Rating Obama: It's Down To Black And White

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By: Joel Dreyfuss

A poll of more than 1,000 readers of The Root shows that the racial divide persists in how people assess President Obama exactly two years after he took office. CONTINUE....

Obama Makes Little Impact on Race Relations

By: By Michael H. Cottman

Are race relations between blacks and whites improving since President Barack Obama took office in January?

The answer: No, according to many African Americans who say interaction between the races has not changed substantially.

According to a new CNN/Essence Magazine national poll, African-Americans still give Obama high approval marks, but now more blacks say race relations have not progressed since Obama moved into the White House.

Obama Makes Little Impact on Race Relations....

In New Survey, Blacks Say Race Relations are Same Old Same Old

By The Buzz

Barack Obama has a 96% approval rating among Black Americans.

The approval rating for race relations is a sight lower than that. According to a CNN/Essence magazine poll, 55% of African Americans surveyed feel racial discrimination is a serious problem. During the 2008 election, that figure was at 38%.

In New Survey, Blacks Say Race Relations are Same Old Same Old....

Is Anything Black About the American West?

The black American experience is more than just Harlem and Mississippi, North and South, ghettoes and Jim Crow. There was a Western front, and it wasn’t all that quiet.

By: Kenneth J. Cooper

Reading obituaries about John Hope Franklin reminded me about a long-standing beef I have with a certain limited way of thinking about who African Americans are. For me, though, the telling biographical fact was where he was born—Oklahoma.

In its obituary, the Raleigh News & Observer said the eminent historian “gave definition to the African-American experience.” That’s quite a legacy. A black Okie did all of that?

You see, too many African Americans—you know who you are—believe real black folks are from the South or the urban North. They’re not from the West, not Oklahoma, not Colorado—where I was born—and certainly not Hawaii, though there are exceptions made for California and L.A. I’ve been hearing it for the 30 years or so I’ve lived on the East Coast.

This narrow-mindedness results in part, I think, from our creative imaginations of the black experience, in fiction and film, almost exclusively in the South or North. Historically, African Americans have been concentrated in the South, but major migrations have taken us not just to the North but to the West. By taking a geocentric view of blackness, we cut ourselves off from parts of our history—and even some of our heroes. With a black Hawaiian in the White House, it’s time to embrace an expansive view of the black experience in its full diversity.

Is Anything Black About the American West?....

Why Tavis Smiley is a Genius- What black intellectuals owe the rest of us.

By: Lenny McAllister

Tavis Smiley’s genius doesn’t come from his radio and television talk shows, nor does it come from his appearances as a guest social commentator on multiple international outlets. It comes from his formation and continuation of the “State of the Black Union” annual symposium.

The genius of the panels during C-SPAN’s most-watched event doesn’t come from the high level of academic acumen on stage at any given moment. It comes from the depth of understanding shared by a common people with a unique history, one that highlights both significant American adversity and accomplishments.

Of all the talking points, we are beckoned to bridge the growing gap between black intelligentsia and those who feel the effects of black-on-black violence, higher levels of school dropout rates and dangerous levels of inadequate health conditions.

Never before have we seen such a deep contrast within the African-American community. We can proudly point to the accomplishments of black authors, professors, businesspeople and politicians in a manner never before seen in America. But we must also realize the stark contrast between those Americans and others who’ve given up on the American dream and, in many ways, have given up on dreaming at all. Over the past several decades, the widening of socioeconomic diversity within the black community has not built a bridge for an adequate flow of education, mentorship, community reinvestment and black solidarity. Many of the problems within black America are not directly dealing with race, but more so with poverty. Unfortunately, we constitute a higher percentage of the poor in our nation—granted, in some part because of racism, but also because of our failure to connect all African Americans, a call that we must receive and enact immediately.

Some panelists spoke to the need to spend wisely and value education zealously. Others spoke to the need for increased federal reinvestment economically. During my panel, I presented the idea of African-American professionals with two or more weeks of paid vacation per year giving one week back to their local black community as a volunteer until we can change the conditions we face.

Why Tavis Smiley is a Genius....

Black Male Suicide, Why are so many young men killing themselves?

By Henrie M. Treadwell

Not long ago, suicide and African Americans were almost never mentioned in the same breath. Despite confronting challenges from slavery to Jim Crow to structural racism, blacks rarely took their own lives. It was a positive health disparity. Until now.

There is alarming evidence that the suicide rate for young African-American men is escalating, and just as much evidence of how ill-equipped America's health-care system is to handle it.

From 1980 to 1995, the suicide rate for black adolescents rose from 5.6 per 100,000 of the population to 13 per 100,000, according to recent research by Clare Xanthos, a health services research specialist. For young black men, these changes represent a doubling of the suicide rate, making it the third leading cause of death among that demographic.

If the trend continues, it could ripple through black communities, increasing the number of children who grow up fatherless, further burdening African-American women who will have fewer partners to help them raise families. Clearly, it is a complex problem that is directly related to the life experiences of young African-American men. While the suicide rate for young black men has risen, the suicide rate for black women remains among the lowest of any demographic.

So why are young black men killing themselves?

Young black males live in some of the most-difficult circumstances in our society; the data show that black men go to jail, drop out of school and are victims of crime at rates far higher than their white counterparts. Moreover, young black males are more likely to live in more challenging family environments. Sixty-eight percent of all black households are single-parent households—pointing to an absence of male role models for young boys.

Black Male Suicide....

Commentary: Obama’s Presidency Won’t Be the End-All-Be-All for Black America, But It Will Begin the U-Turn

By: Deborah Mathis, BlackAmericaWeb.com

I have been a Barack Obama booster since the day he stepped onto the stage at the Democratic National Convention in Boston four summers ago and turned the crowd in that auditorium into a rapturous horde.

I felt a swell of pride on January 3, 2005 -- Day One of the 109th Congress -- when there were 45 new members between the houses, but all the buzz was about the lanky charmer from Illinois on the Senate side.

Once he told Tim Russert that, yes, he was mulling a run for the U.S. presidency, I wrote as fast and furiously as I could to encourage him: Run; run now.

And throughout the long and difficult primary season, I prayed that he would survive the challenges and win.

But, for all of my faith in Obama’s superior talents and what I believe to be a good heart in concert with a great mind, never once have I believed that he would be the be-all-and-end-all for what ails black America particularly or the larger society in general. He could conceivably be the most important president we’ve ever had. But he is not, and cannot be, the messiah.

COMMENTARY....

THE HUTCHINSON REPORT: Do police rush to judgment when they investigate themselves?

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson

Inglewood, California Police Chief Jacqueline Seabrooks faces a dilemma that many big city police chiefs face when their officer’s gun down unarmed civilians under dubious circumstances, and those civilians in almost all cases are young African Americans or Latinos.

In this case the victim was 19 year-old Michael Byoune.


The deep suspicion is that police routinely bend, twist and massage testimony and evidence to whitewash and ultimately exonerate officers.


The way to counter that is to conduct a thorough and honest investigation and if the officer(s) are found guilty of wrongdoing impose swift punishment.


But that almost always draws loud protests from police unions and some city officials.

The Byoune killing by any standard was a bad shooting. In fact, it evoked instant comparisons to the killing of bride-groom-to-be Sean Bell by NYPD officers in 2007. Bell, like Byoune, was a young African-American male. Bell and Byoune were unarmed. There is no indication that he, like Bell, was involved in any gang or criminal involvement. From tapes and news clips, Inglewood police officers riddled the car that Byoune was in with bullet holes. The car Bell was in was also riddled with gunfire.

COMMENTARY....

BLACKS AND THE 'WAR ON DRUGS': Data shows African Americans suffer disproportionately.

According to two recently released reports, African Americans have suffered much higher rates of arrests and imprisonment than whites in the nation's 30-year "war on drugs" even though whites actually constitute the majority of drug offenders.

One report, entitled "Targeting Blacks: Drug Law Enforcement and Race in the United States" was compiled by the New York-based Human Rights Watch. Among its findings: a Black man is nearly 12 times more likely than a white man to be sentenced to prison for violating drug laws (34 states were covered in the report).

MORE....

NEW REPORT = BAD NEWS

Sub-Prime Mortgage Crisis Will Cause Greatest Loss of Black Wealth in History.



A newly released report says the sub-prime loan mortgage crisis currently gripping the nation will eventually "cause the greatest loss of wealth for African Americans in modern U.S. history."

The Boston-based research group United for a Fair Economy (UFE) estimates that American Blacks will experience wealth losses of between $77 billion and $122 billion as tens of thousands lose their homes as the sub-prime loan crisis plays itself out.

Sub-prime loans were those given to people with poor credit ratings in order to enable them to purchase homes. However, critics charge that Blacks were disproportionately steered toward such loans even when they had good or excellent credit ratings. Payments on such loans frequently double or even triple after a few years.

"It is important to realize how much ground middle and working class Americans have lost in the sub-prime crisis. Our estimates indicate it will cause the greatest loss of wealth for African Americans in modern U.S. history," UFE program leader Amaad Rivera said in releasing the report.

The report entitled "Foreclosed: The State of the Dream" is available on line here.

BLACK REGISTERED VOTERS IN GA OUTPACE WHITES 3 TO 1

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution is reporting that in the last three months of 2007, African Americans in Georgia registered to vote at a rate three times that of whites in Georgia.


The numbers may be incremental, but they do show a definite trend. From Oct.

1, 2007 to Jan. 1, 2008, the number of black, registered active voters increased 1.6 percent to 1.2 million. Over the same period, the number of white active voters increased .5 percent to 2.9 million, the newspaper reported.


African-Americans make up 27 percent of the Georgia electorate, according to the new figures. Whites make up 66 percent.


When divided by race and gender, black males - who generally have a spotty voting record - increased their numbers the most, by 1.9 percent.