OUR OBAMA DILEMA………..where the hell do we go from here!?!?

Angry Note: I apologize, because I realize the nature of what you're about to read is sure to irritate and piss some of yawl off, and confuse other Black folk. No, I'm not saying I would have voted for anyone else. I'm simply saying that I'm not altogether pleased with the dude I did vote for. Just trying to keep it real for the masses…

Six and a half years into this whole "Black President" thing and I'm willing to admit a whole lotta of us might have gotten it wrong. No, I'm not talking about whether voting for Obama over McCain in 2008 was the right call, nor whether voting for Obama over 47% Mitt was the right call in 2012.

What the hell I’m talkin about is the insistence of some folk in Black America that electing a Black President would make the lives of everyday Black folks better. Many of yawl thought this would magically raise achievement of Black students, magically get more Black folks to tie the knot, magically transport Black men from the trap house to Morehouse, and magically get the sistas off the pole, and turned into a new generation of Claire Huxtables. Personally, I always thought this shit was some pie in the sky, "Success by Osmosis" bullshit talk. I've expressed doubt about this repeatedly here and in my blog over the years, and many of you have expressed your mean disagreement with me. Shit still happens don’t it?

Still, I thought the election of a Black President would finally bring some real concrete benefits to my beloved Black community, but what we got was a few thousand streets named after him, and some schools renamed after him. I know yawl gettin madder by the word, but just follow me down my yellow brick road of truth……..

I believed in his promise to start "Urban Empowerment Zones" to help drive economic development in the hood, his promise to copy the "Harlem Children's Zone" model and take it to the hood to fix fucked up public schools, and his promise to make a change in crack/powder cocaine sentencing, well, he did address that. I mean, this shit was actually on his campaign website back in 2007, putting each and every dream and aspiration of our entire race onto this one man. So yeah, I expected that much, at least with that much, we would have gained some benefits explicitly for us Black folk. Was it fair of us to expect more?

 Remember when folks like Tavis Smiley and Cornell West were tryin their best to get folks to ask questions and get more involved in Obama's supposed "Black Platform" during the election?  Next thing you know, they start gettin treated like traitors to the Black race. Obama would be "America's President", not "Black America's President" after all. Everybody started callin these dudes haters for just asking the President to take us seriously, the same Black folks that went harder for him than any other. Sure, the timing and them both sometimes hatin damaged their points, but hell, in retrospect, those points were very valid.

Fast forward six and one half years, and well, what they warned us about has come true. Obama has paid very little attention to the Black community beyond the usual lip service and lecturing, then after 6 ½ long years along comes the………..‘Promise Keepers’ initiative. Yea, paradin Jay Z and Beyoncé’s ass in and out of the White House makes him seem cooler than W, but I've always been more concerned about the lack of Black folk in White House making decisions and pushing our policy. 

With just one exception of flyin into Chicago to lecture Black folks about personal responsibility (and to use them as props for gun control), O has been about as visible in the hood as Rush Limbaugh.  Sure, him, Michelle, and the kids will drop into a Black church or show up at a Black commencement speech every now and then to keep his street cred, but the topic of his speeches are always the same:

"Ya'll niggas need to stop fuckin' up so much and get like me." Hell yea, he’d help more people "get like him" if he pushed some actual laws that helped "us", but what's a fuckin minor detail like policy in the grand scheme of things?    

I just don’t understand the lack of intense concern for our Black communities….last week on the 4^th of July, some outlandishly ignorant negroes opened fire all around Chicago, killin folk (including kids), the White House didn’t do shit but issue the typical "yeah, we're sorry that happened to you" press release. There was no press conference, nothin! No call to examine gun laws again. No promise to ensure children in Chi-town could go and light sparklers in the future without worrying about getting sprayed with an AK-47. No nothing, really. Seriously!

Now I know the right-wing has used all the racist tactics in the world to derail any meaningful legislation, and my disappointment in the President is not….let me repeat, not personal. But, at this point, I just feel let down. Am I wrong?