After spending much of her 94-years as a civil rights activist this Washington, DC resident is understandably supportive of the Barack Obama presidency because she like many African-Americans never thought she’d ever see a black man sitting in that Oval Office seat designated for the most powerful person on earth.
This 94-year-old bristles at the extraordinary amount of criticisms unleashed against Obama telling a niece that she’d like to take a sharp sword and stick Obama critics “in the butt!”
Many blacks are touchy about criticisms directed toward Obama, feeling – with factual basis – that Obama receives unfair criticisms, particularly from right-wing conservatives.
For example Michelle Bachmann, the extremist Republican congresswoman with presidential aspirations, blasted Obama blaming him for historic high levels of black unemployment, a rate consistently double that of whites during this so-called Great Recession which actually is a full-blown depression for minorities and many whites.
Of course Bachmann’s partisan slam was silent on small yet salient facts like Obama inheriting the jobs killing recession from his Republican Oval Office predecessor who Bachmann blindly supported.
And, Bachmann’s blast blithely dismissed the fact that she and her Republican confederates on Capitol Hill have persistently opposed efforts by congressional progressives to pass jobs creating initiatives that would significantly increase employment among all jobless Americans, including blacks.
Blacks have been disproportionately punished in the US depression, and stimulus programs have helped mostly whites
Capitol Hill progressives including the Congressional Black Caucus have long sought creation of public service jobs for unemployed Americans like those federal initiatives utilized during the Great Depression of the 1930s and the recession of the early 1970s.
Interestingly, if that 94-year-old desires taking a sword to the backside of Bachmann and other Obama bashers she also must wield it against some black Obama critics including those she’s revered like Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich)…
For the rest of this article by LINN WASHINGTON, JR., please go to: Counterpunch