Barack Obama seems to think he is on the ballot in November, or to phrase that better, his "policies" are on the ballot, therefore he informed the Congressional Black Caucus on Saturday that if blacks do not vote for Hillary Clinton in the presidential election it would be a "personal insult" to his "legacy."
"I will consider it a personal insult, an insult to my legacy if this community lets down its guard and fails to activate itself in this election. You want to give me a good send-off, go vote." - Barack Obama, September 2016
The problem with Obama playing the race card against blacks is that his "legacy" and policies have not done a whole lot for blacks under his presidency as a high profile black Democrat, Tavis Smiley stated in January 2016, Obama has failed black Americans as president, saying "I think ultimately the president missed a moment… On every leading economic issue, in the leading economic issues Black Americans have lost ground in every one of those leading categories. So in the last ten years it hasn’t been good for black folk. This is the president’s most loyal constituency that didn’t gain any ground in that period."
And while regular unemployment data by race for Wisconsin isn't available, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on a study done by Wilson and EPI in early 2015. It found Wisconsin's black unemployment in 2014 was the highest in the nation, at 19.9 percent, much higher than the national black unemployment rate of 11 percent.
In a damning report by Richard V. Reeves and Edward Rodrigue, produced for the Brookings Institution in 2015, the authors lay out the serious problems with black opportunity in America.
The authors found that half of black Americans born poor stay poor; that seven out of 10 middle-class black Americans later fall into the two lowest income brackets; that black median wealth was only $11,000 in 2013, reduced by $8,200 since 2007; that most black families are headed by a single parent; and that black students are much more likely to attend mediocre or bad schools.
Here are some more facts Obama doesn't mention when he encourages African-Americans to vote for Clinton to preserve his so-called "legacy."
-During Obama’s tenure, the percentage of black Americans struggling below the poverty line has advanced, according to the most recent Census Bureau data, from 25.8 in 2009 to 26.2 in 2014 — up 1.6 percent.
-Real median income among black households during those years, according to the Census Bureau, sank from $35,954 to $35,398 — down 1.5 percent.
-The number of black food-stamp participants exploded across that time frame from 7,393,000 to 11,699,000, the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports — up 58.2 percent.
More:
As he unveiled the 2015 State of Black America report, Urban League president Marc Morial complained that "Black America remains in a recession and remains in crisis when it comes to jobs and the economy." He continued: "Black unemployment is twice that of white unemployment. Wages are stagnant. Many people who are working are simply not earning what they need or should earn to make ends meet."
The Urban League’s National Equality Index found black Americans going backwards economically, from 57.4 percent equality with whites in 2009 to 55.8 percent in 2015 — down 2.8 percent.
Does all that seem to be a "legacy" that African-Americans should want to see continued? At the same event, Hillary Clinton made it clear she intends to continue along the same failed path, as ABC News reports "In her own pitch to African-Americans at the same dinner, Clinton implored the crowd to help protect Obama's legacy, warning of a "dangerous and divisive vision" that could come from Republican opponent Donald Trump."
In an excellent must read article at Town Hall from July 2015, Larry Elder, an African American man, details exactly how much worse life has gotten for blacks during the Obama presidency, prefacing his findings with "After six years, the report card is in. The grades are not pretty. By every key economic measurement, blacks are worse off under Obama. In some cases, far worse off."
The areas he details are poverty levels, net worth and the white/black wealth gap, income, unemployment, black labor force participation, and home ownership.
There is a reason Obama is playing the race card against blacks right now as new polling shows that Trump has seen "a 16.5 percentage-point increase in backing from African-American voters in a Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California tracking poll, up from 3.1 percent on Sept. 10 to 19.6 percent through Friday."
Meanwhile, the same poll showed Clinton’s support among that group plummeting from 90.4 percent on Sept. 10 to 71.4 percent.
Clinton’s nearly 20-point crash began Sunday, said Dan Schnur of USC. Sunday was the day Clinton was recorded collapsing while entering a Secret Service van at a 9/11 event.
BOTTOM LINE
Barack Obama has had two terms to make a difference yet his policies have not done so. Hillary Clinton has been involved in politics for decades, yet she has done nothing but "talk" about fixing the problems black communities face,
As Trump says below, Clinton doesn't see black Americans as people, she sees them as "votes," and Barack Obama has just proven that is all he sees as well by asking African-Americans to vote for his "legacy" at the expense of what is in their best interest, which certainly isn't more of the same.
