Title: I need your help': Obama calls on black voters 'to put on your marching shoes' in fight against unemployment Source:
Daily Mail Online URL Source:http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art ... -shoes-fight-unemployment.html Published:Sep 25, 2011 Author:Daily Mail Reporter Post Date:2011-09-25 08:20:28 by Sebastian Keywords:None Views:3156 Comments:4
# Black unemployment levels at 16.7 per cent - a 27-year high
# Mr Obama hit back at black leaders who say he isn't doing enough
# The President's popularity among black voters slides from 83 per cent to 58 per cent in new poll
Barack Obama has told African Americans to 'stop complainin,' 'put on your marching shoes' and follow him into the battle for jobs and opportunity.
Speaking at the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington last night, the President hit back at leaders who say he's not doing enough to fight black unemployment.
At 16.7 per cent it is nearly double the national average and at a 27-year high.
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'Stop complainin, stop grumblin, stop cryin': Barack Obama urges African-Americans to roll up their sleeves and fight for jobs at the annual awards dinner of the Congressional Black Caucus in Washington
Addressing some 3,000 people at the dinner, Mr Obama said African-Americans need to have faith in the future - and understand the fight won't be won if they're not on his side.
'It gets folks discouraged. I know. I listen to some of y'all,' Mr Obama said before admitting: 'I need your help.'
Indeed, during the speech, Mr Obama 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.'
The president will need black turnout to match its historic 2008 levels if he's to have any chance of winning a second term.
He acknowledged blacks have suffered because of the recession, and are frustrated that the downturn is taking so long to reverse.
Support: Looking stunning in black sequins Michelle Obama joined the President on stage in a show of support
'So many people are still hurting, so many people are barely hanging on and so many people in this city are fighting us every step of the way,' Mr Obama said.
Referencing the civil rights struggle Mr Obama added 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.'
Famous attendees: Former heavyweight boxing champion George Foreman, left, and actor, Cuba Gooding, right, cheer on Mr Obama
BLACK UNEMPLOYMENT AT 27-YEAR HIGH
The turnout of black voters in Barack Obama's victorious 2008 presidential campaign was phenomenal.
Some 65 per cent of eligible African-Americans voted that year.
But, three years on and there is discontentment in the black community as their unemployment rate hits a 27-year high.
Currently, more than 16.8 per cent of blacks are out of work compared with just 8 per cent of whites.
The numbers are even more bleak for black men, with 19.1 per cent being jobless.
What's more the black unemployment rate has now remained above 10 per cent for four years.
And it's showing at the polls.
Just five months ago, 83 per cent of African-Americans held 'strongly favorable' views of Mr Obama.
That number has now dropped to 58 per cent, according to a Washington Post-ABC news poll.
When Mr Obama asked out-of-work black Americans for help at the Caucus awards dinner last night observers may have felt he was also pleading for a lifeline in his second term bid.
Topping the to-do list, he said, is getting Congress to pass the jobs bill he sent to Capitol Hill two weeks ago.
The package of payroll tax cuts, business tax breaks and infrastructure spending will benefit 100,000 black-owned businesses and 20million African-American workers,' he said.
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.
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,' caucus chairman, Rep Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri, recently told McClatchy Newspapers.
Like many Democratic lawmakers, caucus members were dismayed by Mr Obama's concessions to the GOP during the summer's talks on raising the government's borrowing limit.
Mr Cleaver famously called the compromise deal a 'sugar-coated Satan sandwich.'
But he also said his members are keeping their gripes in check because 'nobody wants to do anything that would empower the people who hate the president.'
At the caucus dinner last year, Mr Obama implored African-Americans 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 Mr Obama acknowledged as a 'shellacking.'
Where the black community turned out in droves to help elect him in 2008, there was a sharp drop-off two years later.
Some 65 per cent of eligible African-Americans voted in 2008, compared with a 2010 level that polls estimate at between 37 per cent and 40 per cent.
Just out of curiosity,does anybody know what happened to Cuba Gooding's career?
He was flying high at one time,and with his talent there is no logical reason for him to have virtually disappeared from the scene. I did hear reports of extreme arrogance from him that made him hard to work with,so maybe he just managed to piss off one of the movers and shakers in Hollywood,and got blackballed?
BTW,what does it say of Barry's popularity with the jetset black crowd when the biggest celebs he can get a photo op out of shaking hands with are George Foreman and Cuba Gooding Jr? George will show up anywhere there is a free lunch,and Cuba Gooding Jr is probably happy to be invited anywhere.
"I adore John McCain, support him 100 percent and will do everything I can to support his reelection. As everyone knows, I was honored and proud to run with him. And Todd and I were with him in D.C. just a week ago." (Sarah Palin,Dec 2009) ************************************ DID Palin say or write these things or not? (Me) I don't know or F ing care. (Mad Dog posted on 2009-12-26 16:36:33 ET,post # 105 http://libertysflame.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=5510&Disp=114#C114)
Just out of curiosity,does anybody know what happened to Cuba Gooding's career?
You don't know of IMDB.com?
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000421/
With the economy still in the dumper -- maybe permanently? -- and full-time jobs becoming as scarce as rain during a drought, huge percentages of Americans have had their (misplaced) faith in the American dream shaken, the upper-middle-class consumerist lifestyle is exposed as a mirage for anybody who plays by the rules. Capitalism and the America that embraced it as a way of life is now and forever more a failure. It does me good to know that the generation that voted in Reagan and his ideology will see their America die from that ideology before their very own eyes and knowing they had a hand in its destruction.
Yeah,but I wasn't aware they publish reasons for dead careers.
"I adore John McCain, support him 100 percent and will do everything I can to support his reelection. As everyone knows, I was honored and proud to run with him. And Todd and I were with him in D.C. just a week ago." (Sarah Palin,Dec 2009) ************************************ DID Palin say or write these things or not? (Me) I don't know or F ing care. (Mad Dog posted on 2009-12-26 16:36:33 ET,post # 105 http://libertysflame.com/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=5510&Disp=114#C114)
I need your help': Obama calls on black voters 'to put on your marching shoes' in fight against unemployment
The punkass regime leader should have thrown in a "and go get in the faces of these terrorist bastard's-who-should-go-straight-to-hell....blah blah...drone....screech...." to the marching shoes.
Maybe throw in a nod to the new blast a tea party video game his thuggish piece of shit followers play between union gigs or welfare checks.
Death to everybody who does not get outta my way. (decided to retire the beatdowns on old worthless retread posters that are bozoed)