Isn't this something?
First the Obama Admin. thinks it okay to let White people think that only Lighter-Skinned Blacks can become Black Leaders. (Sen. Reid's 2008 Presidential Bid Remarks)
Next he and his "team of rivals" want Black Voters to support Democrats during the 2010 Elections even though he hasn't done a darn thing for us!
Pres. Obama I'm sad to believe you really think we are that stupid.
Pres. Obama claims Federal Law will not allow him to pass legislation that will only help "Black Folks" (as he called us) yet...
He signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act in January of 2009 which basically protects Only Women more so than any other group.
How is it Pres. Obama can enact Legislation to help all Women (another Federally protected group) but he can't help strengthen laws that protect Oppressed Blacks?
Blacks are usually the last hired and first fired.
Obama publicly admitted this himself during a recent interview with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks.
In fact as this Recession impacts our economy Unemployment among Whites is about 10.1%
Among Blacks the Unemployment rate is 50-55%!
Why?
Businesses and Wall Street are using this Recession as an excuse to Discriminate against Minority employees.
In addition many of these businesses won't even comply with the Federal WARN Act prior to massive lay-offs.
Even before this Recession hit our nation, due to Employment Discrimination many Black College graduates had great difficulty becoming gainfully employed and had to settle for low paying Call Center Jobs (Charlotte, NC).
Here's more disturbing news....
Minority Students (such as in Charlotte, NC) are being forced to attend or remain in failing Public Schools with Poorly Trained Teachers, thus widening the Achievement gap between White Students and Minority Students.
Colleges & Universities (Virginia & North Carolina) are Discriminating against Minority Students when its comes to distributing Federal Student Financial Aid.
How can Minority Students build brighter futures if Colleges & Universities are intentionally withholding Federal Aid and FASFA thereby preventing Students from completing their Education?
Yet these same Institutions of Higher Learning have continued to distribute Financial Aid to White Students without blinking and without any unnecessary hassles.
Disproportionate number of Minority Children are being made to remain in Foster Care until they are 18 or 21. (North Carolina)
Governors do so to obtain more Federal Funding but the money is NOT being spent on those Children.
Often while in the Foster Care system those Children are being Sexually Abused, Raped, Physically Abused, Adopted by Ex-Convicts and NOT Educated or sent to College.
Governors in almost every state are cutting Federal Funds for Disabled Children which pays for these children to receive Rehabilitative Care.
Governors in most states are also making Middle Class & Lower Income citizens pay higher Income and Property Taxes than Wealthier citizens.
In some states like North Carolina even Businesses are allowed NOT to pay taxes but Middle Class and Lower Income citizens had better pay theirs or go to jail!
Millions of Black & Hispanic Men are being sentenced to LIFE in prison for committing Non-Homicidal and Non-Drug Related crimes, while Caucasian Offenders are getting like 5 to 10 years for committing the same crimes. (North Carolina)
Illegal Immigrants and even Legal Hispanic citizens are being deported for minor crimes like Non-Homicidal, Non-Drug related Driving Offenses. (North Carolina)
To top it all as we brave one of the Coldest Winters in 20 years, many Energy companies nationwide are cutting off the heat for thousands of Minority Customers as a means of forcing them to pay unusually HIGH bills due to jacked up rates.
What has been Pres. Obama's response to these issues?
Giving Blacks & Hispanics more Unemployment Checks and Food Stamps as though all we desire from the government is Welfare.
Pres. Obama Black & Hispanic People are not Welfare Kings and Queens!
We want Jobs too!
Check out the video and article below which outlines Obama and David Axelrod's Strategy for helping Congressional Dems win in November 2010.
Black Voters needed in 2010 Indeed!
White House Readies Aggressive Midterm Push
The White House strategy for contesting the midterm election is beginning to take shape.
In an interview with National Journal, senior White House political adviser David Axelrod laid down several keys to strengthening the Democratic position in an election that all signs suggest is shaping up as extremely difficult for his party. Axelrod's checklist includes improvement in the economy, some (but not vastly more) legislative action and, most pointedly, an effort to draw sharper contrasts with Republican positions. His comments may foreshadow a much more pugnacious Democratic message as the election approaches.
"It's almost impossible to win a referendum on yourself," Axelrod insisted. "And the Republicans would like this to be a referendum. It's not going to be a referendum."
Asked what has to happen in the next 10 months to produce the best possible result for Democrats in November, Axelrod didn't hesitate in identifying his top priority: an economy that is adding, rather than losing, jobs each month. "I think job growth is certainly number one," he said. "I think that's how most people measure a recovering economy."
To nudge that process along, he says, he expects Congress to quickly conclude legislation to promote job growth: "We have to take that up right away," he said. Still, he has no illusions about the capacity of further legislation to significantly affect the employment trajectory -- or the likely impact next fall if it doesn't improve.
"In certain ways we are at the mercy of forces that are larger than things we can control," Axelrod said. "If we see steady months of jobs growth between now and next November, I think the picture will be different than if we don't. I think Ronald Reagan learned that lesson in 1982. We're not immune to the physics of all of this. But I'm guardedly optimistic that we are going to see that progress. You know, there are signs of that. We're going to just keep doing everything we can to promote progress."
Next on his checklist: "finish this health care bill successfully." And after that? "Then we have to go out and sell it," he said. "I think we can run on this. I think there is so much in here that has value to every American, and mostly to people who have insurance."
In the conversation, Axelrod mentioned several other legislative initiatives that the White House hopes Congress will complete this year, including an energy bill. But asked what else Congress could pass before November that might significantly improve Democratic prospects, he cited only one other area: reform of financial regulation. "I wouldn't put this on that order of magnitude [as health care] at all, but I think if we pass a financial reform that includes strong consumer provisions, reins in some of the worst excesses of the industry, I think that would be useful, would be helpful," he said.
More important than new initiatives, he suggested, would be reframing the debate on what has already happened in Washington since Obama took office. On the one hand, he argued, the campaign will provide Democrats an opportunity to tout legislative successes, like bills strengthening federal regulation of tobacco and credit card companies, that have been almost completely eclipsed by the high-profile confrontations over the economy and health care.
On the other, he hinted, would be sharper efforts to compare the Democratic agenda with Republican priorities. While Republicans are hoping that voters will view the election as a referendum on Democratic performance, he said Democrats will work to frame the election more as a choice between the parties -- and present an aggressive case against the GOP alternative.
"They want to stand with the insurance industry on health care and protect the status quo, then let them defend that in an election," Axelrod said. "If they want to stand with the banks and the financial industries, and protect the status quo, then let them explain that in an election. If the party that over eight years turned a... surplus into the most significant growth in national debt by far in the history of the country and left this president with a $1.3 trillion deficit when he walked in the door and an economic crisis, let them campaign on fiscal integrity. You know... we're certainly willing to have that discussion. The difference is that we'll have that discussion in the context of a campaign, and we haven't, in the midst of a crisis, tried to campaign every day in the halls of Congress."
Responding to Axelrod's arguments, Republican pollster Glen Bolger said he was dubious that Democrats will succeed in shifting the focus toward the GOP. "It's pretty unlikely," said Bolger, a partner in Public Opinion Strategies, which polls widely for GOP candidates. "Basically, that is something that the party that is under the gun always says, and it is never the case. [In a midterm election] it is about who is in control and how people feel about how things are going in the country. And right now, as far as I can tell, Democrats seem to have pretty significant control of things but things aren't going all that well."
Axelrod suggested that another pillar of the Democratic message this year will be that Republicans are offering a return to policies that produced the sharp economic downturn. "I think that the notion of going backward is a compelling message," he said. Bolger predicted that would be a hard sell, too. "Ultimately, it didn't work for Republicans in 1982 to say, 'Stay the course' or, 'Hey, remember [Jimmy] Carter and the Democrats got us into this mess,'" he said.
Axelrod sees other benefits in drawing sharper contrasts with the GOP, arguing that it could help motivate the Democratic base, which several polls have shown to be less enthused about voting this year than Republicans. "If the question is what we've been able to achieve, which I think is substantial, versus the ideal of what people hope for or hoped for, that's a harder race for us," he said. "If the choice is between the things we've achieved and we're fighting for and what the other side would deliver, I think that's very motivational to people."
Included in that effort, he said, would be a concentrated focus on first-time and other irregular voters, many of them Minorities and young people, who surged to the polls for Obama in 2008 but typically turn out at lower rates in midterm elections.
"One of our missions has to be in the next 11 months to communicate rigorously with those voters and make the case for why it's important that they come out even when the president isn't on the ballot, and what the consequences are of not doing that," Axelrod said. "I think we can make that case. We're sophisticated enough in the art of communicating, the technology of communicating, that we can reach a lot of those voters."
Charlotte's Poor students May Not Get Best Teachers
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools celebrated a surge in teachers who have earned National Board Certification, even as they acknowledged that many of the students who most need those teachers are least likely to have them.
The district added 221 board-certified teachers last month, bringing the total to 1,281. CMS is a national leader in the voluntary credentialing program, which requires teachers to spend hundreds of hours writing essays and proving they can help kids learn.
Superintendent Peter Gorman says CMS students who have certified teachers fare better on all elementary and middle school exams and most high school ones.
But those teachers are more likely to be working in relatively affluent, high-performing schools than working with struggling students in impoverished neighborhoods, an Observer analysis shows.
The gap is most pronounced in middle schools, where certified teachers are scarcest and the contrast between successful and failing schools is starkest.
For instance, Jay M. Robinson Middle, a south suburban school with little poverty and top scores, has 22 certified teachers, covering language arts, math, science, art and special education.
Bishop Spaugh, a center city school where most kids are poor and failed state exams, has one, a sixth-grade social studies teacher.
"We know that we need our best teachers in our highest-need schools," said Barbara Ann Temple, a board-certified teacher who heads CMS' efforts to improve teaching.
Gorman agrees, and says he's trying to entice them with financial rewards and good working conditions, including the best principals. It's an approach the certified teachers recommended a couple of years ago, when they met to talk about improving weak schools without resorting to forced teacher transfers.
"We're going for pull, rather than push," Gorman said. "We really need them everywhere."
Where are they?
Teachers must have three years of experience to apply for the certification. Earning it usually takes two more. They must write about how they teach, tape and analyze classroom activities, and convince judges they have the classroom skills to reach their students.
North Carolina was among the first to plunge in when the certifications began in 1995. The state has almost 15,700 certified teachers, leading the nation. Only four districts nationwide, including Wake County, have more than CMS.
CMS has 1,248 certified teachers assigned to elementary, middle and high schools, one for every 107 students. But that varies dramatically from school to school.
For instance, Hawk Ridge Elementary in the south suburbs has 23 certified teachers and 830 students, a ratio of 36 students per teacher. Only 12 percent of Hawk Ridge students come from low-income homes.
Five elementary schools, with a total of 3,740 students and poverty levels ranging from 56 percent to 94 percent, have no certified teachers.
Another 18 elementary, middle and high schools have at least 300 students per certified teacher. Most of those pull three-quarters or more of their kids from low-income homes.
But the link between poverty, academic performance and board-certified faculty in CMS is far from absolute. Eastover Elementary, a low-poverty, high-scoring school, has only one certified teacher for 589 students. Popular, successful magnets such as Collinswood Elementary and Randolph Middle also rank low.
On the other hand, Rama Road and Montclaire elementaries have among the highest levels of certified faculty, even though more than three-fourths of students are poor.
Still, the odds of having certified teachers are better at low-poverty schools.
The Observer's analysis shows almost 34,000 students attend schools with poverty levels below 25 percent; those schools average one certified teacher for every 82 students.
About 33,500 students go to schools where poverty tops 75 percent; they average one certified teacher per 146 students.
Who's effective?
Identifying good teachers is one of the biggest challenges facing Gorman and education leaders nationwide. North Carolina's pay scale rewards teachers for experience and credentials, and CMS kicks in local money to compete with other districts.
In CMS, a teacher earning $43,708 for 10 years' experience would see a 10.5percent bump for earning a master's degree or a 12percent bump for earning board certification. With both, that teacher gets $54,094.
Gorman says he'll soon present Harvard University research on CMS teachers showing that graduate degrees don't correspond with higher student performance. But board certification does, he says, a finding he expects to see reinforced in the updated study.
Still, the credential is not the only gauge of good teaching. Some top teachers are unable or unwilling to tackle the estimated 400 hours of work. Others may be talented but too inexperienced to apply - and high-poverty schools are more likely than others to rely on teachers who have just started their careers.
Many board-certified teachers believe they can help fix failing schools. When they talked in 2007 about making that happen, they agreed that money helps - but working for a great principal as part of a strong team was more important.
Gorman is using that approach with his "strategic staffing" effort, bringing in new principals for 14 schools and giving them money and freedom to bring in proven teachers. Many of those schools, which have high poverty and a history of weak performance, have average or above-average levels of certified faculty now.
At others, certified teachers remain scarce. Steve Hall, brought in to lead Bruns Avenue Elementary, has two for his 500-plus students, who mostly come from impoverished homes. Three more teachers are working on their credential, he says.
Hall agrees that board certification, which demands on-the-job skill, is more valuable than a graduate degree, which can rest on theoretical knowledge. But it's not the first thing he looks for.
"I'm really much more interested in how their skill set and heart relate to the population they'll be working with."
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
NC Sheriffs Help Feds Deport Illegal Immigrants
Sheriff Terry Johnson's new jail has all the amenities: electronic locks, thick steel doors and a high-tech surveillance system.
Soon, he hopes, it will be full of illegal immigrants on their way to deportation.
The Alamance County Sheriff's Department, which Johnson has run since 2002, recently became one of only a dozen local law enforcement agencies nationwide to sign up for a program that allows them to enforce federal immigration laws.
Three of the 12 are in North Carolina. Sheriff's departments in Mecklenburg, Gaston and Alamance counties are now checking the immigration status of every foreign person they arrest -- whether for running a stop sign or selling drugs -- and starting deportation of those in the United States illegally.
In Mecklenburg County, which has been using the program for less than a year, nearly 1,000 people have been deported.
Once a little-used program, local immigration enforcement is gaining popularity. Wake County Sheriff Donnie Harrison said he is considering it.
Johnson said the program has dual benefits for Alamance County. It brings in money, because the federal government pays about $66 a night for every immigration detainee who stays in the jail. And it rids the county of illegal immigrants, who he contends sponge public resources and are more prone to commit crimes than legal residents.
"Their values are a lot different -- their morals -- than what we have here," Johnson said. "In Mexico, there's nothing wrong with having sex with a 12-, 13-year-old girl ... They do a lot of drinking down in Mexico."
Marco Zarate, a Mexican native who is president of the N.C. Society of Hispanic Professionals, challenged the sheriff's assessment of Mexicans. He acknowledged some cultural differences -- for instance, people in Mexico's rural areas often marry as teenagers -- but said that adults having sex with children is not considered ethical in Mexico. Nor is heavy drinking.
"We're human," said Zarate, 53, who lives in Raleigh. "I'm not saying there are not people who do bad things, but it's not right to generalize. We have good people and bad people everywhere in the world."
Court statistics do not show a significantly disproportionate level of Hispanic crime in Alamance County. Between 2002 and 2006, Hispanics accounted for 12 percent of Alamance County's criminal cases, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts. In 2005, they made up 10 percent of the county's population.
Running against aliens
Alamance County, just west of Chapel Hill, has one of the fastest-growing Hispanic populations in the state. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county had 736 Hispanic residents in 1990. By 2005, it had nearly 14,000.
As in many places around the country, the increasing presence of immigrants has fueled tensions.
Johnson, 57, a retired agent with the State Bureau of Investigation, was elected to his second term in 2006 by a wide margin. A Republican, he has made his political name by railing against illegal immigration.
Shortly after he first won the office in 2002, he got national media attention for arresting Hispanics at the state Division of Motor Vehicles office. Deputies charged more than 100 people with obtaining property by false pretenses for using false documents to get licenses.
At the time, legal immigration status was not a factor in the state driver's license requirements. Some of the charges were later dropped.
Before the presidential election in 2004, he promised to go door-to-door to investigate Hispanic voters, saying he suspected many were illegal immigrants. To prove his point, he sent the names of 125 Hispanic voters to the Department of Homeland Security. He said the federal check showed that only about a quarter of them were legal.
Most recently, he lobbied for a new $12 million, 240-bed jail -- six times as large as what he needs for local inmates -- so he could have space to become a hub for immigration detainees. He said the fees he receives will help cover the costs of running the jail, which opens this month.
In a recent interview, Johnson said poverty and desperation draw many immigrants into the drug trade. And he said that as the Hispanic community grows, more Hispanic criminals are attracted to the area, because "they don't stand out."
Johnson says it's his job to go after every criminal he sees, and that includes those who break immigration laws.
"A lot of people say it's not politically correct," Johnson said. "Well, I'll tell you something. ... If I turn my back on that responsibility, I have placed my hand on the Holy Bible and didn't fulfill my duty."
Little-used program
Congress created the local immigration enforcement program in 1996. It went unused until 2002, when the Florida Department of Law Enforcement became the first to sign up with Immigration and Customs Enforce-ment, known as ICE.
In the past year, new departments have joined the program at a rapid clip. An ICE spokesman said that a dozen agencies are now enrolled and 40 more have expressed interest.
Officials with ICE must approve each agency that joins. Then designated officers get about a month of training from ICE, and the agency gets access to a federal database that includes information on wanted immigrants, as well as legal immigrants.
Officers can then check the immigration status of every foreign person they arrest and know immediately whether the suspect has been previously arrested or deported. They start deportation procedures for those here illegally, but an ICE agent and a federal judge take final action in each case.
Nolo Martinez, the state's former director of Hispanic affairs, said the program will create fear, fracture communities and discourage Hispanics from calling the police. He predicted that, as counties try to earn profits from immigration inmates, they will fill their jails with Hispanics who have committed misdemeanors and traffic violations.
"Kids are going to be left behind," Martinez said. "Families are going to be broken."
Martinez, who now works for the Center for New North Carolinians, a University of North Carolina program that helps immigrants, said deporting criminals in a handful of counties is an expensive and unfair tactic. Instead, he said, officials should find a legal way for needed foreign workers to immigrate.
Law enforcement officials say the program protects Hispanics, because Hispanic criminals often prey on their own communities. They say immigrants can avoid scrutiny by obeying the law.
Mecklenburg County Sheriff Jim Pendergraph said that, since the program started in May, his officers have found about 1,300 illegal immigrants with criminal records or orders to leave the country, and more than 100 who had been deported before. In the past, Pendergraph said, most of those people would have slipped through the system, because his agency lacked access to the immigration database.
"We're protecting people from illegal immigrants driving drunk and killing our families and selling drugs to our children," Pendergraph said.
Security -- or Racism?
In Alamance County, the program is just getting started. Sheriff's department statistics show that, since mid-February, 30 immigrants have been processed for deportation. One had been deported before and one was a felon.
Ebher O. Rossi Jr., an Alamance County defense lawyer and a native of Argentina, said allowing local agencies to enforce immigration laws gives license to those who want to profile and single out immigrants for persecution.
"This gives me an inkling as to what it must have been like for Jews in Germany as Hitler was coming to power," Rossi said. "All the problems are being blamed on one group of people."
Rossi said he has already gotten several calls from Hispanics being held for deportation. One was a 19-year-old with no criminal record who didn't stop for a police siren, Rossi said. Another was a man picked up for driving without a license and running a stop sign.
Rossi declined to give specific information about any of his cases. He said he doesn't argue with a program that would rid the United States of child molesters and murderers. But he said the program could easily be used to deport people who have committed minor offenses and to stoke fear in the Hispanic community.
"Is this a matter of security or is it a matter of racism?" Rossi asked.
Johnson said he has no plans to target illegal immigrants.
He said that he merely checks the status of those who have been arrested for other crimes, and that ICE makes the final decisions about who is prosecuted or deported.
Johnson said he is meeting with Hispanic leaders and making appearances on Spanish radio, trying to assure people that only criminals will be affected.
"We do not choose the race, financial status or color of those individuals who violate the law," Johnson said.
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Sources: CNN, Politico, McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Newsobserver, Whitehouse.gov, National Journal.com, American Urban Radio Networks, Youtube, Google Maps
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