobody can go to Obama and say, ‘This is what African-Americans want,’” said David Bositis, an expert on black politics at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.
He called the debate an “awkward moment” for the CBC: “All of a sudden, there’s someone else who represents African-Americans more, if you go by what African-Americans say, than they do.”
That certainly seemed to be the case in the Charlotte metropolitan area, which is 30 percent black and had a 12.8 percent overall unemployment rate in January. Charlotte’s huge black turnout was crucial to Obama barely winning North Carolina in 2008, the first Democrat to do so since 1976.
Interviews with two dozen African-Americans last week revealed common themes: Obama is correct to focus on the needs of all Americans. It’s too soon to condemn him for inaction. His emphasis on health care and education will greatly help blacks. Black people should take responsibility for solving their own problems.
And when 2012 comes, they plan to vote for Obama again.
“He’s got bigger fish to fry” than a black agenda, said Beth James Davis, a marketing executive, as she ate dinner in a restaurant near downtown with her husband and two young children. “I’m not saying our fish isn’t big, but he’s got more important battles.”
Shenika Simpson was watching her granddaughter at a playground in her Grier Heights neighborhood, which she described as “drug infested.” An unemployed single mother, Simpson said that Obama “can’t just jump in the chair and fix everything within a year.”
Should Obama do more to specifically help black people? “I feel he is doing it,” Simpson said. “It’s always going to be hard to find jobs. You got to go to school, graduate, do stuff to make it today. You can’t depend on them to do it for you.”
Gianna Butterfield, a graphic designer, said that while groups such as the Black Caucus used to speak for African-Americans, “Now we have Obama, and he seems to be speaking a little better.”
South of downtown, outside of a convenience store where cigarette butts littered the ground near a “No Loitering” sign, military retiree James Norris said Obama “can’t do nothing for one nationality over another.”
Black people “got to blame something on something,” Norris said. “It ain’t something, it’s your (expletive) self.”
The mayor of Charlotte, Anthony Foxx, was in tune with the mood of his constituents.
“Do I feel pressure to bring unemployment numbers down? Absolutely,” he said. “But I feel that pressure for everyone I represent. In terms of a black agenda, it’s hard to peel out the black community from the overall things that we’re doing.”
He said Obama should get credit for many policies that helped blacks. “There are schools not closed, bellies that are not empty because of that support,” he said. “People don’t think about the disaster that didn’t happen.”
One of the major policies advocates want is direct job creation, which is federal funding of salaries. The Obama administration has resisted these calls — yet $10 million in stimulus money has managed to trickle down to the Charlotte area for that exact purpose.
The Opportunity Project will fund up to 500 jobs for low-income parents with at least one dependent living at home. The Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services secured the grant after Darrell Cunningham, a community resources director, discovered grant money in the federal Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
Most of the applicants to the program are black, Cunningham said. He’s satisfied with Obama’s approach to helping African-Americans, “because he’s pushing the system to do better.”
Not everyone supports Obama’s approach. Patrick Graham, president of the local Urban League, estimated that black unemployment in the area was 2½ times the overall rate. (Official statistics are not broken down by race.)
“If we don’t pay attention, we will see these problems continue,” he said.
Gyasi Foluke, a retired black studies professor and Air Force officer, said there was some value to Obama’s “universal approach,” but it would not address the long-standing inequities between blacks and whites.
“We are 400 years behind,” Foluke said. “The universal approach has a fundamental flaw: You can never catch up.”
“But it is clever politics,” Foluke continued. “If you have a black agenda, you cannot get elected in this country. … I’m not against Obama. I voted for him, and I’ll vote for him again. What choice do I have?”
Jesse Washington, AP
Black Americans must step up to challenge racial inequities
March 22, 2010
Sophia A. Nelson, Washington Post
- All of this talk about a post-racial America where black people are seemingly thriving, partying at the White House with Jay-Z, and enjoying unprecedented access and opportunity is really starting to irk me because it is simply not the reality of most black Americans. In fact, a quiet storm has been brewing among African American leaders for months over the devastating effects that U.S. economic woes are having on blacks across the nation.
The issue came to a head recently when Tavis Smiley, appearing on the morning show of syndicated radio host Tom Joyner, openly questioned black leaders such as NAACP President Ben Jealous, the Rev. Al Sharpton and the National Council of Negro Women’s Dorothy Height about their unwillingness to hold President Obama accountable for these disparities and demanded that Obama develop an agenda targeted to address black inequalities. Impassioned by the debate, Smiley is hosting a national forum today in Chicago titled, “We Count! The Black Agenda is the American Agenda.”
Black GOPers aim at Obama
March 22, 2010
ERIKA LOVLEY, Politico
- It sounds like a dream come true for the GOP: a record 30-plus black Republicans are running for Congress this year, aiming to bring down President Barack Obama—and providing some diversity to a party often accused of having none.
Many of them are gathered in Washington this weekend for the annual Frederick Douglass Foundation Leadership Summit, where Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele is scheduled to speak.
The pro-life, anti-gay marriage political group was founded two years ago with the help of North Carolina Republican Party Vice Chairman Timothy Johnson.
At a roundtable discussion Thursday, candidates recognized Obama paved their way by clearing major racial hurdles but decried his healthcare plan, which they say is not pro-life. They argued that black families have been among the hardest hit by the President’s spending plan and his lack of job creation, all issues they hope could cause black Democrats to get behind their races.
Immigrant groups reach out to blacks
March 22, 2010
Krissah Thompson, Washington Post
- Organizers of a march for immigrants’ rights in Washington on Sunday are reaching out to African Americans, hoping to bring the two communities together around an issue that has been a wedge between them.
The campaign includes ads for the march on urban radio stations along the East Coast, asking for listeners to lend their support. “Everyone has been hurt by the economy, especially African Americans and immigrants. The truth is, together you can demand real change,” the ads state.
The effort is part of a broader strategy among Hispanic, black and Asian civil rights groups to unite on areas of common interest and to get Congress and the Obama administration to enact major legislation on jobs and immigration — even as the nation’s political leaders are focused on health care.
Black people must leave, NJ Walmart announcer says
March 17, 2010
A Walmart store announcement ordering black people to leave brought chagrin and apologies Wednesday from leaders of the company, which has built a fragile trust among minority communities.
A male voice came over the public-address system Sunday evening at a store in Washington Township, in southern New Jersey, and calmly announced: “Attention, Walmart customers: All black people, leave the store now.”
Shoppers in the store at the time said a manager quickly got on the public-address system and apologized for the remark. And while it was unclear whether a rogue patron or an employee was responsible for the comment, many customers expressed their anger to store management.
“I want to know why such statements are being made, because it flies in the face of what we teach our children about tolerance for all,” said Sheila Ellington, who was in the store at the time with a friend. “If this was meant to be a prank, there’s only one person laughing, and it’s not either one of us.”
Ellington, of Monroe, and her friend Patricia Covington said they plan to boycott the retailer until they’re assured the issue has been addressed so it doesn’t happen again.
The pair said they were stunned when they heard the announcement and initially believed they had misheard it. But once the words sank in, they grew angry.
“I depended on Walmart for all my needs, because the store has pretty much everything you could want,” Covington said. “But until this issue is addressed in a way I’m comfortable with, I can’t walk through those doors again.”
Officials with Wal-Mart Stores Inc., based in Bentonville, Ark., said that the announcement was “unacceptable” and that they’re trying to determine who made it and how it happened.
“We are just as appalled by this incident as our customers,” the company said in a statement. “Whoever did this is just wrong and acted in an inappropriate manner. Clearly, this is completely unacceptable to us and to our customers.”
This is not the first time the retailer has faced such problems.
There have been several past instances of black customers claiming they were treated unfairly at Walmart stores, and the company faced lawsuits alleging that women were passed over in favor of men for pay raises and promotions.
In February 2009, the retailer paid $17.5 million to settle a class action lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in its hiring of truck drivers.
And the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission sued the company in May 2009, claiming some Hispanic employees at a Sam’s Club subsidiary in California were subjected to a hostile work environment. That suit alleges managers failed to stop repeated verbal harassment, including the use of derogatory words, against employees of Mexican descent.
However, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People has said the company has worked hard in recent years to show it cares about diversity.
Bill Mitchell, a former Walmart employee who was shopping Wednesday at the store, said that he was saddened to hear about the announcement but that “as a black man, I’ve heard worse things.”
As customer Sharon Osbourne, of Williamstown, left the store Wednesday, she called the announcement “appalling, stupid and sad.”
BRUCE SHIPKOWSKI, AP
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