by
dominique DiPrima
Some of us have been accused of being “Cheerleaders, Groupies or Sell-Outs for President Obama.” Casting aside any possibly sexist or patronizing overtones of such statements, I would argue that people like myself, Rev. Michael Eric Dyson, Rev. Al Sharpton, Melissa Harris Perry and many others chose to spend the past 18 months or more working to reelect President Barack Obama because we understand the concept of priorities and timing.
Yes, I admire our President greatly, and I happily give him props for each of the achievements (huge and small) of his first four years. Heck, I may even lead cheers from time to time, for our President, for the Black Man, the Black Woman, for our rainbow tribe, for our youth, for our New America! I love to celebrate what’s good and right in the world and I won’t apologize for it!
But we’ve done our job. We have achieved an amazing and historic victory for America and the world. We have re-elected the 44th (and first African American) President! And now is the time to outline what we want, our Black agenda. Of course it makes sense for us to support a progressive agenda, a women’s agenda, a Latino agenda and a youth agenda. But I believe you start with your own block, and my block is Black. I don’t claim to have all of the answers, but I hope to keep the dialogue vibrant and help keep our community fired up! I figured I’d write this in four parts so it won’t be long and boring. And that way I can focus on one issue for each column. More than ever I am looking for your input, comments, criticism and ideas!
THE BLACK AGENDA: #1 JOBS
That our community is hardest hit by unemployment, is not disputed. It is one of the few things left and right agree on. What to do about it is where the common ground stops. This ought to be our top priority because several of the other challenges facing Black America would be softened by an influx of good, living wage jobs into our communities.
• Provide incentives for manufacturing companies to open plants in areas of highest unemployment (IE Black Communities!) Why can’t Nike manufacture shoes in South Central Los Angeles? Lord knows we buy the products! Why can’t Apple make iPhones in Detroit? African Americans use such tech devices at disproportionately high rates. Don’t just bring those jobs home from China, bring them home to the ‘hood!
• Prioritize training and employment for populations with extremely high jobless rates to fill construction and green jobs in federal and state infrastructure projects. Prepare and employ our community to rebuild New York and New Jersey, fix schools, roads, power grids and high speed rail lines across the nation.
• Support for Black-owned businesses must increase. Small businesses create jobs. Many Black businesses may be hesitant or unable to take on more debt through existing business loan programs. Tax breaks, and grants (not loans) to businesses that can show they create jobs in areas with high unemployment rates could be the lifeline that saves many a Black business battered by the recession, the real estate crash, and a tight lending market.
• Beef up youth job programs. We wish our young people had the luxury of just focusing on their studies, but most do not. We must increase job opportunities especially those that provide vocational training and/or job experience for the real world market.
• Bridge from youth to adult job market. A program must be put in place to bring our youth jobs participants into the mainstream job market when they age out of youth programs. It is not acceptable to drop-kick young people at 18 (as we do in the foster care system) or even 25 years old. Without a viable pipeline to adult jobs/careers, many of these young people will slip back into poverty or be trapped in a gang banging lifestyle and a revolving door to the prison industrial complex.
• Rehabilitative job/lifeskills training and job placement for communities with highest levels of unemployment and incarceration. Youth jobs and education is not enough. We have to save entire families in order to bring our African American communities back up to speed. We cannot simply throw away several generations. That means thorough, well-funded, concrete job preparation/rehabilitation/life skills training for chronically unemployed populations, especially those with large numbers of ex-offenders. We have only recently begun to reform sentencing disparities between for example crack and powder cocaine. We have not yet managed to remedy the racial inequities in arrest and prosecution rates. African American communities across the nation were just beginning to dig out of the crack epidemic when we were slammed by the housing and employment crisis of the great recession. We are now faced with families where the adults are unemployable because of lack of experience, life skills or a felony on their record. And that leaves a population of grandparents struggling to shoulder this extra responsibility in a bleak fiscal environment. This in turn leaves the children exposed and vulnerable in a way that should be unacceptable in this great nation. We must have a real investment in shoring up African Americans in their 30’s, 40’s and even 50’s that are in need, so that our families can move forward with real opportunity for social and economic advancement.
I would love to see us agree on some of these things and then lobby, and challenge our lawmakers to get them done. If we stay mobilized, our ground game will support and, yes, push, the President to deliver for our communities. Yes we can!
Signed,
The People’s Cheerleader
November 18, 2012 at 12:47 pm
Please note Blacks didn’t get anything under the first Obama administration because they voted from him because he is Black. Obama pandered for the Hispanic vote at the cost of Blacks going lower in the employment lines. When Black veterans are passed over to hire illegal immigrants supported by the Obama administration i find it disheartening. Before we can support a Hispanic agenda it seems important that we first demand support from the administration to lower Black unemployment. Hispanic should abide by the same laws the rest of the country abides by; if we are a nation of laws like the President likes to state than he should also enforce the laws as they are. Pandering for vote is a slow as one can get and to hurt citizens is even lower.
November 18, 2012 at 8:48 pm
African Americans got lots of important things in the first four years of the administration of President Barack Obama. But there is clearly much more to do. The President’s support of Latino immigration reform did not cause African American unemployment. That was created by racism, both institutional and interpersonal. Please give the man credit for the huge achhievments he has accomplished! If Bill Clinton ever gave 280 million dollars to HBCU’s ya’ll would be kissing his feet forever…Health Care Reform and Finance Reform both disproportionately assist our communities…As does getting the heck out of Iraq! Peace & Progress…Love & Unity!
November 19, 2012 at 4:42 am
I agree!
November 23, 2012 at 11:57 pm
Chas I have to disagree with you on some of your points The President has did several things were we benifited as was pointed out many times before. However laws that are on the books all ready should be enforced esspecially in the Building Trade industry. We should ask for a watch dog commitee as far as the Veterans Administration goes, because there’s a lot of institutional racisim going on there. However complaining about immigrants is not going to help our cause. Instead of trying to always immate the socalled dominate culture, we need to do what immigrants do. Networking, Stop tearing down oneanother on jobs, hire our own people everytime we get a chance. When we see another brother or sister come on the job make sure they get well trained. Ask the Presidents Administration to pass anti discrimination laws against the banks as far and lending for small business goes, and suport the busineses we have in place all ready. There is several quoted pactices we do that others who come here don’t. They say don’t hire relatives, or friends but every group that comes here does just that. They practice that in all cases whether it jobs, housing, or business.
November 29, 2012 at 6:38 am
Hay Peterson,
Go to http://rabbleprochoice.tumblr.com/
this will give you 4 years of President Barack Obama “Accomplishments” ,,, but if you dont learn to “READ” and stop waiting for some one to give you information, then you might not sound so “UN-AWARE.
“THE MIND IS A TORRIBLE THING TO WASTE”
November 18, 2012 at 3:16 pm
“More than ever I am looking for your input, comments, criticism and ideas!” Thank you, Dominique. This is very serious business and timely. You have some great ideas and provide us with a forum to share helpful ideas. There are some who still think black folk aren’t astue enough to vote based on policies and what is advantageous, rather we look at how light or dark someone is and then decide, I can’t believe people are still making comments like this. Somehow, the clear choices in the agendas that were before us wasn’t enough for some like Charles to see that people of all ethnic groups felt compelled to support and vote for President Obama, but sounds like he feels only black people voted for him just because he’s black. I only responded so that you aren’t tempted to be side-tracked into responding to that old unfounded comment. (I don’t consider it criticism anymore). Quoting you, again, “Let’s stay focused on what we want”.
I like your ideas and will be giving thought to some things I’ve given thought to.The things that are of the highest priority and attainable are what we should be focused on. I will say that once leadership is decided upon, Pastors of predominately black congregations and other organizational leaders should be compelled to get involved. “Lobby and challenge lawmakers”. Yes! This is not something to be pushed by a sect or some small vocal minority. We’re talking about a concrete agenda, designed to produce concrete results.You have collegues already who can help pull this off.
November 19, 2012 at 4:41 am
I just hope to see a SERIOUS black agenda put forth by the President. I want some of the things that plague Black people to disappear…. Here are a few…
1. Racial profiling and unnecessary harassment from the police.
2. Black men being murdered by the police.
3. High unemployment.
4. Enforcement on making sure jobs in OUR communities are not predominately “Latino” 50/50…
November 24, 2012 at 12:05 am
I agree with all that, but we should of voted against Prop 209 long ago.
November 19, 2012 at 4:53 am
I agree with most of what you said. Jobs require training. The president talked about training. We cannot expect the same jobs to We had 20 or 30 years ago.
We need to prioritize training, because without it, most new jobs will be outsourced. Also there has to be incentives to companies to bring those jobs back to the USA.
I believe that all politics is local, therefore, when we talk about jobs, we need to understand, that states, and city leaders must be innovative. They have to come up with better solutions. We can’t always look to the federal govt.
Right now most states with republican governors are playing politics, refusing to implement the health care law. It’s estimated that when the law is fully implemented, it will create thousands of new jobs.
So we need to push hard and make sure our elected reps, make job creation a priority.
November 19, 2012 at 12:36 pm
How about our highly successful black entreprenuers coming together and invest in some industries where black people are already spending millions and millions of dollars outside of the black community. Dr. Claud Anderson talks about some of this in Powernomics. Dominique, you asked a rhetorical why can’t Nike build some plants in urban areas and create jobs. That’s an area where black people are already consumers and it could be profitable for all concerns. It seems very reasonable. I’m sure our leadership will confront them with a proposal. I think the beauty supply and service industries is another area to be considered. Millions of dollars that could be benefiting the black community is leaving every night when cash registered are tallied and cleaned out. Because I frequent various Starbucks Coffe Shops, it comes to mind. They hire in the communities they serve and I hear they give back. I remember a Front Page show where the guests were some gentlemen from the Korean Merchants Association or something; some proprietors from the Slauson Swap Meet. Those types of enterprises generate millions of black consumer dollars but I think statistics indicate very little if any of their enormous profits are being reinvested back into the community that is a source of their large and steady cash flows. I remember the man giving vague answers. He even mentioned giving out scholarships over the past few years, but he couldn’t name a recipient or even how much they received. Do you think they hire even 1% black as sales staff? I guess my position is if we can focus on tightening up and monitoring the businesses already established in the black community, hold them accountable, and come up with some new enterprises, it would give the President specific places to consider “partnering” so as to establish long lasting revitalization and jobs.