David Samuels is the founder of  the Community Party.

By Ann-Marie Adams, Ph.D.

In his speech to about 350 educators gathered at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain last Thursday, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy was right about one thing: quality education is the next civil rights movement. And Connecticut is ground zero because of its paradoxes: the richest state with some of the worst failing urban and rural schools nationwide. And it has a booming prison industry.

This is, indeed, Connecticut’s moment to end separate and unequal.

But this twenty-first century movement at this moment won’t be lead by most of the educational experts gathered at Alumni Hall in a daylong workshop to set the agenda on education for the 2012 legislative session.

It will be lead by the people who were left out of those panel discussions.

It will be lead by black females like Gwen Samuels and those intimately affected by the academic achievement gap. People who have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews and other family members who went through most urban and rural school systems only to find they were socially promoted.

It will be lead by a force from the ground up—if they stay focused on the prize and abstain from infighting for visibility and prestige in the margins of society.

That these people were missing from the room was of note to Samuels, who blurted out:

“Did you see those panelists; hardly any people of color on those panels. Look at this room.”

That you have a black female at the head of a parent union formed to advocate for many of those people who will be missing at the state Capitol come February is no coincidence, or recent phenomenon. Black females—not black males—have been at the forefront of the fight for quality education in America.

In fact, the masculinization of leadership in the black community is anachronistic and has been proven ineffective. As Samuels and others have asserted: black women and their voices will not be stifled, muzzled, snuffed out, or ignored as they advocate for the black family.

So in the coming months, the world will see in this country what they saw in Cairo, Egypt last fall in Tahir Square: women leading mass movements and more black females stepping into the spotlight—despite a recent rash of attacks on the black female.

The mother is the first teacher and the progenitor of a culture, so it’s also no coincident you have nationwide hostility toward dark-skinned black females from Michelle Obama down to Denise Nappier–all with an aim to denigrate their character and social mores. And for the most part, they are on their own and in defense of themselves.

Most notable, black females have been arrested and publicly humiliated for trying to obtain quality education for their sons and daughters. In 2011, Ohio mother, Kelley Williams-Bolar and Connecticut, homeless mother, Tanya McDowell, were arrested for  “stealing an education” by sending their children to an out of district school.

In Connecticut, another case surfaced in October of 2010. Marie Menard,
a grandmother, property owner and taxpayer in Stratford, Connecticut,
was arrested for first-degree larceny for stealing a free education for
her grandsons.

The fourth and most recent national case of parents being accused of stealing a
free, public education was Annette Callahan, who enrolled her fifth grade twins in the higher performing district of Beach Park, IL.  A divorced couple, Annette Callahan and Samuel Callahan live in Waukegan and Beach Park, Illinois. Having joint custody, and with both children listed on both leases, the parents chose to send their children to the higher performing district of Beach Park, IL. On Nov. 8, 2011 the Callahans received notice from Beach Park School district that they were accused of “falsifying residency.”  The school ruled that the Callahan’s would have to remove kids by Nov. 30.

On Jan. 9, parents, including Samuels, will hold a press conference to speak to this court case that might impact the Tanya McDowell case. Representatives and Attorney Josephine Miller from the Connecticut Parent’s Union, Kelley Williams – Bolar of the newly formed Ohio Parent’s Union, among others, will host a press conference call to discuss the need to reform and end Zip Code education in areas like Beach Park, Illinois and Connecticut.

Malloy’s rhetoric was inspiring to many in the room. And he might be the right man at the right time to begin the change we’ve been waiting for in Connecticut’s  long struggle for civil rights and its essential component: a quality education.

This is the moment. And some, Samuels said, will be “watching to see if his rhetoric [and conduct] lines up with his values.”

Dr. Ann-Marie Adams is a race and gender associate at Rutgers University. Follow her on Twitter and Facebook.

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Contributor

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Sooner or later, presumptive GOP presidential nominee frontrunner Mitt Romney will have to publicly answer which Romney will show up on the issue of race and diversity, if he indeed gets the GOP nomination and snatches the White House in 2012. Will it be the Romney who claimed in an interview on Meet the Press in 2007 that he got teary-eyed when he heard his Mormon church’s ruling that blacks would no longer be barred from the Mormon priesthood. Romney didn’t directly say it, but he strongly hinted that the moment stirred strong emotions in him because he never went along with his church’s decade’s old racial bar.

“I was anxious to see a change in my church,” Romney said. My faith has always told me that, and I had no question that African Americans and blacks generally would have every right and every benefit in the hereafter that anyone else had and that God is no respecter of persons.”

Now contrast that with the Romney that former GOP congressman J.C. Watts, a staunch black conservative, recently ripped for having a virtually lily white campaign staff. Romney was unmoved by the knock and flatly said that he hires the best persons he can find. He underscored that with the rhetorical emphasis “What’s the charge? Is there something wrong with that?”

Nothing, nothing, that is, if Romney’s political ambitions didn’t extend any further than seeking to win a GOP seat in a GOP friendly congressional district in the GOP’s hard core voter geographic vote base in the Heartland and the Deep South. The presidency is a far different matter. The teary-eyed Romney who chaffs at racial bigotry can’t trump the Romney who glibly condones it in picking his campaign staff.

Romney’s record on diversity as Massachusetts governor gives a strong hint of what his White House would look like. When it came to appointing minorities and women to judicial posts, his record was atrocious. The Massachusetts Women’s Bar Association repeatedly lambasted him for his near-exclusive white male state house. Romney partly in response to the public pounding, and partly with an eye on a presidential run where he knew his state record on diversity would be closely scrutinized, made a slew of appointments of minorities and women to the state bench in his last year in office.

Romney’s successor Deval Patrick, a Democrat, and the state’s first African-American governor, wasted no time in knocking Romney for his blatant race and gender blind spot on appointments. In his inaugural address, he made it clear that he would make diversity and inclusion a huge part of his administration. Romney, not surprisingly, did not attend Patrick’s inaugural.

Late night comedian-talk show host Jay Leno was bothered enough by Romney’s blind spot on diversity to ask him point blank in an interview during the 2008 GOP presidential primary campaign what he thought about diversity. Romney gave the GOP formula answer and said that he supported it in government and corporations. Leno wasn’t satisfied and pressed him on what his administration would do to promote diversity. Romney wouldn’t budge from the stock retort that discrimination is wrong. That’s even less than the bare minimum response to racial bigotry that any candidate for public office is required to give.

The embarrassing litany of Romney race-tinged gaffes that include the metaphorical reference to hanging Obama, a joke about Obama’s birth certificate, using the racially offensive word “tar baby” to describe a public works project, and an animal reference in a pose with an African-American doesn’t tag Romney as a racist. He apologized or pleaded ignorance in every case. But it does touch off warning bells on race.

The loudest bell is what Romney will have to do, or more particularly who he’ll have to satisfy, to seal the GOP nomination. Romney will have to do a massive sell job to Christian evangelicals, ultra-conservatives and Tea Party leaders that he’s really at heart one of them. To appease them, he has little wiggle room on race. The mere mention of race, let alone diversity, emblazons red flags among conservative hardliners. They relentlessly bait him as a flip-flopper and closet moderate who will not dump conservative principles at the drop of a hat. There’s no likelihood that Romney would pick the nettlesome Watts as his VP running mate as the influential ultra conservative blog, redstaterusa.org, dared him to do in 2007 when Romney was fighting hard for presidential nomination. The Watts for VP call though was done more to needle Obama than any serious interest in promoting diversity in a GOP White House.

Romney’s actions, not tears about Mormon Church bigotry and protestations against discrimination, tell much about what to expect with a Romney in the White House. And that’s not much.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media.

Updated:9-20-2011; 5: 36 p.m.

By Ann-Marie Adams, Commentary

HARTFORD – Denise Lynn Nappier plays by the rules.

The first African-American elected to a state-wide office in Connecticut, State Treasurer Nappier usually carries herself in a dignified manner and has never been one to publicly talk about race. So I wondered what it was like for her to be cornered in a parking lot walled in by two high-rise buildings as I watched closely the news coverage of her Sept. 1 traffic stop by three Hartford police officers. And I noticed a coordinated effort to shift the news coverage from the thorny double issue of race and gender.

To date, we don’t know why the three police officers decided to run a check on Nappier’s 2011 Ford Crown Victoria at about 8: 30 p.m. that night at 385 Barbour St. But we do know there’s a tendency to look elsewhere for explanation with matters involving race and racism.

First, the Hartford Police Union’s Vice President Nazario Figueroa issued a statement that contradicted Nappier’s account. Then we had the department of motor vehicle spokesperson’s response to the media, clouding the credibility of Hartford State’s Attorney, Gail Hardy, the first African American appointed to that post.  Luckily for Nappier, the unedited police account supported her story. And a DMV spokesperson realized he misspoke. But for a while, the public was left with the impression that these two accomplished and high-profile black women fabricated their story.

Attempts to consciously, or unconsciously, cloud the issue with confusion underscore this salient fact: this is about race and how intrapersonal racism supports structural racism. Connecticut has the highest incarceration rate of blacks and Hispanics in the nation.

Traffic stops are another entry point into the system. On any day of the week, the New Britain Court house is filled with black and brown bodies waiting for trials for traffic violations, which in some cases are handled with lack of discretion. Without lawyers, defendants fight with only one tool: determination to prove thier innocence, not knowing the system usually supports the officers and render guilty verdicts–despite evidence to the contrary. And the state will collect its fines.

The high number of minorities in the judicial system—just for minor traffic offenses—is no doubt, in part, a result of racial profiling. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, examples of racial profiling are the use of race to determine which drivers to stop for minor traffic violations (commonly referred to as “driving while black or brown”).

Nappier instinctually knew she was profiled and was determined to fight. Good for her. But she must now use her platform to put a name to what we call neo-racism.

Despite the popularity of Oprah Winfrey, black females are the most oppressed group by men and women. So it’s not far-fetched to believe that on this September night, a white female officer decided to show Nappier the privilege of whiteness—coupled with a police uniform.

It didn’t matter that Nappier was a taxpayer who deserves professionalism, courtesy and respect. Officer Jill Kidik felt it necessary to cut Nappier down a peg or two, a remnant of the harsh labor system of cruelty and repression against enslaved Africans who resisted subordination. Their insubordination was met with increased restrictions and punishment. Black females especially are punished for violating the dominant culture’s code of conduct. Having an “attitude” is code word for being a “sassy negress.” If you want to understand the subtleties of these codes rooted in slavery, watch the movie, The Help. In the Nappier affair, Kidik served as an agent of racism and sexism.

Former Hartford Mayor Thirman Milner recalls a similar incident of racism 28 years ago. One night, he was walking on Albany Avenue, and two white female officers stopped him. They were belligerent. Afterward, they discovered he was the mayor. And to justify their behavior, they wrote in a report that Milner was drunk and wobbling along the Avenue. So they stopped him.

Then Police Chief Bernard Sullivan knew Milner was not a drinker. And on that night, Milner left a city council meeting—not a bar. Clearly, Sullivan recognized the officers lied. And he reprimanded them.

Almost three decades later, we have a city confronting the same issue: police officers fabricating reports. So we now have a glimpse into a possible cause of Connecticut’s high incarceration rate among minorities.

That’s why I have to fault Nappier for how she responded to a reporter when asked if she thought it was racial profiling. Despite her so-called three-mile walk home with much time for reflection on the incident, Nappier’s response was: “I don’t know.”

Black women have been profiled since they landed on these shores. Even the venerable Oprah Winfrey was a victim of racial profiling at a high-end department store. But unlike Nappier, Winfrey and Milner, most poor people don’t have cell numbers of high-ranking officials.

I’m not saying all police stops with minorities involve racial profiling. But in examining this case, I wondered what the motive was for a random check on Nappier’s state issued car.

In addition, I know Kidik had other options for Nappier after she discovered her identity. Kidik could have had Nappier call a tow truck at her own expense to tow it back to her house. Or tell Nappier to check into the situation the next day. Or call a supervisor. Kidik chose to administer the most severe punishment for what was clearly a mix up. Something she wouldn’t have done if she had stopped Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman.

So Nappier has an obligation to call this incident what it is: racial profiling.  As Congresswoman Maxine Waters said: name it. The fact that the stop was in a “high-crime” neighborhood is irrelevant. It’s the personal interaction between Nappier and the white female officer that turned this arrest into a racial issue, according to reports on racial profiling.

Kidik had a set of rules for black, uppity females. That double standard is called discrimination—not poor judgment.

Dr. Ann-Marie Adams is race and gender associate at Rutgers University. Follow her on Twitterand Facebook. You can reach her at annwritestuff@msn.com.

By Ann-Marie Adams, Staff Writer

HARTFORD — When the West Indian Social Club meets this Sunday, members will decide on what direction the 61-year-old club will take to emerge from what some deem the “lowest period” since its founding.

Several members will meet tonight to amend its constitution in an effort to borrow a $325, 000 loan, according to sources. Some argue that the club does not need a loan because it’s capable of making enough money to pay its bills. The loan, they said, would lock the club into what seems like predatory-like terms, such as a 15 percent interest rate, bank fees and first year of payments to the lender, according to sources.

This loan, and other events that led up to it, has caused a bitter divide among members and those who, though not members, are inextricably connected through decades-old family ties and childhood friends, including this writer.

Driven by clash of personalities and perceived mis-management, many members have distanced themselves from the club, citing suspicions of corruption and demonstrated acts of incompetence. What was once called “the largest institution of its kind in North America” is no longer. The group began the first West Indian Day parade in the country and established a precedent with splendid parades and festivals. But even in its darkest moment with its estimated 120-paid membership, the club is still the envy of many communities.

The latest round of imbroglio unfolded about a month ago when the club’s president, Richard Gordon, called one of his many “emergency meetings” to discuss plans to secure a loan. Afterward, the second-term president proposed to remove the elected treasurer, who was elected for the 2011 year. The treasurer, some say, purportedly was an obstacle to borrowing the loan, and who demanded proper procedures for disbursements and other financial matters. In addition, the elected secretary had already resigned out of frustration, sources said.

“I didn’t like the way it was done at all,” said one long-time member and one of the 17 members present that night, referring to the illegal removal of a board member. “The president didn’t do things the right way.”

The treasurer, who does not want his name to be associated with the club, refused to comment, saying he received no notice of any such meeting to remove him.

Sources said Gordon presented “bogus” reasons to remove the treasurer, such as the treasurer being at work and being unavailable to sign checks or make deposits. This power play, one member said, was because of personality conflicts.

Vice President Milton Mitchell said he was not at that meeting and knew nothing about treasurer’s removal. There was no executive board meeting to discuss the matter. However, the club’s judiciary committee has been meeting to handle the matter, he said.

When several senior members were contacted, they also said they knew nothing about Gordon’s move.

The Hartford Guardian left several messages for the president, an attorney who lives in Hartford and is a licensed attorney in New Jersey.

The loan is just the latest point of contention for the spirited club, whose older members long for the club’s glory days, when the tight-knit members were “considerate and committed” to each other and to community good rather than “greed and self-preservation,” they said.

They wrestled with how to distance themselves from individuals who, they said, have brought “shame” to the club, which on paper is nonprofit entity and private club. But it has members that aspire to be players in public discourse and policy; and as a result, they’ve used the club to further individual goals under the guise of community interest, some say. In the past, several members have sullied the reputation of others who tried to intervene in the supposed downward spiral–by  starting whisper campaigns with fabricated stories.

They point to individuals such as Raymond H. Davis, a past president and architect of several events in recent months. Davis was at the club on Saturday. Through Davis, this reporter witnessed the mechanics of the machinations that has characterized the club’s climate of late. On that night, there were less than 10 people present —an unusual number for the 9 p. m. hour, compared to previous years.

Some blame it on the recession, which has caused employed members to put priority on keeping their jobs, rather than keeping company with a crowd that seemingly gets more hostile and crass.

Of the few people present that night, several have long retired, were unemployed, underemployed or self-employed—looking to the club to work on projects that may generate income.

Perhaps the external pressures of a depressed economy also contributed to the very rarely seen lack of decorum displayed on Saturday.

This writer witnessed verbal fisticuffs, instigated by Davis, who threatened bodily harm to “anyone who say a word” about the club, saying, “we will come after you” to those who voiced displeasure about his and other past presidency.

With Corona bear in hand, Davis wailed about his tenure.  He also sought out members with malleable minds to manipulate—and then injected a fabricated story into their quiet conversations. He then recruited a 70-year old member, who in drunken stupor, demanded that a member have his “guest” sign the visitor’s book. That ritual is only done when the club is having an event for late night partiers. When his plan failed, the man called the police to have the visitor sign the book. But others noticed that his visitor didn’t sign the book. This caused an uproar. The once-quiet evening turned contentious.

Other members, who sat in silence and watched the silly attempt at power play, were visibly embarrassed. They apologized to the visitor and then left the bar in shame.

Davis and his cohort’s crass behavior, some say, have alienated not just older stalwarts in the club and the community but many young professionals.

Now, a few active—and reportedly misguided—members in the club are quietly jockeying for positions and perceived power, some say.

But still, others remain optimistic that once they sift through this recent round of rigmarole, decorum and other former trappings of glory will be restored.

This is a story of community and transitions. The Hartford Guardian will do occasional stories on how the community seeks to overcome the many challenges prompted by complex factors amid what’s called the worst economic recession in U.S. history.

We welcome your feedback and suggestions.

Email Us: editor@thehartfordguardian.com

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By Shirin Sadeghi, New America Media

Though American newsrooms are gradually changing, there is still a significant absence of the diversity that would reflect America’s reality today.

In this post 9/11 world, that absence has excluded the voices, knowledge and views of America’s growing population of Muslims, Middle Easterners, and South Asians in particular. They, along with other minorities, have been profoundly affected since 9/11 by news and views that have characterized them in a negative way or relegated their stories to the back pages.

As America observes the 10th anniversary of the September 11th attacks, New America Now brings you the voices of the ethnic and minority journalists whose authentic window into their communities has been lost in the quagmire of national disaster.

Laila Al-Arian is a Palestinian Muslim American who works for Al Jazeera International Television in Washington D.C. Her harrowing personal story of post 9/11 trauma made national headlines. Years later, her family is still struggling for justice:

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Contributor

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama faced the problem in 2008. And now President Obama in his re-election bid faces the same problem. The majority of whites still will not accept his presidency.

The latest Associated Press-GfK (Roper Public Affairs & Corporate Communications ) polls once again told in stark numbers that the racial gap is just as big and daunting for Obama. The overwhelming majority of white independent voters say he does not deserve to be re-elected. An equally large majority of whites say they don’t like the job that he’s doing, especially on the economy. And overall, nearly 60 percent of whites will not support his reelection.

The hopeful news is this could change in the more than a year run-up to the November 2012 presidential election with the constant shifts and swings in voter attitudes, perceptions and events.
In any other election cycle and with any other president and presidential candidate, this pattern would hold true. The brutal fact is that the resistance to candidate Obama and President Obama from the majority of whites has been constant and unyielding.

This seems tough to believe, and even tougher to accept for several reasons. The myth that Obama made a major and lasting breakthrough in getting millions of whites to vote for him replaced the brutal fact that the majority of whites did not support him. In 2008, GOP Presidential candidate John McCain got nearly 60 percent of the white vote. Though this represented a significant inroad for Obama, in that he did better than Democratic presidential contenders Al Gore and John Kerry in 2000 and 2004 respectively, McCain’s getting the majority of the white vote was enough to keep him relatively competitive.

The first warning sign that Obama’s white support has been shaky and tenuous, cropped up not with McCain but with Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during the Democratic presidential primaries. In Pennsylvania and Ohio, Clinton drubbed Obama with the white vote. Many white Democratic blue collar voters openly said that they would not vote for Obama not because of any great love for Clinton, but because he was black. It took a near holy crusade turnout by black voters in both states to seal Obama’s win in the two key states and ultimately the White House.

The monumental GOP sex and corruption scandals, the towering domestic and foreign policy blunders of Bush, a collapsed economy, two costly and unpopular wars were not enough to decisively reverse the trend that a majority of whites, especially white males, will not back a Democrat, and in this case a black Democrat.

The shaky ground that Obama’s white voter support rested on eroded quickly at the first hint of trouble. The faint grumbles that Obama was too nice, too conciliatory, too indecisive and had no plan on the economy fanned by the borderline racist taunts of the Tea Party members, the pack of right wing professional Obama baiters on blogs, websites and radio talk shows grew quickly to crescendo pitch.

A Pew Research Center survey in April backed that up. White males still by big margins either disapproved or strongly disapproved of the president’s job performance. The continued high disapproval ratings among this group was even more glaring since it came at the point where more Americans than in the past year said they approved of Obama’s performance. But that did not include a majority of white males.

President Obama can’t do much more to ease the doubts and fears of many whites that he vowed to fulfill his duty as president of all the people, and to do the best job he can on legislation and public policy to serve the needs of all constituencies. He has even repeatedly drawn the wrath of the Congressional Black Caucus, publicly resisting their loud appeals for him to do and say more about the crisis of black joblessness and poverty. He’s paid a price for that as his approval ratings have dropped among blacks. But his unswerving race neutral, low-keyed, scrupulously non-confrontational, approach to presidential governance has meant absolutely nothing when it comes to changing the attitudes of many white voters. It’s in part the ancient mix of white suspicions and doubts about black competence, intelligence and ability, pure blind, naked bigotry, and unease with an African-American holding the world’s most visible and important political power position.

The GOP has played hard on the anger, frustration, and hatred that many males harbor toward government and their swoon over military toughness. And for four decades before that, it has been the trump card for winning GOP presidents.

It’s paying dividends again. Despite deep doubts among voters about the competence, credibility and even electability of the crop of GOP presidential candidates, polls show they are still in a neck-to-neck race with Obama. Race is not the only explanation for this, but it can never be discounted as a factor as long as Obama’s white problem exists.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

By Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Contributor

Moments after President Obama put his John Hancock on the debt-ceiling deal, a Northern California Tea Party member claimed that when he proudly wore his Tea Party t-shirt to his local grocery store, half a dozen people immediately asked him how to join.

If one believes the legion of pundits who claim with smug assurance that the Tea Party, and by extension the GOP, cut its political throat by holding the White House, Congress and the nation hostage for weeks until it got its way on the debt deal, the Tea Party member in the grocery store is either the biggest liar on the planet or suffers from advanced political dyslexia.

Unfortunately, there’s really no reason to think anything of the sort. A quick look at the checklist of what Congress gave up tells why: 
Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid on the chopping block; no extension of unemployment insurance benefits; no tax loopholes closed; no new tax and revenue hikes approved; no guarantee that any substantial military spending will be cut; creation of a so-called super-committee that can virtually unilaterally chop off billions more in spending from vital education, health, transportation, and infrastructure development programs that Congress is powerless to do nothing more than take it or leave it; no spending authorization to create jobs; and worst of all, the real possibility that within a few months Congress and the White House will be locked again in another round of fiscal sumo wrestling.

The manufacture of the phony debt-ceiling and fiscal crisis, the gutting of federal spending and by extension the federal government, the mocking of the political process to engage in this financial charade—all this was the handiwork of the Tea Party, a party that its short existence has managed to play the nation, the White House, Congress, and the media like a finely tuned Stradivarius. The Tea Party marvelously hijacked the political process with one goal in mind, a goal that it never bothered to hide: to hector, harass, embarrass, and ultimately insure that President Obama is a one-term president.

The seeds of the Tea Party’s hijacking of the Congressional budget were planted the instant President Obama took the oath of office. Tea Party leaders shrewdly reached back three decades and revived a simple theme from the Reagan years. Liberal Democrats had constructed a wasteful, out-of- control, and inefficient Big Government that had bloated the budget with deficit crushing spending on education, health, and infrastructure programs. The underlying implication was that the spending was lavished almost exclusively on minorities and the poor. And the people forced to bear the cost for the alleged Big Government spending spree were the hard-pressed, overburdened, overtaxed white middle and working class.

This was of course pure mythmaking. The Congressional Budget Office put debt and debt servicing costs at less than 2 percent of America’s economic output (aka the gross domestic product, or GDP). That figure is lower than at any point since the 1970s. The payments on federal debt under Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bill Clinton presidencies were above 3 percent of GDP. Only under G. W. Bush did that figure dropped.

There was no talk of a federal debt collapse in those years. But within one year of the Obama adminisration, the hysteria began, and now the U.S. was said to face financial Armageddon if trillions weren’t hacked from the budget. This, of course, was almost exclusively the talk of the Tea Party, which made their views the talk of Congress and the nation, with only scattered dissent from a handful of lawmakers. The Tea Party got its way not merely because it adroitly waylaid an issue to politically sabotage a president, but because it out-screamed, out-marched, and out-organized Democrats and its own GOP mainstream.

A recent Pew Research Center poll found that Tea Party adherents were twice as likely as other Americans to be engaged in the debate over the budget, blitzing their elected representatives with faxes, emails, and phones calls to stand firm. By a near 2-to-1 margin, Tea Party backers followed the news about the budget deliberations more intently than those who opposed the Tea Party.

Yet despite the Tea Party’s obvious budget triumph, some are foolishly crowing that this victory actually marks the party’s demise. That’s the kind of demise that established political parties would salivate over. Far from writing the epitaph for the Tea Party, pundits should focus on the ugly truth. The Tea Party has forced the White House, and Congress and a nation to look over its shoulder in nervous jitters at every overblown, clownish, and destructive scheme that its backers decide to dump on the nation’s plate. And make no mistake—there are more, many more, of those schemes to come.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst.
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter:http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson

LOS ANGELES, Calif. — In quick succession, two brightly lit danger signs burst on President Obama’s reelection road. The first was the recent Washington Post/ABC poll showing that nearly as many African-Americans say they are displeased with Obama’s performance as those who approve. The prime reason for the discontent is jobs, or lack thereof, in black communities.

The jobless rate has hit crisis levels in many inner-city communities, and the perception is that the president simply isn’t saying and doing enough to combat the crisis.

The criticism is not fair given the absolute refusal of congressional Republicans and more than a few Democrats to kick out another penny for job stimulus and training programs. He has also had to beat back every effort by the same forces determined to hack, slash, and vaporize any spending on education and infrastructure spending. Nonetheless, the perception is still that Obama hasn’t done enough on the black-jobs front, and that hurts.

The second danger sign is that Rep. Emmanuel Cleaver, co-chair of he Congressional Black Caucus, flatly called the debt ceiling deal “a sugar coated Satan sandwich.”

Caucus members of been displeased with the president’s compromise and conciliation with the GOP to get a debt ceiling deal. But the comments by Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat, raised the inevitable question of whether there is a deeper meaning — that many black legislative officials are hearing the grumbles and feeling the heat from more blacks about Obama’s perceived failure to take more aggressive action to deal with black needs?

The Caucus has straddled the fine line between extreme care not to say and do anything that will give any more ammunition to Obama’s sworn enemies to attack him on policy questions. Certainly, they have not wanted to feed any public impression that their support (and that of black voters for Obama) has in any way diminished.

But the other side of that fine line is the crisis of black joblessness, compounded by an exploding wealth gap between black and white households that is as high as it’s been in modern times.
The expectation driven by mounting desperation is that Obama must take off the wraps and mount a frontal assault on the problems of the black poor.

But that bumps squarely up against the political reality that the GOP, Congress, and a divided Democratic Party has severely restricted his already tightly constricted political maneuverability. Those constraints have come just when he had to jump start new initiatives and programs to tackle the jobless plight of black males and the disproportionate number of blacks in home foreclosure, as well as spend more to combat failing inner-city public schools, curtail black homelessness and push criminal-justice reform.

The criticisms of Obama’s perceived failings have hit the mark with some blacks.
But criticism means little when no matter how badly some blacks think Obama has performed in confronting urban problems — and for being too willing to make nice with the GOP — they forget to consider this question: If not Obama, who?

It’s beyond absurd to even suggest any of the pack of GOP presidential contenders as any kind of alternative to Obama. For the past half-century, blacks have given every Democratic presidential candidate and president an unflagging 80 to 90 percent of their vote. This will not change in 2012, whether Obama is the Democrat presidential contender or not.

Even if some blacks, out of frustration or dislike for Obama, were tempted to look elsewhere, the GOP contenders have made it clear in word and deed they will mount a full assault on every program and initiative on health care, education, infrastructure investment and federal spending on job creation.
Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, as well as education, labor and civil rights protections will also be under attack. Few black voters are prepared to commit political suicide to back anyone that will do that.

The fall off in Obama’s approval ratings among some black voters is no surprise. The expectation that Obama could whipsaw a GOP that has dug in its heels and opposed any and every program and initiative on Obama’s legislative table — not to mention for him to wage an open sustained battle for black needs — was always a fantasy.

But it’s no fantasy that despite the danger signs in the criticisms and disappointment of many blacks, Obama is the only thing that stands between the GOP and their total economic and political ruin.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/earlhutchinson