President Obama is taking a lot of incoming fire from conservatives for his new initiative called “My Brother’s Keeper” to help black and Hispanic young men succeed in America.
Obama’s efforts to create a task force to figure out how to promote and expand programs that provide young men of color with educational opportunities and jobs have right-wing extremists and conservative seeing red, denouncing the president as “the real racist” who consciously excluded Caucasian males from the program.
To recap, Obama is authoring a $200 million drive funding from a variety of foundations that will go to programs that support those young men at key points. As Yahoo News reports, those include “prekindergarten education, lifting third-grade reading proficiency, leading schools away from ‘zero tolerance’ disciplinary policies that kick misbehaving students out of school, and persuading businesses to train and hire young men of color.” This is private money, which is going to private programs. Early reviews of the initiative are in from Obama’s opponents.
No matter how many black and Hispanic males are in dire need of help to counter the racism and lack of opportunities in America, the president’s efforts were met with outrage.
The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin said, “If you are wondering how a new initiative, My Brother’s Keeper, which would assist at-risk African and Hispanic males, is constitutional, you are not alone.”
The argument is that Obama is showing preference for one race or group of races over another, concluding that, “no good can come from a program that divides up the population by these categories.”
Fox News’ religious rabble-rouser Todd Starnes tweeted the equivalent of why isn’t there a White History Month? “Obama announces government initiative to help young men of color. Caucasian is not one of the colors getting helped.”
This is just the beginning of the right-wing rant. What do you think of Obama’s bold new initiative and does it exclude white males?
