'Occupiers' Showing Anger, So Why Aren't Blacks?
It should be clear to USA's 40 million African Americans that Obama is not the leader we need
2011-11-09
A. Bruce Crawley Special to the NNPA from the Philadelphia Tribune
During a brief conversation at an event last week two apparently well-educated African Americans tried to carefully “explain” to me that President Barack Obama has no choice other than to ignore Black political issues because he wants of course to be re-elected and “there are more white voters than Black voters.” Read the complete article
There are 54 nations that create the continent of Africa. We look at these nations, too often, as all the same – third world striving to enter the second world. South Africa is an exception as it, in total economic terms, is first world. The problem here is that the wealth is greatly weighted to a distinct minority of the population and that is by race, i.e. white. Slums, violence and hopelessness are as prevalent in South Africa as they are in the lowest rung of nations that endure wholesale poverty. Last week, I was in for a revelation. We took a Trade Mission to Botswana and found a modern nation with a solid middle class and beautiful neighborhoods. It is time for the rest of the world to look at Botswana as something special. 
The budget news from Washington State Gov. Chris Gregoire is dismal: The state faces a $2 billion shortfall for its next fiscal year. The bad economy drives many policy decisions – eliminating Washington’s liquor store monopoly – should be simple: Pass Measure 1183. Endorsements. 
The Oakland protest was mostly made up of people that embody the word occupiers, except they are seen as occupying neighborhoods that were, just a few years ago, almost all black and brown. 
An old African proverb goes like this: "A people without their land will be a people without a future." Way before the current housing mortgage crisis that disproportionately has negatively impacted Black Americans, there had been a 20-year steady pace of land loss in the majority of Black communities across the United States. Now today with the additional persistence of high unemployment for African Americans, there is a corresponding destabilizing increase in the daily rate of Black land loss throughout the nation. 
Democrats and Republicans chant in unison: "Jobs, jobs, jobs." President Obama offers an American Jobs plan, but Republicans use the filibuster in the Senate to kill it and a Republican majority will not consider it in the House. House Democrats offered a heftier jobs bill, but it is ignored by the majority in control. Republicans offer more of the same - tax cuts for the rich whom they call "job creators" - but they have put no actual jobs plan on the table. 
President Obama's speech on the National Mall Oct. 15, 2011 at the inauguration of the memorial to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Here's the full text of the president's speech.