Blacks feel Obama has Let them Down During this Foreclosure Crisis
The Blacks in USA are divided. Many of them feel Obama has let them down during this time of crisis and they are suffering disproportionately from unemployment and loss of homes.
Rev. Al Sharpton of National Black Action Network has opposed Television and radio celebrity Tavis Smiley who is sponsoring a symposium at Chicago State University to focus on this issue. Sharpton feels it is not fair to put pressure on Obama – something that has not been done on previous presidents. He said, “We all agree on the need for a black agenda, but the question is how do we go about getting it? I agree with getting it done by working with the president. I don’t think a forum is going to accomplish anything.” Sharpton, met the president last month along with the heads of the National Urban League and the NAACP. He added, “There is a difference in being on the outside and having access and being insiders. We are not insiders, but we are outsiders with access. The others are just grumbling.”
Obama has had meetings with Black leaders and has also conferred with representatives of Congressional Black Caucus. Many of them have asked him to launch programmes specifically for the Blacks. Those criticizing the stand taken by Obama that the reforms will benefit all, calculated that the unemployment rate among the Blacks is 15.8% while that among the Whites is 8.8%.
The Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity of Ohio State University has found in a survey that the stimulus package of $787 billion released by the government has done little to bridge the gap between the races as regards unemployment, job losses, education, foreclosures and bankruptcies. The Blacks and other economically depressed communities continue to languish.
Professor Michael Dyson of Georgetown University said, “(Obama) doesn’t want to be ghettoized. He doesn’t want to be seen as ‘the president of black people,’ He doesn’t want to tarnish his achievement as a race-transcending figure.”
Rep. Danny Davis (Democrat/Chicago) had met the President recently at the White House. He supported 99% in all this moves and that his constituents too were “right on Barack Obama.” Davis said that what Obama had achieved was an “outstanding job” considering the problems he had inherited from the previous regime including two mammoth wars and a financial system that was “on the verge of collapse.”
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