By Lurita Doan
Monday, July 16, 2012
Barack Obama was a no-show at the recent 103rd NAACP
conference, but, clearly, he is being given a pass by the NAACP leadership.
Checking the president's schedule, apparently there was nothing so pressing
that he should have been unable to attend the meeting in Texas, but instead, he
relegated responsibilities of the annual NAACP meeting to the vice president.
If Barack Obama cannot attend the annual NAACP meeting,
in an election year, on a day when he has no other pressing duties, when he has
the opportunity to address almost 10,000 attendees, then how can it be a
surprise to anyone that during the Obama Administration, Black Americans have
experienced more set-backs than at any time in the past 30 years?
Mitt Romney, the Republican candidate, showed up, spoke,
and was booed.
Three reason come to mind regarding the president's
absence. Perhaps President Obama didn't attend because there was no significant,
multi-million dollar fundraiser attached to the convention—after all, it seems
that in recent months, most of Obama's appearances are in connection with
fundraising for his presidential campaign. Perhaps Mr. Obama doesn't have time
for any activity that doesn't have a direct bearing on the bottom line of his
campaign war chest.
Another possible reason for the Obama no-show leads one
to think that George Bush may have been correct back in 2004 when he asserted
that Democrats seem to be taking the Black vote for granted. Democrats assume
that Black Americans will vote Democrat without Democrat leaders having to make
any effort. So Team Obama may have figured that there was no reason to appeal
to the black vote, when it is assumed that blacks will always, reliably vote
for them, regardless of an endless string of domestic, economic, and foreign
policy failures. After all, elite Black leaders long ago ensured that any Black
Americans who does not endorse the Democrat's ideology are promptly demonized
or called a traitor to their race.
But perhaps the most telling reason for Obama's absence
can be found in the government statistics concerning the Black American
experience in the United States after three and a half years of his presidency.
Unemployment for Black Americans is at 14.4% while unemployment among teenagers
is at 24%. 72% of children in the Black community are born to unwed mothers.
The Black American drop-out rate from high school is at 40%, and incarceration
among Black American males is at almost 10%. Median household income declined
2.3% and home ownership is down too.
Put bluntly, no other ethnic group in America has
suffered more than Black Americans during the Obama Administration. Another
four years of Obama leadership doesn't promise anything different and existing
trend lines marking the deterioration of Black civil society will likely
continue. Of course, Obama didn't show.
The NAACP should not give the president a pass. They
should not give themselves one either.
W.E.B DuBois was one of the founders of the National
Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Dr. DuBois was the first
African-American (DuBois advocated hyphenation-" the destiny of the race
could be conceived as leading neither to assimilation nor separatism but to
proud, enduring hyphenation.") to earn a doctorate from Harvard, and
advocated for advanced education as a means for the Black community to achieve
advancement. Consider how far the NAACP has distanced itself from that vision. Black
students have a 40% high school dropout rate, while the NAACP shamefully and
blindly hitches itself to preserving the status quo of poor schools and the
teachers unions.
Dr. DuBois fought hard for interracial marriages,
supporting miscegenation laws in every state, not because he advocated for
interracial marriages but because he believed that allowing the marriages
prevented rendering "colored girls absolutely helpless for the lust of
white men" who might seduce and impregnate Black women, and then not marry
them. I feel sure that Dr. Dubois did not imagine that the Black community
would turn on itself, with generations of unwed mothers and 70% of Black
children born to them.
Democrat leaders, pandering to the Black community,
bribing them with promises of ever-increasing entitlements and hand-outs is not
a good thing, and it is not what NAACP founders envisioned. This path of
endless entitlements is, as F.A. Hayek explained, the road to serfdom.
Any honest assessment of the impact caused by these handouts
and misguided government programs will show that they have cut terribly into
the fabric of the Black community , and are dooming subsequent generations of
Black Americans to a future filled with poverty, squalor and ignorance.
The NAACP audience booed Mitt Romney when he promised
school vouchers. But that seems to be influenced more by the powerful public
school teachers' union lobby rather by a desire to do what is best for Black
children. Having more education choices available to Black children is an
opportunity that Dr. Dubois would have applauded, since he believed strongly
that the "Talented Tenth", an educated elite in the Black community
would be needed to create Black leaders.
In 2004, George W. Bush was attacked when he talked about
the "soft bigotry of low expectations", and Democrat-led cries of
racism abounded.
It seems that whenever anyone, without pandering and
without promising handouts, attempts to address the terrible issues facing the
Black community, then Democrats and Black leaders levy charges of racism. But,
at some point, individuals in the Black community needs to be told some hard
truths and must be held accountable for their actions without playing the race
card or the blame game.
I don't know-- perhaps that kind of objectivity is no
longer possible in this county--though I truly hope it is not.
But, 24.4% unemployment among any identity group is
unacceptable in a great nation. 70% of children being born to unwed mothers is
also unacceptable, no matter what color your skin is. 10% incarceration of any
identity group is unacceptable in a country with a legitimate civil contract.
When taken together, the grim reality is that these facts
show a societal breakdown on a massive scale.
But the power and the strength to change these
statistics, to change these lifestyle choices and to changes the sad outcomes
of those choices must come from within the Black community and cannot be
dependent upon hand-outs from Democrat plantation masters.
The National Urban League's annual convention, which
Barack Obama will attend in two weeks, has as its theme, "Employment and
Education Empower the Nation". One can only imagine the two-stepping, the
bald lies and the verbal bribes that will be required to smother the reality of
the cold, hard facts about how badly the Black community has fared under the
presidency of Barack Obama.
No doubt that's why he didn't show at the NAACP--there
are only so many uphill marathons a man can run in a month.
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