April 1, 2012
White House Releases Obama's Black Agenda
By Hazel Trice Edney
Michael Strautmanis tells audience of Black women: 'We have come too far to turn back now.' PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney News Wire
More than 300 women and their proteges applauded message from White House aid Michael Strautmanis who also distributed "President's Agenda and the African American Community." PHOTO: Roy Lewis
(TriceEdneyWire.com) – Sending the message that President Obama is in a struggle to keep Black and women’s equality gains from slipping, White House Aids have given hundreds of Black women a document outlining his Black agenda.
“The President is committed to working with anybody of either party to create an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, does their fair share and plays by the same rules,” Michael Strautmanis, aid to presidential advisor Valerie Jarrett, told hundreds of women at a Women’s History Month luncheon sponsored by the Black Women’s Roundtable of the National Coalition for Black Civic Participation last month.
The Roundtable, headed by NCBCP President/CEO, Melanie Campbell, is viewed as being among the most powerful coalition of African-American women in the country, mainly because of the clout held by its membership. Campbell is a leading expert on African-American voter participation and community mobilization. Former Essence Editor-in-Chief Susan Taylor was keynote speaker at the event.
Strautmanis continued, “But, I want to make sure you understand we’ve made one thing clear. We have come too far to turn back now. He will oppose any attempt to take us back to the policies that got us into this mess in the first place. So that’s where we are. That’s the crossroads that we’re at.”
The backdrop for the approximately 10-minute speech was the distribution of a 44-page document titled “The President’s Agenda and the African American Community”.
The move clearly acknowledges criticism from Obama supporters and detractors who say he has done a poor job communicating to his dominate Black base what he has done for Black people.
“What’s at stake in this debate right now. This is not about a political party…It’s about the ordinary men and women who want to see their hard work and their responsibility pay off,” Strautmanis said. “It’s about the kids who deserve a country where everyone gets a shot. And it’s about the folks in this town who want to turn back the clock on the progress that we’ve made from the voting rights act to our social safety net to Pell grants to public education. That is not who we are as a country. We are not going backwards so I ask you to join me to together go write this next chapter in American history with Black women at the forefront.”
The November 2011 document, which can be viewed in its entirety at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/af_am_report_final.pdf, covers everything policy issue from economics, to education to civil rights as they pertain to African-Americans.
Among the key bullet points:
- According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, due to measures President Obama fought for in the Recovery Act, 6.9 million Americans were kept above the poverty line, including 1.3 million African-Americans, and poverty was lessened for 32 million more in 2010 alone.
- Additionally, through this year’s budget battles the President pushed hard to preserve the programs of greatest importance to African American families – for example, by securing $17 billion for Pell Grants without undermining other critical investments like Head Start, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.
- The President continued that fight with the December 2010 tax deal that maintained expansions of the Child Tax Credit and Earned Income Tax Credit, benefiting an estimated 2.2 million African- American families and almost half of all African American children, while extending unemployment insurance to benefit over a million Africa-Americans.
- With unemployment among African-Americans at an unacceptably high rate of 15.1 percent – and 1.25 million African-Americans out of work for more than six months – the President believes that inaction is not an option. That is why he proposed the American Jobs Act, and has traveled across the country to call on Congress to pass it.
- The Administration’s youth employment and job training programs are critical for the 708,000 unemployed African-Americans aged 16-24—involving them in their communities and maintaining their connection with the labor force. The Recovery Act funding provided over 367,000 youth with job opportunities in the summers of 2009 and 2010. These programs trained youth in key industry skills, and provided a much-needed paycheck.
- The Obama Administration is also strongly committed to helping people find work and acquire skills for jobs in 21st century high-growth industries. Investments in the Recovery Act enabled states to help millions of out of work Americans—including millions of African-Americans—seeking jobs or job training opportunities.
- Protect Civil Rights and Promote Criminal Justice. The President has signed major legislation like the Fair Sentencing Act and the Claims Resolution Act, and worked to expand and enforce hate crimes prosecutions, reduce unfairness in sentencing, and counter employment discrimination.
These are among the actions that have been taken by the Obama Administration expanding his three- year tenure thus far. What’s unusual is the compilation of them all in one document.
CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) has consistently said that when the question is asked, the Obama Administration must be able to specify policy successes that directly impact Black communities, on which President Obama is dependent for his re-election bid.
“Because I am so committed to his re-election, when people raise that question – and it gets raised almost every day – I say, ‘Look the President’s doing his thing, we’re doing ours.’ I try not to get into the issue too deeply,” Cleaver said early last year. “I’m a supporter of the President. I told him to his face that I was going to do everything I could for his re-election but yeah, I would love to see it a little differently.”
Amidst what will likely be a close election with a Republican rival, the President’s Black agenda is now being placed front and center. Strautmanis concluded to thunderous applause from the audience of women and young protégés from across the country:
“No matter who you are or where you come from, you can make it if you try. … But for Black Americans and as women, our country has often failed to live up to that promise.”
He named Congresswomen Barbara Jordon Shirley Chisholm and “the legendary Dr. Dorothy Irene Height as those who have also led the way for equality for women and African-Americans – “ordinary women who have done extraordinary things Black women have always made that promise real.”
Reminding that the Lilly Ledbetter fair pay act for women was the first piece of legislation Obama signed into law, Strautmanis concluded, “We’ve been encouraged to see almost four million new jobs created over the past 24 months, manufacturing is back, the auto industry is back. We’re beginning to see what change looks like. But we’ve got a long way to go.”