Only Now is NAACP Leader Admitting Black Americans Suffer Under Obama

Reprinted from Amy Ridenour\’s National Center for Public Policy Research Blog at http://www.conservativeblog.org.

You didn’t hear it from Ben Jealous first!

For months now, particularly after the Bureau of Labor Statistics report on employment figures has been released, Project 21 members such as Derryck Green have regularly commented on the continuing economic malaise wrought by the Obama Administration.  In his past postings (found elsewhere on this blog), Green has noted how black Americans are suffering particularly hard under the President’s economic policies — with black unemployment far outpacing the general population and affecting them much more than their white counterparts.

Leave it to Ben Jealous to acknowledge this sad fact only after Obama’s second inauguration.  Having acted as a humble defender of Obama and his policies for the first four years, continued joblessness among black Americans apparently finally elicited a sharp criticism from the NAACP president and CEO.

On the January 27 edition of “Meet the Press” on NBC, Jealous said “[b]lack people are doing far worse” when it comes to finding a job during the Obama Administration.  Between November and December of last year, black unemployment rose 0.8 percent to 14 percent.  To put things in perspective, the black unemployment rate when Obama took office was 12.7 percent.  This is the highest level since 1983.  And disparate black unemployment is a factor consistent throughout the entire Obama tenure at the White House.

While NAACP officials did huddle with their fellow race-based Obama defenders from Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and the National Urban League last week to attempt to formulate a “black agenda” that will allegedly be presented to Obama at some later date, it’s uncertain how much of Jealous’s seemingly newfound skepticism will seep into any final product.

Project 21’s Kevin Martin is skeptical as well — of Ben Jealous.  Kevin is wondering why Jealous is so late in his realization that black Americans appear to have gotten such a raw deal under a president they fought so hard for and have defended so fiercely.

Kevin would certainly like to see more of this critical examination of the President in the NAACP’s future endeavors.  Kevin says:

For once, it appears that NAACP Chairman Ben Jealous has accepted the reality that has been before him all along — a reality that he has unfortunately denied until now — that black Americans are in a worse position today than they were four years ago.

While people like Ben Jealous and the rest of the NAACP seem to have made a living in recent years in attacking conservatives, especially conservatives of color, he can no longer deny what those same conservatives of color have been saying for years now.  This is the fact that, when liberal policies are applied, the very minorities that liberals claim will benefit from them are the same people who suffer under them the most.

With black unemployment now nearly double the national average and blacks are also overrepresented among home foreclosure figures and those suffering a general loss of wealth, it would seem that the NAACP would want to abandon support for any and all of the policies that have not advanced the general welfare of black America.

If the head of the NAACP can admit that black Americans are worse off today than under George W. Bush when it comes to jobs, then he needs to explain his group’s so-called report card grades on lawmakers as well as its platform — for this is a direct reflection of the political ideology of which they support.

Then again, why should Kevin be putting so much faith in the NAACP and Jealous.  Instead of focusing entirely on that “black agenda,” it appears the group is spreading itself out into things that would certainly have a dubious affect on blacks and jobs for blacks.  For example, the group just recently affiliated itself with the radical Service Employees International Union and other groups in promoting an April 10 rally in Washington, D.C. to promote policies that will likely lead to amnesty for illegal aliens.

top photo credit: iStockphoto

Reprinted from Amy Ridenour\’s National Center for Public Policy Research Blog at http://www.conservativeblog.org.