Obama at Black Caucus dinner: "I need your help"
US President Barack Obama addresses the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation Annual Phoenix Awards at the Washington Convention Center on September 24, 2011. / NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images
WASHINGTON - In a fiery summons to an important voting block, President Barack Obama told blacks on Saturday to quit crying and complaining and "put on your marching shoes" to follow him into battle for jobs and opportunity.
And though he didn't say it directly, for a second term, too.
Obama's speech to the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus was his answer to increasingly vocal griping from black leaders that he's been giving away too much in talks with Republicans — and not doing enough to fight black unemployment, which is nearly double the national average at 16.7 percent.
"It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen to some of y'all," Obama told an audience of some 3,000 in a darkened Washington convention center.
But he said blacks need to have faith in the future — and understand that the fight won't be won if they don't rally to his side.
"I need your help," Obama said.
The president will need black turnout to match its historic 2008 levels if he's to have a shot at winning a second term, and Saturday's speech was a chance to speak directly to inner-city concerns.
He acknowledged blacks have suffered mightily because of the recession, and are frustrated that the downturn is taking so long to reverse. "So many people are still hurting. So many people are barely hanging on," he said, then added: "And so many people in this city are fighting us every step of the way."
But Obama said blacks know all too well from the civil rights struggle that the fight for what is right is never easy.
"Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching shoes," he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. "Shake it off. Stop complainin'. Stop grumblin'. Stop cryin'. We are going to press on. We have work to do."
Topping the to-do list, he said, is getting Congress to the pass jobs bill he sent to Capitol Hill two weeks ago.
Obama said the package of payroll tax cuts, business tax breaks and infrastructure spending will benefit 100,000 black-owned businesses and 20 million African-American workers. Republicans have indicated they're open to some of the tax measures — but oppose his means of paying for it: hiking taxes on top income-earners and big business.
But at times, Obama also sounded like he was discussing his own embattled tenure.
"The future rewards those who press on," He said. "I don't have time to feel sorry for myself. I don't have time to complain. I'm going to press on."
Caucus leaders remain fiercely protective of the nation's first African-American president, but in recent weeks they've been increasingly vocal in their discontent — especially over black joblessness.
"If Bill Clinton had been in the White House and had failed to address this problem, we probably would be marching on the White House," the caucus chairman, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, recently told McClatchy Newspapers.
Like many Democratic lawmakers, caucus members were dismayed by Obama's concessions to the GOP during the summer's talks on raising the government's borrowing limit.
Cleaver famously called the compromise deal a "sugar-coated Satan sandwich."
But Cleaver said his members also are keeping their gripes in check because "nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president."
Still, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., caused a stir last month by complaining that Obama's Midwest bus tour had bypassed black districts. She told a largely black audience in Detroit that the caucus is "supportive of the president, but we're getting tired."
Last year, Obama addressed the same dinner and implored blacks to get out the vote in the midterm elections because Republicans were preparing to "turn back the clock."
What followed was a Democratic rout that Obama acknowledged as a "shellacking."
Where blacks had turned out in droves to help elect him in 2008, there was a sharp drop-off two years later.
Some 65 percent of eligible blacks voted in 2008, compared with a 2010 level that polls estimate at between 37 percent and 40 percent. Final census figures for 2010 are not yet available, and it's worth noting off-year elections typically draw far fewer voters.
This year's caucus speech came as Obama began cranking up grass-roots efforts across the Democratic spectrum.
It also fell on the eve of a trip to the West Coast that will combine salesmanship for the jobs plan he sent to Congress this month and re-election fundraising.
Obama was leaving Sunday morning for Seattle, where two money receptions were planned, with two more to follow in the San Francisco area.
On Monday, Obama is holding a town meeting at the California headquarters of LinkedIn, the business networking website, before going on to fundraisers in San Diego and Los Angeles and a visit Tuesday to a Denver-area high school to highlight the school renovation component of the jobs package.
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Couple of wanna-bies trying to impress each other, sitting all alone in their crummy apartments with nothing else to do.
Do you vote for baggers who try to tell you that your tax money is going to lazy people who haven't earned it?
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What an arrogant ass you are.
I do not support tea baggers. I support fiscal conservatives who are NOT social conservatives.
If you want to sell me a liberal fiscal policy, don't bother. I am against unfunded welfare for individuals as much as I am against tax credits and loopholes for corporations. Cut them all out, and no one will ever need to raise the tax rate.
Don't blame me for that.
Social conservatives when it comes to personal freedoms are the scum of the earth.
You did not steal land, but do you live on land that was stolen?
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Yes. So do you, unless you're currently on a reservation, in which case you were placed on "acceptable" land. I don't agree with that, either, junior.
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by brianbwb2015
Do you call stolen land yours, because you gave money to the progeny of those who stole it?
Does the store where you shop sell goods transported over rails laid by slave labor?
Do you own stock in, and thus collect dividends from companies who discriminate against non-whites?
Do you vote for baggers who try to tell you that your tax money is going to lazy people who haven't earned it?
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As I own the titles to my real estate, I do own my properties free and clear. Of course, local and state property taxes mean none of us ever truly own our lands and houses.
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by brianbwb2015
My best includes opposing baggers who want to excuse, condone, and otherwise pretend racism is not still a cancer in America, and thus seek to allow it to continue.
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Then go find a "bagger". I am a fiscal conservative against wars, for the socialized health care I enjoyed in the Army, and a social moderate who is for gay marriage and against constant welfare, whether for individuals or corporations.
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Reading comprehension problems?
OK, here it is again.
"There is not enough land in America for reparations to the people it was stolen from, and not enough money to pay for 350 years of slave labor.
So what is it that you owe that you could possibly repay?
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I have no reading-comprehension problem. I've understood your argument since day one.
I did not steal land.
I did not use slave labor.
If you have some beef, it's with someone else.
Otherwise, BE A MAN, and do the best you can to live a good life.
You did not steal land, but do you live on land that was stolen?
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From whom? And who is the original owner?
Why do you think I owe you anything?
What do you know about me, other than what you've assumed?
Why are you playing victim? Let's hear your examples of racism and bigotry in REAL life, and I bet I have you licked.
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Exactly how old do you think I am???
It is not right the way African Americans were/are treated but I feel discriminated against everytime I hear our president speak to other African Americans the way he does. He plays the race card and if a white president were to say anything close to this he would be blasted by every race and media outlet there is.
I live near Native American reservation (casino) and everytime they post a classified for a job it always says "Native American preferred". Nobody says anything and they are allowed to discriminate because my ancestors stole their land 150 years ago. What do think would happen if I posted an ad that said "White boy preferred"? I'd probably get a lynch mob after me.
It's not right the way other races were treated but it's also not right that my kids and I have to pay for the sins of others.
What benefits do I enjoy that any other American, white or black, doesn't have the same oppurtunity to "enjoy"?
I guess I just don't get it. I was not raised to think less of someone because of their skin color. I don't live in an area that I have had to deal with such blatant "discrimination" as I feel comes from the president (except for the res. thing but I guess we've covered that). I teach my kids to have respect for every person no matter the color. Others don't do this, I know, and you were probably raised to have a resentment of sorts of white people and still see it in your industry. I just don't understand why it has to continue.
And now you will give me a smart aleck remark but whatever.
No more than a person who has been burned is prejudiced against fire.
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So you admit you're prejudiced against white people?
I haven't done sheeyit to you, son, nor have my ancestors. The government? Sure it has. Have cilivians, too? Sure - get in line.
You whine and whine and whine. Get off your "you owe me" high horse and come join reality. You aren't being oppressed.
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So, yeah, I can afford that.
It's a "yes" or "no" question, if you can handle that kind of think in your fragile state.
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If you say you've enjoyed success, then WHAT are you whining about????