The undisputable truth is that Obama needed pressure from Blacks and progressives to make him a better president. When he offered his version of Ronald Reagan’s trickle down economic theory—if you take care of America as a whole, it will trickle down to what Jesse Jackson calls boats stuck at the bottom. How has that worked out for Black America?
And instead of being grateful for the silence of the lambs, Obama has an inexplicable need to criticize his supporters even more than his opponents. Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) can shout “you lie” during a State of the Union speech and ice cool Obama could essentially ignore the public slight. But appearing at a 2011 CBC dinner, the president urged his audience to “Take off your bedroom slippers, put on your marching shoes. Shake it off. Stop complaining, stop grumbling, stop crying. We are going to press on. We’ve got work to do.”
Even before his party’s butt kicking last week, President Obama was doing what he always does—blame his most ardent supporters. On April 10, less than seven months before the midterm elections, the Washington Post gave this account:
‘President Obama said at a fundraiser Wednesday night that Democrats suffer in midterm elections in large part because Black and Latino voters—among other groups—don’t turn out to vote.
‘Our voters are younger, more unmarried women, more African-American and Latino voters,’ Obama said at an event in Houston. ‘They get excited about general elections; they don’t get as excited about midterm elections.’
Obama added: “…we have this congenital disease, which is in midterm elections we don’t vote at the same rates.’”
Obama is correct in saying African-American and Latino voters don’t turn out for midterm elections at the rate they do for general elections. But that’s true of all voters, not just people of color. Yet, Obama chose to place the blame on the shoulders of people most loyal to him and his party.
While there have been some meager improvements since the economic meltdown Obama inherited, Blacks still face staggering unemployment and severe income and wealth inequality.
As the National Urban League stated in its 2012 State of Black America report, “…almost all the economic gains that Blacks have made in the last 30 years have been lost in the Great Recession that started in December 2007 and in the anemic recovery that has followed since June, 2009.”
Blacks are on the verge of spending $1.3 trillion a year, according to a Nielsen’s study. It’s time to shift our attention to economic development and empowerment. I am not saying we should abandon politics—we shouldn’t—but it should no longer be our primary focus. Let’s get off of that donkey.
(George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the NNPA. He is a keynote speaker, moderator, and media coach. Curry can be reached through his Web site, www.georgecurry.com. You can also follow him at www.twitter.com/currygeorge and George E. Curry Fan Page on Facebook)
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