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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsObama: U.S. less racially divided now than in 2009
Despite police shootings and demonstrations in New York City and Ferguson, Mo., President Obama says the United States is less divided by race now than it was when he took office in early 2009.
"I actually think that it's probably -- in its day-to-day interactions -- less racially divided," Obama tells NPR News.
NPR provided a couple of clips from the interview to be broadcast next week.
In a discussion about his legislative outlook for 2015, Obama says the new Republican-run House and Senate must prove to voters that can get things done.
"Now you've got Republicans in a position where it's not enough for them simply to grind the wheels of Congress to a halt and then blame me," Obama tells NPR News.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/theoval/2014/12/26/obama-npr-news-race-relations-ferguson-new-york-congress/20913057/
kentuck
(110,950 posts)But I have my doubts.
SamKnause
(13,043 posts)uponit7771
(90,225 posts)... the cops can't say it's JUST a black thing with so many white and brown faces in protest crowds.
Also...
Statistically America is one of the MOST racially tolerant and aware nations on Earth (I wish I had the link showing what made it one of the most tollerant, it had something to do with awareness etc)
... not only that in History I don't count one time where a pluralistic vote chose a minority hue (skin color) as the leader of a US level affluence in the Earth...
Usually people choose as leaders those who look like them...
Iowa introduced black America to the United states of America's first black president...
There's 23 black people in Iowa... 13 are my wifes cousins lol.....
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)Not sure it does, since I am not sure they don't just see us all as the enemy instead of the people providing their jobs and paychecks.
JI7
(89,182 posts)They would have made up a bunch of crap about tamir rice and others like the man in the Wal-Mart .claiming they threatened them or ran after them without video.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)uponit7771
(90,225 posts)...communities they don't work along with the communities, just in them...
This attitude is nationwide... imho...
Not enough LEO leadership segmenting off the stupid people and allowing themselves to have a relationship with those communities
Response to uponit7771 (Reply #14)
Live and Learn This message was self-deleted by its author.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... out here in the real world, not so much.
JI7
(89,182 posts)Were so many cameras and social media to capture it for all to see
99Forever
(14,524 posts)... Obama's apparent view that there's less now?
JI7
(89,182 posts)Then you should have absolutely no problem stating and proving exactly that, correct? If you prefer to simply play the "is, isn't" game, I'll pass.
JI7
(89,182 posts)With their views now. But it was all there before.
99Forever
(14,524 posts)If you've got something to say, say it. Innuendos are for cowards without the moxie to be forthright.
JI7
(89,182 posts)But yeah, all the shit going on now is not new. There are more cameras now .
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Like the rest of the middle and working class regardless of race.
It's a bitter pill to swallow.
JI7
(89,182 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Except the positive things ... then Putin gets the credit.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)What is your motive for posting this drivel?
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)There is little to argue about that. It's not about race it's about class. Dow Jones 18,000 is not an indicator of anything but wall street getting rich, it has no reflection on main street.
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)I assume you know the unemployment rate only reflects those collecting benefits. In one swoop millions lost their unemployment benefits under the obama administration due to unemployment being cancelled. The official unemployment rate is largely meaningless one needs to look deeper to get a sense of the un and under employed.
In the widely reported unemployment rate (U-3), the BLS only counts those who have looked for a job in the past four weeks as unemployed. They're included in the labor force, because their jobless situation is only temporary (hopefully).
Once they haven't looked for a job in the past four weeks are no longer counted as unemployed or in the labor force. They are added to a group the BLS calls marginally attached.
http://useconomy.about.com/od/suppl1/f/real_unemployment_rate.htm
JaneyVee
(19,877 posts)Black unemployment is at its lowest level since 2008. Basically Obama recouped all Bush's job losses but somehow they're doing worse?
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Only as far as collecting benefits. Lets agree people are collecting less unemployment benefits since 2008. Are you really arguing there has been a middle and working class job renaissance in america.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)is simply bs. Even the middle class is doing better than it was at the end of the Bush fiasco.How in the hell can you blame Obama for any of this, when he has done everything in his power to help the lower and middle classes?
The ACA, while far from perfect, was a remarkable success and boon to both classes.
Please tell me what you think Obama has personally done to worsen the states of these classes?
I have always been one to hold Obama's feet to the fire on things I thought he could or should have done better but in all honesty, he has done a heck of lot better than any President in recent memory.
And in all honesty, your posts do come about as sounding a bit racist.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Just not true, there was no u turn it's a continuation of long term trends.
I'm not saying it's his fault, but to deny that it happened under his administration doesn't correlate with economic indicators.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)suggest you are wrong.
Please provide some proof for your character assassination or join a board that will take your word as proof alone.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Why Americas middle class is lost
One day in 1967, Bob Thompson sprayed foam on a hunk of metal in a cavernous factory south of Los Angeles. And then another day, not too long after, he sat at a long wood bar with a black-and-white television hanging over it, and he watched that hunk of metal land a man on the moon.
On July 20, 1969 the day of the landing Thompson sipped his Budweiser and thought about all the people who had ever stared at that moon. Kings and queens and Jesus Christ himself. He marveled at how when it came time to reach it, the job started in Downey. The bartender wept.
On a warm day, almost a half-century later, Thompson curled his mouth beneath a white beard and talked about the bar that fell to make way for a freeway, the space-age factory that closed down and the town that is still waiting for its next great economic rocket, its new starship to the middle class.
Theyve waited more than a decade in Downey. Theyve tried all the usual tricks to bring good-paying jobs back to the 77-acre plot of dirt where once stood a factory that made moon rockets and, later, space shuttles. Nothing brought back the good jobs.
ABOUT THIS SERIES:
Liftoff & Letdown: The American middle class is floundering, and it has been for decades. The Post examines the mystery of whats gone wrong, and shows what the country must focus on to get the economy working for everyone again.
Chapter 2: The devalued American worker
Chapter 3: The college trap that keeps people poor
Chapter 4: A black hole for our best and brightest
Chapter 5: Whats killing entrepreneurship?
Chapter 6: What went wrong, and how to fix it
Those jobs arent coming back. Not at the old North American Rockwell plant, and not in thousands of similarly socked towns.
Yes, the stock market is soaring, the unemployment rate is finally retreating after the Great Recession and the economy added 321,000 jobs last month. But all that growth has done nothing to boost pay for the typical American worker. Average wages havent risen over the last year, after adjusting for inflation. Real household median income is still lower than it was when the recession ended.
Make no mistake: The American middle class is in trouble.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/business/2014/12/12/why-americas-middle-class-is-lost/
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)(and in fact, same county) and pretty much the same reality but certainly a different conclusion on who or what is to blame.
Blaming Obama for the current economic problems, which he has done his best to fix and has made some headway, is not only misguided but will only enable a republican Presidency and Congress that will simply tighten the screws they have already put in place (that Obama alone couldn't remove).
Please tell me what your candidate of choice would have done differently to improve the current situation?
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Im living in Japan right now and it's midnight. Lemme get back to you mañana.
Live and Learn
(12,769 posts)After midnight here to, by the way.
bravenak
(34,648 posts)And that everything is OK now for blacks financially 'cause Dr. Dre is a billionaire. Jesus Malverde said that. To me.
Strange how he's changed his tune.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)When Obama came into office we were seeing massive growth in unemployment after the Bush crash. The growth was stopped and the trend has reversed. That's jobs for actual people.
Where are your supporting figures? All I see is rhetoric, blather crafted from a dated and editorial lexicon.
randys1
(16,286 posts)who have done this need to be arrested for dereliction of duty.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)or their economic indicators.
randys1
(16,286 posts)LordGlenconner
(1,348 posts)But I'm sure life in your ideological purity bubble says otherwise.
kentuck
(110,950 posts)I think the Obama Presidency has brought out the racists in our society, like locusts rising from underground.
Some of us voted for Obama primarily because we thought he would be the conduit to better race relations in this country. However, and especially after his re-election, the racism and the hatred became more vocal and more volatile.
Many Americans have no historical memory of the 1960's and their racist seeds are more recent, although very much resembling the Jim Crow days of the old South.
Just my opinion.
JoePhilly
(27,787 posts)Electing Obama caused them to flip out.
So when the GOP started to use the Southern Strategy, it worked better than they expected ... the racists now feel empowered to be as racist as they want.
uponit7771
(90,225 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Here are some facts
To put that into dollar terms, in the four years between the time the Obama recovery began in June 2009 and June of this year, median black household income fell by just over $4,000, Hispanic households lost $2,000 and female-headed households lost $2,300.
The unemployment numbers show pretty much the same pattern. July's Bureau of Labor Statistics data (the most recent available) show a national unemployment rate of 7.4%. The highest jobless rates by far are for key components of the Obama voter bloc: blacks (12.6%), Hispanics (9.4%), those with less than a high-school diploma (11%) and teens (23.7%).
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887323324904579042830303535934
The economy under President Obama has not been kind to the black community. Those invested in banks, the stock market and finance have done much better under President Obama.
A Pew survey in January 2010 indicated that the percentage of black Americans who thought blacks were better off than they were five years before had almost doubled since 2007. There were also significant increases in the percentages who believed the standard-of-living gap between whites and blacks was decreasing. No wonder they love the president.
There was only one trouble with these assessments. They weren't true. African Americans, as a group, are far worse off now than they were when Obama came to power and the gap between whites and blacks in terms of wealth and income has increased under Obama's tenure. The overall rate of unemployment may be close to where it was when Obama took office, but black unemployment is up 11%. Meanwhile the wealth gap has doubled during this recession with the average white American now having 22 times more wealth than their black counterparts. So too has the educational achievement gap with the rate at which white Americans graduate from high school growing at a far faster clip than black students.
"We haven't seen much of the stimulus trickle down to our people here," Mark Allen, a Chicago-based community organiser who used to work alongside Obama, told the Washington Post. "I liked the community organiser Obama better than President Obama Democrats say Barack has got 90% or whatever of the black vote wrapped up. What they don't tell you is it's 90% of those who actually come out and vote. What if it's 90% of just 30 or 40% who vote?"
In short, Jacob's odds of getting a decent job when he gets older actually got worse since he felt the president's hair, while the gap between his life chances and his white schoolmates widened and his odds of going to prison remained pretty much the same. In empirical terms "the change that [has been] possible" for Jacob and his family under Obama has been change for the worse. One can argue about the cause of those changes and the degree to which Obama bears any responsibility for either creating them or fixing them. But one cannot argue about the fact of them: the ascent of America's first black president has coincided with the one of the steepest descents of the economic fortunes of black Americans since the second world war both in real terms and relative to whites.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/nov/03/obama-african-americans-paradox
kentuck
(110,950 posts)Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Go to any average black community and ask anyone are you and your family better off than before President Obama came to office
It may be congresses fault, it may be the racist devils, but the answer ultimately will be no.
Amnesty for the hispanics who reside in the united states illegally was one more betrayal of the black community,
http://blackcommunitynews.com/is-amnesty-for-illegal-aliens-bad-for-black-americans/
kentuck
(110,950 posts)....that almost all of the 99% have lost purchasing power in the last 6 years? Almost entirely, the gains in the economy have gone to the top 1%.
Even with the economy now improving, the jobs being created are not making up for the losses of the Great Bush Recession.
So, in that sense, the black community is like the rest of us. We were all washed downstream and we have not yet made it back home.
randys1
(16,286 posts)and destroy the american economy and the people will blame Obama
it almost worked, he was reelected
I mean it worked to destroy the lives of tens of millions of Americans
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)Some things transcend race.
Stellar
(5,644 posts)but still has a long ways to go.
NCTraveler
(30,481 posts)Unfortunately, not many in Washington want to talk about the root of the problem and how institutionalized it is. They have absolutely fucked us into thinking it is cops verse blacks. This has truly hurt progress. It is rich verse poor and the cops are simply a tool of the rich man. Race relations have regressed, not progressed. Even we are completely wrong in how it is being discussed. It is economics, not blue verse black.
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)It was a long time ago when he was a community organizer. He no longer mingles with the community. He mingles with rich DC insiders and no longer has any idea what happens to the communities outside of the White House.
Response to UglyGreed (Original post)
doc03 This message was self-deleted by its author.