Friday, September 7, 2012

Where is Obama's Leadership to Lift Afro-America?

You think Obama really cares about black people? If he does, what is his proposal for real change for this group?  He has a fantastic 'bully pulpit' to provide constructive leadership, but the silence is deafening.

I don't mean to "pile-on" African Americans, but their community is a mess!
  • Black gonorrhea infection rates are 20 times that of white america (from CDC)
  • Blacks are incarcerated at 6 times the rate of white persons (from US D.o.J.). Almost 5% of black males are in prison/jail. It's only 0.73% for white.
  • According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, between 1976 and 2011, there were 279,384 black murder victims.   94 percent of those murder victims were murdered by other blacks.  From Walter Williams at Townhall, all of the black fatalities in Korea, Vietnam and all recent wars put together were 18,515, or pall in comparison to black-on-black homicides.   
  • Though blacks are 13 percent of the nation's population, they account for more than 50 percent of homicide victims.  Bureau of Justice Statistics
  • Black (and hispanic) high school graduation rates are only 50% vs 75% for whites and asians (Urban Institute)
How come the first African American president has no meaningful plan to help or promote change in this community?  Yes, I see SSDI and Food Stamp enrollment rising and "ObamaCare" will help I suppose.  Obama has also not lifted a finger since the stimulus bill in 2009 to take commonly known steps to improve the economy--which hurts African Americans the most.  Most of what he proposes and permits to happen (think EPA power grabs)  actually hurts the economy (but that's another blog).  Black unemployment is stuck at 14.1%,

During the recent Trayvon Martin controversy, the hypocrisy of black "leadership" becomes crystal clear.  Walter Williams at Townhall comments the following: 
When President Barack Obama commented [in a not helpful way I would add] about the Trayvon Martin case, T. Willard Fair, president of the Urban League of Greater Miami, told The Daily Caller that "the outrage should be about us killing each other, about black-on-black crime." He asked rhetorically, "Wouldn't you think to have 41 people shot (in Chicago) between Friday morning and Monday morning would be much more newsworthy and deserve much more outrage?"
Former NAACP leader Pastor C.L. Bryant said the rallies organized by Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson suggest there is an epidemic of "white men killing black young men," adding: "The epidemic is truly black-on-black crime. The greatest danger to the lives of young black men are young black men."
But what about real change in heart and minds?  I guarantee Obama will never give a speech rallying African Americans emphasizing the need to "pick yourself up by the bootstraps", or promoting self-reliance, personal responsibility, personal initiative, or a call for more discipline and a stronger work ethic. He's in a position to positively influence this group but his emphasis is a drab emphasis on bureaucracy. Does he really think that "redistribution" or "giveaways" ad infinitum is good for this group?

Once again, in yet another extremely important way, Obama's leadership is missing.  But that's the problem with the African American community:  not nearly enough positive, clear-thinking, and common-sense leadership.   I've noticed, having lived in 3rd World countries, that the common thread in these countries is that the collective "mentality" or commonly held ideas are basically and fundamentally wrong---about nearly everything.   Oh, and they blame everyone else but themselves for their problems!  Welcome to African-America!

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