Why Candidates Rarely Fight For Our Vote Nor Promise "Tangibles" - #ADOS Can Change That

[xoxodede]

Uneasy Alliances Race and Party Competition in America
Paul Frymer

​

In all three Democratic party presidential victories since the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the party would have lost the election without the numerical support of black voters. Despite the efforts of black political leaders to point this out, Democratic party leaders have refused to credit the pivotal role of black voters. Finally, even when black leaders and voters have expressed interest in defecting to the opposition party or to a third party, the opposition’s party leaders have generally been reluctant to make even the most general of political appeals to blacks.

-

I argue that the primary reason for African American electoral capture is the worry of national party leaders that public appeals to black voters will produce national electoral defeats. The perception among party leaders that important blocs of white voters oppose the political goals of African Americans influences party leaders in ways simply not comparable to the perceptions about other potentially captured groups.

Disagreements over race do more than limit the ability of white and black Americans—who might otherwise have similar economic or social interests—to join in a coalition. Precisely because racism is so divisive and repelling, African Americans are in the unique position of not being able to join in the give-and-take of normal coalition politics.

Party leaders recognize this divisive quality and are reluctant to reach out to black voters, since doing so often results in a larger loss of white voters from their existing electoral coalition. They fear making appeals to black voters because they fear that the salience of blacks will overwhelm an electoral coalition of white voters united by largely economic concerns. Thus, party leaders have incentives to ignore black voters, and as such are willing to lose the black vote.

Given this situation, black leaders cannot represent their voters as a “swing vote,” even in close national elections and even if their numbers can influence state or local elections. Party leaders not only believe that appealing to black votes may actually decrease the party’s total vote, but that it also will alter entirely the makeup of both parties’ coalitions.

Read the full chapter here: http://assets.press.princeton.edu/chapters/s9313.pdf​

 

[Nintendough]

Will read..

 

[dj-method-x]

Hi @xoxodede

I argue that even though democratic leaders are reluctant to be loud about what they are doing and have done for black people due to the fear of sparking resistance from the white majority, they still do a lot for black people quietly. Barack Obama is a perfect example of that. Blaming them for not doing things loudly, and the merits of that, is a good argument to have. The problem I see is a lot of people don't give credit for the things that were done quietly.

For instance, how many of us refuse give credit or are unaware of the things below that Obama did quietly (which Trump and republicans have been ferocious in rolling back) without holding press conferences and being loud about it?

• One of the first things Trump did when he got into office was reverse Obama's criminal justice initiatives related to closing private federal prisons and he also stopped all investigations into police departments having been excused of brutality.
• He had the Justice Department drop its long-standing positions and investigations into voter ID laws meant to keep blacks from voting.
  
• Trump's Department of Housing and Urban Development rescinded a proposed Obama-era rule that would have required more justification for public housing agencies seeking to demolish public housing projects in urban communities.
  
• Trump reversed a rule requiring large companies to report worker pay by race and gender in order to decrease the wage gap through greater pay transparency.
  
• Repealed Obama-era regulation that restricted drug-testing for job seekers receiving unemployment benefits.
  
• Trump rescinded Obama’s 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces meant to apply 14 labor and civil rights laws to federal contractors, who now will no longer have to provide documentation of their workplace practices.
  
• Rescinded an Obama-era Justice Department letter that asked local courts across the country to be wary of slapping poor defendants with fines and fees to fill their jurisdictions’ coffers.
  
• The Department of Labor changed its interpretation of a law regulating when contractors can be held liable for employment and civil rights law violations
  
• Overturned the sweeping criminal charging policy of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and directed his federal prosecutors to charge defendants with the most serious, provable crimes carrying the most severe penalties
  
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered Justice Department officials to nix reform agreements with troubled police forces nationwide.
• Gutted Lifeline, the program dedicated to bringing phone and internet service within reach for people of color, low-income people, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, with particularly egregious consequences for tribal areas. They also voted to eliminate several rules promoting competition and diversity in the broadcast media, undermining ownership chances for women and people of color.
  
• the Trump administration announced it would terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation in 18 months for approximately 59,000 Haitians living in the United States.
  
• the Trump administration released new guidelines that allow states to seek waivers to require Medicaid recipients to work – requirements that represent a throwback to rejected racial stereotypes.
  
• the administration announced its decision to bar citizens from Haiti from receiving H2-A and H2-B visas.
• the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education released a new Case Processing Manual (CPM) that creates greater hurdles for people filing complaints and allows dismissal of civil rights complaints based on the number of times an individual has filed.
  
• Attorney General Sessions announced the Justice Department’s ‘school safety’ plan – a plan that civil rights advocates criticized as militarizing schools, overpolicing children, and harming students, disproportionately students of color.
  
• Secretary Ben Carson proposed changes to federal housing subsidies that could triple rent for some households in urban communities and make it easier to impose work requirements.
  
• the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would be publishing three separate notices to indefinitely suspend implementation of the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule.
  
• Secretary Ben Carson proposed changes to the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which aimed to combat segregation in housing policy.
  
• the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest opposing a consent decree negotiated by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to overhaul the Chicago Police Department.
  
• the Department of Justice ended its agreement to monitor the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County and the Shelby County Detention Center in Tennessee, which addressed discrimination against Black youth, unsafe conditions, and no due process at hearings.

We also went from Obama appointing a record breaking number of BLACK JUDGES to life time court appointments to a record number of suspected white supremacists being appointed to the highest courts and cabinet.

 

[xoxodede]

Hi @xoxodede

I argue that even though democratic leaders are reluctant to be loud about what they are doing and have done for black people due to the fear of sparking resistance from the white majority, they still do a lot for black people quietly. Barack Obama is a perfect example of that. Blaming them for not doing things loudly, and the merits of that, is a good argument to have. The problem I see is a lot of people don't give credit for the things that were done quietly.

For instance, how many of us refuse give credit or are unaware of the things below that Obama did quietly (which Trump and republicans have been ferocious in rolling back) without holding press conferences and being loud about it?

• One of the first things Trump did when he got into office was reverse Obama's criminal justice initiatives related to closing private federal prisons and he also stopped all investigations into police departments having been excused of brutality.
• He had the Justice Department drop its long-standing positions and investigations into voter ID laws meant to keep blacks from voting.
  
• Trump's Department of Housing and Urban Development rescinded a proposed Obama-era rule that would have required more justification for public housing agencies seeking to demolish public housing projects in urban communities.
  
• Trump reversed a rule requiring large companies to report worker pay by race and gender in order to decrease the wage gap through greater pay transparency.
  
• Repealed Obama-era regulation that restricted drug-testing for job seekers receiving unemployment benefits.
  
• Trump rescinded Obama’s 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces meant to apply 14 labor and civil rights laws to federal contractors, who now will no longer have to provide documentation of their workplace practices.
  
• Rescinded an Obama-era Justice Department letter that asked local courts across the country to be wary of slapping poor defendants with fines and fees to fill their jurisdictions’ coffers.
  
• The Department of Labor changed its interpretation of a law regulating when contractors can be held liable for employment and civil rights law violations
  
• Overturned the sweeping criminal charging policy of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and directed his federal prosecutors to charge defendants with the most serious, provable crimes carrying the most severe penalties
  
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered Justice Department officials to nix reform agreements with troubled police forces nationwide.
• Gutted Lifeline, the program dedicated to bringing phone and internet service within reach for people of color, low-income people, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, with particularly egregious consequences for tribal areas. They also voted to eliminate several rules promoting competition and diversity in the broadcast media, undermining ownership chances for women and people of color.
  
• the Trump administration announced it would terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation in 18 months for approximately 59,000 Haitians living in the United States.
  
• the Trump administration released new guidelines that allow states to seek waivers to require Medicaid recipients to work – requirements that represent a throwback to rejected racial stereotypes.
  
• the administration announced its decision to bar citizens from Haiti from receiving H2-A and H2-B visas.
• the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education released a new Case Processing Manual (CPM) that creates greater hurdles for people filing complaints and allows dismissal of civil rights complaints based on the number of times an individual has filed.
  
• Attorney General Sessions announced the Justice Department’s ‘school safety’ plan – a plan that civil rights advocates criticized as militarizing schools, overpolicing children, and harming students, disproportionately students of color.
  
• Secretary Ben Carson proposed changes to federal housing subsidies that could triple rent for some households in urban communities and make it easier to impose work requirements.
  
• the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would be publishing three separate notices to indefinitely suspend implementation of the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule.
  
• Secretary Ben Carson proposed changes to the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which aimed to combat segregation in housing policy.
  
• the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest opposing a consent decree negotiated by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to overhaul the Chicago Police Department.
  
• the Department of Justice ended its agreement to monitor the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County and the Shelby County Detention Center in Tennessee, which addressed discrimination against Black youth, unsafe conditions, and no due process at hearings.

We also went from Obama appointing a record breaking number of BLACK JUDGES to life time court appointments to a record number of suspected white supremacists being appointed to the highest courts and cabinet.

Thanks Obama. But, it wasn't enough. He owes a major debt to Black America -- and he didn't even scratch the surface-- he also spoke out against reparations. I will never forget nor forgive that.

Why should we be someone's side-piece --they keep in the house and embarrassed of. We deserve someone bold enough to speak out -- if that means becoming independents -- and having NO party affliction. Then so be it.

 

[Kerkum]

Glad these discussions are slowly becoming mainstream

 

[EBK String]

Hi @xoxodede

I argue that even though democratic leaders are reluctant to be loud about what they are doing and have done for black people due to the fear of sparking resistance from the white majority, they still do a lot for black people quietly. Barack Obama is a perfect example of that. Blaming them for not doing things loudly, and the merits of that, is a good argument to have. The problem I see is a lot of people don't give credit for the things that were done quietly.

For instance, how many of us refuse give credit or are unaware of the things below that Obama did quietly (which Trump and republicans have been ferocious in rolling back) without holding press conferences and being loud about it?

• One of the first things Trump did when he got into office was reverse Obama's criminal justice initiatives related to closing private federal prisons and he also stopped all investigations into police departments having been excused of brutality.
• He had the Justice Department drop its long-standing positions and investigations into voter ID laws meant to keep blacks from voting.
  
• Trump's Department of Housing and Urban Development rescinded a proposed Obama-era rule that would have required more justification for public housing agencies seeking to demolish public housing projects in urban communities.
  
• Trump reversed a rule requiring large companies to report worker pay by race and gender in order to decrease the wage gap through greater pay transparency.
  
• Repealed Obama-era regulation that restricted drug-testing for job seekers receiving unemployment benefits.
  
• Trump rescinded Obama’s 2014 Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces meant to apply 14 labor and civil rights laws to federal contractors, who now will no longer have to provide documentation of their workplace practices.
  
• Rescinded an Obama-era Justice Department letter that asked local courts across the country to be wary of slapping poor defendants with fines and fees to fill their jurisdictions’ coffers.
  
• The Department of Labor changed its interpretation of a law regulating when contractors can be held liable for employment and civil rights law violations
  
• Overturned the sweeping criminal charging policy of former attorney general Eric H. Holder Jr. and directed his federal prosecutors to charge defendants with the most serious, provable crimes carrying the most severe penalties
  
• Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered Justice Department officials to nix reform agreements with troubled police forces nationwide.
• Gutted Lifeline, the program dedicated to bringing phone and internet service within reach for people of color, low-income people, seniors, veterans, and people with disabilities, with particularly egregious consequences for tribal areas. They also voted to eliminate several rules promoting competition and diversity in the broadcast media, undermining ownership chances for women and people of color.
  
• the Trump administration announced it would terminate the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation in 18 months for approximately 59,000 Haitians living in the United States.
  
• the Trump administration released new guidelines that allow states to seek waivers to require Medicaid recipients to work – requirements that represent a throwback to rejected racial stereotypes.
  
• the administration announced its decision to bar citizens from Haiti from receiving H2-A and H2-B visas.
• the Office for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Education released a new Case Processing Manual (CPM) that creates greater hurdles for people filing complaints and allows dismissal of civil rights complaints based on the number of times an individual has filed.
  
• Attorney General Sessions announced the Justice Department’s ‘school safety’ plan – a plan that civil rights advocates criticized as militarizing schools, overpolicing children, and harming students, disproportionately students of color.
  
• Secretary Ben Carson proposed changes to federal housing subsidies that could triple rent for some households in urban communities and make it easier to impose work requirements.
  
• the Department of Housing and Urban Development announced it would be publishing three separate notices to indefinitely suspend implementation of the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule.
  
• Secretary Ben Carson proposed changes to the Obama-era Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing (AFFH) rule, which aimed to combat segregation in housing policy.
  
• the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest opposing a consent decree negotiated by Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan to overhaul the Chicago Police Department.
  
• the Department of Justice ended its agreement to monitor the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County and the Shelby County Detention Center in Tennessee, which addressed discrimination against Black youth, unsafe conditions, and no due process at hearings.

We also went from Obama appointing a record breaking number of BLACK JUDGES to life time court appointments to a record number of suspected white supremacists being appointed to the highest courts and cabinet.

all that shyt is light compared to what he did for every other interest group. The most effective thing he did for the black community was those Obama phones

 

[dj-method-x]

Thanks Obama. But, it wasn't enough. He owes a major debt to Black America -- and he didn't even scratch the surface-- he also spoke out against reparations. I will never forget nor forgive that.

Why should we be someone's side-piece --they keep in the house and embarrassed of. We deserve someone bold enough to speak out -- if that mean becoming independents -- and having NO party affliction. Then so be it.

Obama never spoke out against reparations. He spoke towards his pessimism of getting the congress and the majority of Americans to support it:

‘Better Is Good’: Barack Obama's Interview With Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic

Coates: I thought we’d talk about policy today. I wanted to start by getting a sense of your mind-set coming into the job, and as I’ve understood you—and you can reject this—your perspective is that a mixture of universalist policies, in combination with an increased level of personal responsibility and communal responsibility among African Americans, when we talk about these gaps that we see between black and white America, that that really is the way forward. Is that a correct summation?


Obama: I think it’s a three-legged stool and you left out one, which is vigorous enforcement of antidiscrimination laws. So the way we thought about it when we came in is that—and obviously we came in during crisis, so how we might have structured our policy sequencing if, when we came in, the economy was okay, and we weren’t potentially going into a great recession, and folks weren’t all losing their homes, might have been different. But as a general matter, my view would be that if you want to get at African American poverty, the income gap, wealth gap, achievement gap, that the most important thing is to make sure that the society as a whole does right by people who are poor, are working class, are aspiring to a better life for their kids. Higher minimum wages, full-employment programs, early-childhood education: Those kinds of programs are, by design, universal, but by definition, because they are helping folks who are in the worst economic situations, are most likely to disproportionately impact and benefit African Americans. They also have the benefit of being sellable to a majority of the body politic.


Step No. 2, and this is where I think policies do need to be somewhat race-specific, is making sure that institutions are not discriminatory. So you’ve got something like the FHA [Federal Housing Administration], which was on its face a universal program that involved a huge mechanism for wealth accumulation and people entering into the middle class. But if, in its application, black folks were excluded from it, then you have to override that by going after those discriminatory practices. The same would be true for something like Social Security, where historically, if you just read the law and the fact that it excluded domestic workers or agricultural workers, you might not see race in it, unless you knew that that covered a huge chunk of African Americans, particularly in the South. So reinvigorating the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, making sure that in our Department of Education, where we see evidence of black boys being suspended at substantially higher rates than white boys for the same behavior, in the absence of that kind of rigorous enforcement of the nondiscrimination principle, then the long-standing biases that I believe have weakened, but are still clearly present in our society, assert themselves in ways that usually disadvantage African Americans.


If you’ve got those two things right—if those two things are happening—then a third leg of the stool is, how do we in the African American community build a culture in which we are saying to our kids, “Here’s what it takes to succeed. Here’s the sacrifices you need to make to be able to get ahead. Here’s how we support each other. Here’s how we look out for each other.” And it is my view that if society was doing the right thing with respect to you, [and there were] programs targeted at helping people rise into the middle class and have a good income and be able to save and send their kids to school, and you’ve got a vigorous enforcement of antidiscrimination laws, then I have confidence in the black community’s capabilities to then move forward.



Now, does that mean that all vestiges of past discrimination would be eliminated, that the income gap or the wealth gap or the education gap would be erased in five years or 10 years? Probably not, and so this is obviously a discussion we’ve had before when you talk about something like reparations. Theoretically, you can make, obviously, a powerful argument that centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination are the primary cause for all those gaps. That those were wrongs done to the black community as a whole, and black families specifically, and that in order to close that gap, a society has a moral obligation to make a large, aggressive investment, even if it’s not in the form of individual reparations checks, but in the form of a Marshall Plan, in order to close those gaps. It is easy to make that theoretical argument. But as a practical matter, it is hard to think of any society in human history in which a majority population has said that as a consequence of historic wrongs, we are now going to take a big chunk of the nation’s resources over a long period of time to make that right. You can look at examples like postwar Germany, where reparations were paid to Holocaust victims and families, but—


Coates: They lost the war.

Obama: They lost the war. Small population, finite amount of money that it was going to cost. Not multiple generations but people, in some cases, who are still alive, who can point to, “That was my house. Those were my paintings. Those were my mother’s family jewels.” If you look at countries like South Africa, where you had a black majority, there have been efforts to tax and help that black majority, but it hasn’t come in the form of a formal reparations program. You have countries like India that have tried to help untouchables, with essentially affirmative-action programs, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed the structure of their societies.

So the bottom line is that it’s hard to find a model in which you can practically administer and sustain political support for those kinds of efforts. And what makes America complicated as well is the degree to which this is not just a black/white society, and it is becoming less so every year. So how do Latinos feel if there’s a big investment just in the African American community, and they’re looking around and saying, “We’re poor as well. What kind of help are we getting?” Or Asian Americans who say, “Look, I’m a first-generation immigrant, and clearly I didn’t have anything to do with what was taking place.” And now you start getting into trying to calibrate—


Coates: Isn’t there just—not to cut you off—isn’t there, and this is out of the role of U.S. president, I’m almost speaking to you as a law professor now, an intellectual, in fact—

Obama: Well, that’s how I was answering the question, because if you want me to talk about politics, I’ll be much more blunt about it.


Coates: I figured that. I thought that was what I was getting.

Obama: I was giving the benefit of playing out, theoretically, how you could think about that.

Coates: And I appreciate that. And the question I would ask is in that situation, to the immigrant who comes here, first generation, and says, “I didn’t do any of this,” but the country is largely here because of that. In other words, many of the benefits that you will actually enjoy are, in fact, in part—I won’t say largely—in part here because of the past. So when you want the benefits, when you invoke the past, that thus you inherit the debt, too—

Obama: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess, here’s the way—probably the best way of saying it is that you can make a theoretical, abstract argument in favor of something like reparations. And maybe I’m just not being sufficiently optimistic or imaginative enough—


Coates: You’re supposed to be optimistic!

Obama: Well, I thought I was, but I’m not so optimistic as to think that you would ever be able to garner a majority of an American Congress that would make those kinds of investments above and beyond the kinds of investments that could be made in a progressive program for lifting up all people. So to restate it: I have much more confidence in my ability, or any president or any leader’s ability, to mobilize the American people around a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment to help every child in poverty in this country than I am in being able to mobilize the country around providing a benefit specific to African Americans as a consequence of slavery and Jim Crow. Now, we can debate the justness of that. But I feel pretty confident in that assessment politically.

 

[I Really Mean It]

Most Americans (read: white people) support liberal policies, as shown by polling. On any number of issues, from healthcare to education, liberal leaning legislation ranks higher among the American electorate than conservative alternatives. Yet in spite of the advantage Democrats enjoy on the policy front, they're unable to secure a broad electoral victory over Republicans because of the impression - however false the reality makes it - that their party is not only welcome to black people, but is actively committed to mitigating the impact of racism on their community. This continues to be the greatest single divider between Democrats and Republicans, being the main reason the former continue to lose in spite of their issues polling well above the Republican platform. The key benefit from the AADOS movement is forcing the Democrats to take a stand, one that either sides with our goal of black empowerment and unseating the rule of white supremacy, or one that definitively makes it clear to black people that we have no allies. 2020 will be a turning point for black America.

 

[dj-method-x]

all that shyt is light compared to what he did for every other interest group. The most effective thing he did for the black community was those Obama phones

What did Obama do for other interest groups? Implementing DACA, which is basically an initiative to not deport children who were brought over here by their parents and are now adults contributing to American society in meaningful ways? Giving gays the rights to marry, which everyone already has?

How is that light compared to what I posted and also this:

Progress of the African-American Community During the Obama Administration


Key Accomplishments

Labor Market, Income and Poverty

• The unemployment rate for African Americans peaked at 16.8 percent in March 2010, after experiencing a larger percentage-point increase from its pre-recession average to its peak than the overall unemployment rate did. Since then, the African-American unemployment rate has seen a larger percentage-point decline in the recovery, falling much faster than the overall unemployment rate over the last year.
  
  
• The real median income of black households increased by 4.1 percent between 2014 and 2015.
  
  
• The President enacted permanent expansions of the Earned Income Tax Credit and Child Tax Credit, which together now provide about 2 million African-American working families with an average tax cut of about $1,000 each.
  
  
• A recent report from the Census Bureau shows the remarkable progress that American families have made as the recovery continues to strengthen. Real median household income grew 5.2 percent from 2014 to 2015, the fastest annual growth on record. Income grew for households across the income distribution, with the fastest growth among lower- and middle-income households. The number of people in poverty fell by 3.5 million, leading the poverty rate to fall from 14.8 percent to 13.5 percent, the largest one-year drop since 1968, with even larger improvements including for African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and children.
  
  
• The poverty rate for African Americans fell faster in 2015 than in any year since 1999.While the poverty rate fell for across all racial and ethnic groups this year, it fell 2.1 percentage points (p.p.) for African Americans, resulting in 700,000 fewer African Americans in poverty.
  
  
• African American children also made large gains in 2015, with the poverty rate falling 4.2 percentage points and 400,000 fewer children in poverty.

Health

• Since the start of Affordable Care Act's first open enrollment period at the end of 2013, the uninsured rate among non-elderly African Americans has declined by more than half.Over that period, about 3 million uninsured nonelderly, African-American adults gained health coverage.
  
  
• Teen pregnancy among African-American women is at an historic low. The birth rate per 1,000 African-American teen females has fallen from 60.4 in 2008, before President Obama entered office, to 34.9 in 2014.
  
  
• Life expectancy at birth is the highest it’s ever been for African Americans. In 2014, life expectancy at birth was 72.5 years for African-American males and 78.4 for African-American females, the highest point in the historical series for both genders.

Education

• The high school graduation rate for African-American students is at its highest point in history. In the 2013-2014 academic year, 72.5 percent of African-American public high school students graduated within four years.
  
  
• Since the President took office, over one million more black and Hispanic students enrolled in college.
  
  
• Among African-Americans and Hispanic students 25 and older, high school completion is higher than ever before. Among African Americans, Hispanics, and Asian students 25 and older, Bachelor’s degree attainment is higher than ever before. As of 2015, 88 percent of the African-American population 25 and older had at least a high school degree and 23percent had at least a Bachelor’s degree.

Support for HBCUs

• The U.S. Department of Education (ED) is responsible for funding more than $4 billion for HBCUs each year.
  
  
• Pell Grant funding for HBCU students increased significantly between 2007 and 2014, growing from $523 million to $824 million.
  
  
• The President’s FY 2017 budget request proposes a new, $30 million competitive grant program, called the HBCU and Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) Innovation for Completion Fund, designed to support innovative and evidence-based, student-centered strategies and interventions to increase the number of low-income students completing degree programs at HBCUs and MSIs.
  
  
• The First in the World (FITW) program provided unique opportunities for HBCUs to compete for grants focused on innovation to drive student success.
  
  
• In 2014, Hampton University received a grant award of $3.5 million.
  
  
• In FY 2015, three FITW awards were made to HBCUs, including Jackson State University ($2.9 million), Delaware State University ($2.6 million) and Spelman College ($2.7 million).
  
  
• While Congress did not fund the program in fiscal year 2016, the President’s 2017 budget request includes $100 million for the First in the World program, with up to $30 million set aside for HBCUs and MSIs.

Criminal Justice

• The incarceration rates for African-American men and women fell during each year of the Obama Administration and are at their lowest points in over two decades. The imprisonment rates for African-American men and women were at their lowest points since the early 1990s and late 1980s, respectively, of 2014, the latest year for which Bureau of Justice Statistics data are available.
  
  
• The number of juveniles in secure detention has been reduced dramatically over the last decade. The number of juveniles committed or detained, a disproportionate number of whom are African American, fell more than 30% between 2007 and 2013.
  
  
• The President has ordered the Justice Department to ban the use of solitary confinement for juveniles held in federal custody. There are presently no more juveniles being held in restrictive housing federally.

My Brother’s Keeper

• President Obama launched the My Brother’s Keeper initiative on February 27, 2014 to address persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of color and ensure that all young people can reach their full potential.
  
  
• Nearly 250 communities in all 50 states, 19 Tribal Nations, Washington, DC and Puerto Rico have accepted the President’s My Brother’s Keeper Community Challenge to dedicate resources and execute their own strategic plans to ensure all young people can reach their full potential.
  
  
• Inspired by the President’s call to action, philanthropic and other private organizations have committed to provide more than $600 million in grants and in-kind resources and $1 billion in low-interest financing to expand opportunity for young people – more than tripling the initial private sector investment since 2014.
  
  
• In May 2014, the MBK Task Force gave President Obama nearly 80 recommendations to address persistent opportunity gaps faced by young people, including boys and young men of color. Agencies have been working individually and collectively since to respond to recommendations with federal policy initiatives, grant programs, and guidance. Today, more than 80% of MBK Task Force Recommendations are complete or on track.

Advancing Equity for Women and Girls of Color

• In 2014, the Council on Women and Girls (CWG) launched a specific work stream called “Advancing Equity for Women and Girls of Color” to ensure that policies and programs across the federal government appropriately take into account the unique obstacles that women and girls of color can face. In fall 2015, CWG released a report that identified five data-driven issue areas where interventions can promote opportunities for success at school, work, and in the community.
  
  
• This work has also inspired independent commitments to advance equity, including a $100 million, 5-year-funding initiative by Prosperity Together—a coalition of women’s foundations—to improve economic prosperity for low-income women and women and girls of color and a $75 million funding commitment by the Collaborative to Advance Equity through Research—an affiliation of American colleges, universities, research organizations, publishers and public interest institutions led by Wake Forest University—to support existing and new research efforts about women and girls of color.
  
  
• At the United State of Women Summit in June 2016, eight organizations launched “Young Women’s Initiatives,” place-based, data-driven programs that will focus in on the local needs of young women of color. Those organizations include the Women’s Foundation of Minnesota, the Women’s Foundation of California, the Women's Foundation for a Greater Memphis, the Washington Area Women’s Foundation, the Dallas Women’s Foundation, the Women’s Fund of Greater Birmingham, the Women’s Fund of Western Massachusetts, and the New York Women’s Foundation.

Small Business

• There are 8 million minority-owned firms in the U.S.—a 38% increase since 2007.
  
  
• In early 2015, the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) launched the MBK Millennial Entrepreneurs Initiative, which seeks to address the challenges faced by underserved millennials, including boys and young men of color, through self-employment and entrepreneurship. A major component of this effort included the six-part video series, titled “Biz My Way,” which encourages millennials to follow their passion in business.
  
  
• In fiscal year 2015, underserved markets received 32,563 loans totaling $13 billion, compared with 25,799 loans and $10.47 billion in fiscal year 2014, an increase of 26 percent in number of loans and 24 percent in dollar amount.
  
  
• Last year, the SBA issued a new rule that makes most individuals currently on probation or parole eligible for a SBA microloan—a loan of up to $50,000 that helps small businesses start up. And in August 2016, SBA together with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Justine Petersen, launched the Aspire Entrepreneurship Initiative, a $2.1 Million pilot initiative to provide entrepreneurship education and microloans to returning citizens in Detroit, Chicago, Louisville and St. Louis.

Civil Rights Division

• The Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division continued to enforce federal law.Over the last eight years, the Division has vigorously protected the civil rights of individuals in housing, lending, employment, voting, education, and disability rights and through hate crimes and law enforcement misconduct prosecutions and law enforcement pattern and practice cases.

African-American Judicial Appointees

• President Obama has made 62 lifetime appointments of African Americans to serve on the federal bench.
  
  
• This includes 9 African-American circuit court judges.
  
  
• It also includes the appointment of 53 African American district court judges—including 26 African-American women appointed to the federal court, which is more African-American women appointed by any President in history.
  
  
• In total, 19% of the President’s confirmed judges have been African American, compared to 16% under President Bill Clinton and 7% under President George W. Bush.
  
  
• Five states now have their first African-American circuit judge; 10 states now have their first African-American female lifetime-appointed federal judge; and 3 districts now have their first African-American district judge.
  
  
• Also, the President appointed the first Haitian-American lifetime-appointed federal judge, the first Afro-Caribbean-born district judge, the first African-American female circuit judge in the Sixth Circuit, and the first African-American circuit judge on the First Circuit (who was also the first African-American female lifetime-appointed federal judge to serve anywhere in the First Circuit).
  
  
• The President is committed to continuing to ensure diversity on the federal bench. This year, the President nominated Myra Selby of Indiana to the Seventh Circuit, Abdul Kallon of Alabama to the Eleventh Circuit, and Rebecca Haywood of Pennsylvania to the Third Circuit. If confirmed, each of these would be a judicial first—Myra Selby would be the first African-American circuit judge from Indiana, Abdul Kallon would be the first African-American circuit judge from Alabama, and Rebecca Haywood would be the first African-American woman on the Third Circuit.In addition, two of the President’s district court nominees—Stephanie Finely and Patricia Timmons-Goodson—would be the first African-American lifetime-appointed federal judges in each of their respective districts, if confirmed.

 

[xoxodede]

Obama never spoke out against reparations. He spoke towards his pessimism of getting the congress and the majority of Americans to support it:

‘Better Is Good’: Barack Obama's Interview With Ta-Nehisi Coates - The Atlantic

Coates: I thought we’d talk about policy today. I wanted to start by getting a sense of your mind-set coming into the job, and as I’ve understood you—and you can reject this—your perspective is that a mixture of universalist policies, in combination with an increased level of personal responsibility and communal responsibility among African Americans, when we talk about these gaps that we see between black and white America, that that really is the way forward. Is that a correct summation?


Obama: I think it’s a three-legged stool and you left out one, which is vigorous enforcement of antidiscrimination laws. So the way we thought about it when we came in is that—and obviously we came in during crisis, so how we might have structured our policy sequencing if, when we came in, the economy was okay, and we weren’t potentially going into a great recession, and folks weren’t all losing their homes, might have been different. But as a general matter, my view would be that if you want to get at African American poverty, the income gap, wealth gap, achievement gap, that the most important thing is to make sure that the society as a whole does right by people who are poor, are working class, are aspiring to a better life for their kids. Higher minimum wages, full-employment programs, early-childhood education: Those kinds of programs are, by design, universal, but by definition, because they are helping folks who are in the worst economic situations, are most likely to disproportionately impact and benefit African Americans. They also have the benefit of being sellable to a majority of the body politic.


Step No. 2, and this is where I think policies do need to be somewhat race-specific, is making sure that institutions are not discriminatory. So you’ve got something like the FHA [Federal Housing Administration], which was on its face a universal program that involved a huge mechanism for wealth accumulation and people entering into the middle class. But if, in its application, black folks were excluded from it, then you have to override that by going after those discriminatory practices. The same would be true for something like Social Security, where historically, if you just read the law and the fact that it excluded domestic workers or agricultural workers, you might not see race in it, unless you knew that that covered a huge chunk of African Americans, particularly in the South. So reinvigorating the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, making sure that in our Department of Education, where we see evidence of black boys being suspended at substantially higher rates than white boys for the same behavior, in the absence of that kind of rigorous enforcement of the nondiscrimination principle, then the long-standing biases that I believe have weakened, but are still clearly present in our society, assert themselves in ways that usually disadvantage African Americans.


If you’ve got those two things right—if those two things are happening—then a third leg of the stool is, how do we in the African American community build a culture in which we are saying to our kids, “Here’s what it takes to succeed. Here’s the sacrifices you need to make to be able to get ahead. Here’s how we support each other. Here’s how we look out for each other.” And it is my view that if society was doing the right thing with respect to you, [and there were] programs targeted at helping people rise into the middle class and have a good income and be able to save and send their kids to school, and you’ve got a vigorous enforcement of antidiscrimination laws, then I have confidence in the black community’s capabilities to then move forward.



Now, does that mean that all vestiges of past discrimination would be eliminated, that the income gap or the wealth gap or the education gap would be erased in five years or 10 years? Probably not, and so this is obviously a discussion we’ve had before when you talk about something like reparations. Theoretically, you can make, obviously, a powerful argument that centuries of slavery, Jim Crow, discrimination are the primary cause for all those gaps. That those were wrongs done to the black community as a whole, and black families specifically, and that in order to close that gap, a society has a moral obligation to make a large, aggressive investment, even if it’s not in the form of individual reparations checks, but in the form of a Marshall Plan, in order to close those gaps. It is easy to make that theoretical argument. But as a practical matter, it is hard to think of any society in human history in which a majority population has said that as a consequence of historic wrongs, we are now going to take a big chunk of the nation’s resources over a long period of time to make that right. You can look at examples like postwar Germany, where reparations were paid to Holocaust victims and families, but—


Coates: They lost the war.

Obama: They lost the war. Small population, finite amount of money that it was going to cost. Not multiple generations but people, in some cases, who are still alive, who can point to, “That was my house. Those were my paintings. Those were my mother’s family jewels.” If you look at countries like South Africa, where you had a black majority, there have been efforts to tax and help that black majority, but it hasn’t come in the form of a formal reparations program. You have countries like India that have tried to help untouchables, with essentially affirmative-action programs, but it hasn’t fundamentally changed the structure of their societies.

So the bottom line is that it’s hard to find a model in which you can practically administer and sustain political support for those kinds of efforts. And what makes America complicated as well is the degree to which this is not just a black/white society, and it is becoming less so every year. So how do Latinos feel if there’s a big investment just in the African American community, and they’re looking around and saying, “We’re poor as well. What kind of help are we getting?” Or Asian Americans who say, “Look, I’m a first-generation immigrant, and clearly I didn’t have anything to do with what was taking place.” And now you start getting into trying to calibrate—


Coates: Isn’t there just—not to cut you off—isn’t there, and this is out of the role of U.S. president, I’m almost speaking to you as a law professor now, an intellectual, in fact—

Obama: Well, that’s how I was answering the question, because if you want me to talk about politics, I’ll be much more blunt about it.


Coates: I figured that. I thought that was what I was getting.

Obama: I was giving the benefit of playing out, theoretically, how you could think about that.

Coates: And I appreciate that. And the question I would ask is in that situation, to the immigrant who comes here, first generation, and says, “I didn’t do any of this,” but the country is largely here because of that. In other words, many of the benefits that you will actually enjoy are, in fact, in part—I won’t say largely—in part here because of the past. So when you want the benefits, when you invoke the past, that thus you inherit the debt, too—

Obama: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess, here’s the way—probably the best way of saying it is that you can make a theoretical, abstract argument in favor of something like reparations. And maybe I’m just not being sufficiently optimistic or imaginative enough—


Coates: You’re supposed to be optimistic!

Obama: Well, I thought I was, but I’m not so optimistic as to think that you would ever be able to garner a majority of an American Congress that would make those kinds of investments above and beyond the kinds of investments that could be made in a progressive program for lifting up all people. So to restate it: I have much more confidence in my ability, or any president or any leader’s ability, to mobilize the American people around a multiyear, multibillion-dollar investment to help every child in poverty in this country than I am in being able to mobilize the country around providing a benefit specific to African Americans as a consequence of slavery and Jim Crow. Now, we can debate the justness of that. But I feel pretty confident in that assessment politically.

"Not Practical" sir = speaks out against.

Have you read Mr. Coates ""We Were Eight Years in Power." If not, you should -- he covers that.

 

[dj-method-x]

"Not Practical" sir = speaks out against.

Have you read Mr. Coates ""We Were Eight Years in Power." If not, you should -- he covers that.

Not practical is him being realistic as to what he was up against. He had a republican majority congress, and a country that was divided and terrified of him because he was black. He did what he could do how he could do it, and accomplished a lot in the face of absolute obstruction and irrational hatred. He does not get enough credit for this.

 

[xoxodede]

Not practical is him being realistic as to what he was up against. He had a republican majority congress, and a country that was divided and terrified of him because he was black. He did what he could do how he could do it, and accomplished a lot in the face of absolute obstruction and irrational hatred. He does not get enough credit for this.

Obama had been on the record as opposing reparations. But now, late in his presidency, he seemed more open to the idea—in theory, at least, if not in practice.
My President Was Black

No, he was doing what was stated in the OP.

He was a coward and didn't want to lose his beloved supporters who as the study states do not want to see Black people or our interest being really addressed.

He could for the Jews and LGBTQ though.

Sadly, seeing what Trump has done -- and bold enough to do - has let me know that Barack was scared and not "CHANGE" - -he was symbolic -- and very happy to be just that.

 

[EBK String]

Not practical is him being realistic as to what he was up against. He had a republican majority congress, and a country that was divided and terrified of him because he was black. He did what he could do how he could do it, and accomplished a lot in the face of absolute obstruction and irrational hatred. He does not get enough credit for this.

he didnt accomplish shyt. I lived in the black community during his entire tenure. Not to mention all his c00ning like going to Morehouse graduation and saying black fathers need to take care of their kids. And getting on tv calling blacks engaging in civil unrest in Baltimore thugs. You can read all apologetic list of paper accomplishments I'm speaking in reality and tangibles.

 

[EBK String]

Democrats will either take radical action to correct 400 years of disfrancishment of Ados or we can all sink down in this ship and let Republican fascism take over. No more 1 baby step forward and 5 giant steps back we want our check or we can all be fukked up together. Ain't so fun when the rabbit got the gun.

 

[Dwolf]

Where this DOS stuff come from
AA seemed just fine to me