PHILADELPHIA – President Obama is being hypocritical by steadfastly refusing to address the needs of the African American community specifically — especially since Obama spent ample time and resources solving the problems of other special interests groups around the country, so says a panel of journalists, political pundits and legislators.
Princeton professor Cornel West and GOP operative Michael Steele accuse the president of cowering away from talking black issues, yet have the intestinal fortitude to broach the topics relevant and favorable to every other special interest group and their lobbies, particularly with respect to Jews, homosexuals and Hispanics.
The question was raised during the National Association of Black Journalists conference when Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed tried to admonish his fellow panelists to desist from urging Obama to address black people’s needs in front of the nation.
“If Barack Obama says in a press conference that these are the things that we are specifically doing for black people, he would be torn apart,” says Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, an avid Obama backer. “If he specifically itemized his policies that were geared toward blacks, he would be a one-term president.”
Roland Martin, a CNN contributor and national columnist who served as the moderator, disagreed with Reed’s stance.
“I have to ask this,” began Martin. “If the president of the United States can talk about the [same-sex] Marriage Act and can talk about ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’, that is a specific [speech] direction to the gay and lesbian lobby. When the president talks about the Dream Act and talks about immigration reform, and has the DOJ [Department of Justice] go against the law in Arizona, that is a direct conversation to the Hispanic community.
“Yet, how do we accept that, if he has a direct discussion with black people, they might get upset, so don’t talk about it?” Martin continued, gaining emotional steam. “He can talk to every other group directly, but he must talk to us [black people] indirectly,” Martin finished with a point that was more rhetorical than open-ended.
“Because race does matters. White supremacy is real, therefore he has to be delicate in terms of what language he uses,” Cornel West answered. “But it’s clear, [Obama] speaks to the Catholic community. Our Jewish brothers and sisters, he speaks to Israel. Investment bankers, he speaks to them.
Martin’s stance was corroborated by Steele, who said: “The fact of the matter is, the [Congressional] Black Caucus has had less access to the president of the United States than the Hispanic Caucus. The Black Caucus has had less meetings with respect to the issues that you [Dr. Cornel West] talked about than any other interest group that have brought similar, yet different issues, to the White House,” says Steele, ex-Lt. Governor of Maryland and former chairman of the Republican National Committee.
“When you have a black reporter stand up and ask ‘How does your agenda help the black community,’ and the president’s response to the nation was, ‘Well, my policies will help over here and, by extension, it will help the black community.’ That’s the ‘rising tide lifts all boats [mantra]. I get it. But you know what the problem is, we need a boat first. And the fact of the matter is, there are fewer and fewer boats that will rise when that tide comes in,” said Steele.
–terry shropshire
