Black History Month is all day every day, ALL YEAR LONG…. It’s not a month, it’s a worldwide daily tribal global event.
Earlier, we talked about the THREE things Barack Obama did during his eight years in office that ticked off Black America the most, now it’s time to discuss the 97 things he did RIGHT (mostly in his first term of office), that SHOULD have made Black America proud.
I say SHOULD have made us proud for a reason.
However, some of us were too busy thinking he should have been shouting “Black Power!”, throwing up a fist, screaming and cussing and acting up in public like the good YouTube doctors Umar and Boyce, or behaving like something off B.E.T., or even worse “Scandal” or “Love and Hip-Hop”, maybe even shouting out “Put some Brothas on the wall!” (Spike Lee-style) instead of thinking of the best ways to help us, IN AMERICA. All things considered, he needed to help us RIGHT WHERE WE CHOSE TO STAND, or at least ride out the constitutional “lifted boats” theory.
The bottom line is that because Black people took 40 whole years to climb their astute asses up on white people’s boats and assimilate to white privilege, even after our ancestors spent more than 300 years being killed and tossed off them, so Obama’s ascendancy to the office of President wasn’t anything to be taken seriously-not by most Black folks, that is. He wasn’t viewed as THE President with a White House protocol no different from all the others, he was viewed as “the brotha ’round the way” who should have taken the time out to address all of the “Black shit” we created without his help or his input.
The fact that Black America ‘ad majorum’ helped paved the way for Trump and the Republican Congress after we hotly refused to participate in two Obama-era mid-terms (2010 and 2014) that could have shut that shit way down, that alone says a lot. What says so much more is the fact that they/we/us spent Obama’s first four years in office on the Black President Party Wagon, even after HE said “we got work to do” on Day One.
Then we ‘turned up’ and spent his entire second term, sans the storied “CBC Jobs Limo Buses”, doing nothing more or less than bitching and complaining and whining and moaning and groaning, even more than Racist Whites on The Bleeding American Supremacist Rag.
Said “conscious” Black folks: “Obama is a half-frican.”
Said The Illustrious Soul Patrol: “Obama’s not black ENOUGH.”
Said Inside Out Upside Down Black Pundits who don’t seem to know that the word “liberal” is simply white racist code for “nigger”: “Obama doesn’t do [did] nothing for BLAH people.”
And even worse was how quickly SOME Black folks were to laugh and yuck it up from the back of the BOAT when Trump had the unmitigated gall to lie on the Democrat Party and ask Black America what they had to “lose” by voting for him. “You’ve been voting Democrat all this time and got nothing for it, what do you have to lose?”
Ha ha ha bah bah na na na poo pee pee. Real cute. #Not.
Answer: A HELLUVA LOT, you “Liberals”.
And the Signifying Monkeys of our race got a big guffaw off of that one, as if they don’t have a clue about anything they don’t see on Reality TV.
Just like their kluckin kountry kuzzins in the redneck backwoods of the lesser educated hick-ish kind, the SAME whites who know nothing of Black people unless they see it on FOX television, Netflix, and/or some jackass ‘rap’ videos, these are one and same Black folks who only know what they see on TV.
They don’t experience enough of reality to understand why it is Trump was wrong on that ‘reality show Democrat spiel’. Yet, like a braying jackleg white supremacist humanoid, these Signifying Black folk became ‘as one man’ with racist white Americans.
Enjoined with them in ageless ‘Trap Queen’ glee – the post-traumatic slave disorder and anomaly in Black America widely on display, that very same PTSSyndrome that goes much deeper than plain old superficial coonery, this type of PTSS dove on over into the realm where one begins to understand why ‘The Significant Racist They’ so freely use the word “monkey” on us; and it also gave some stark validity and credence to the reason they think all we do well is sing, rap, and play basketball.
The “Black Patrol” went right along with Tea Party evangelical white America and played into their hands on Obama’s watch, giving rise to a racist follow-up act to President Obama’s terms. They repeated nearly verbatim everything SOME of white America said about Obama, and also gave in to the gaslighting superior ‘Ra(ce)-coons’ like they didn’t have a lick of common sense to bless their own unhappy souls.
Coons and Ra(ce)-coons are always in the same league together, but this anti-Obama thing with Black folks was even worse than that. The Signifying Monkeys amongst us attempted to ‘”prove” they weren’t anything like THE REST OF US BLACK FOLKS, weren’t scared to criticize him in order to appease the whiteness, never stopped to think that their criticism, just as it was with their similarly-situated constituents, was baseless and headed ‘str8’ to hell on roller blades and ice skates.
Absolutely none of it was based on one single thing that was valid, nor anything that made applicable sense. Yet, they had something to prove to white people and went along with it. Sight unseen.
So…
Since we CHOSE to get on the slow freight clinging behind white America, Obama’s words “A RISING TIDE LIFTS ALL BOATS” were not only classic and timeless, but also smack dab dead ON POINT and ON TIME.
Black people must need to find a proper position on that white American economic boat, especially since they/we/us CHOSE to be on it in the first place. Until ‘we’ choose to get off it and do our own heavy lifting -rather than give white people all our shit and make them pay all the big bills with our labor and money- then we best hope Trump loses on all fronts (#RESIST) until he is gone.
There is a lot of political collateral damage to loss-mitigate and clean up behind The Swamp That Would Be President who is there now; and even more than that, I hope we’ve learned the power that President Obama could have had in order to get things done RIGHTLY had we NOT let the Supremacist Tea Party turn Congress upside down while using their godforsaken over-arching white ghetto thug-ass ways to put Trump in office. Trump was clearly not elected by the majority of America, but we had eight years to prevent Russian interference of the electorate, and so did they.
See … the good news after all that bad news is, that the MAJORITY of Black America still didn’t vote for Trump, regardless. Russia put him there, that much has been proven, but only with our ‘social media’ presence and permission.
Yet, we not only watched the white supremacists herky-jerk their racist bullshit right back into a lost Confederate-era ‘MAKE AMERICA GREATLY WHITE AGAIN’, but we watched the Black Signifiers who backed it and supported them. Now we know who they are and where they are and how to handle them from now on. Yet and still, we are certain that ‘their’ Black ancestors were the one who helped white people enslave other Africans and subsequently beat them into submission afterward.
Still, I am PERSONALLY grateful that President Obama heard and heeded the words “You are the President of the United States, not the President of Black America.” I sent that email to the Obama people, and not long afterward, he repeated it. I hope it was because he read my email.
I am glad he heeded and heard the words “They think they can’t trust you, but you most assuredly can’t trust them, Sir. They will put you up to some serious ‘blah people’ shit, and as soon as them white folks have your head jammed between a guillotine and a meat grinder they will stand down and laugh at you and tell you ‘Nobody made you do all that’.” Don’t even fall for that ‘He ain’t done nothing for Black people’ trap, Mr. President Obama. DO YOU.” BE PRESIDENT. I sent that email to the Obama people, and he appeared to act on it shortly afterwards.
GOOD.
So he did what a Black American President should, and in no particular order, he…
Items One through 10
1. Signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, restoring basic protections against pay discrimination for women and other workers. [This action would tend to be more of a “boon” to Black women who work under Union contracts where workplace discrimination is almost close to impossible. Black women in the private non-union sector are easily and willfully discriminated against, so that RISING TIDE needed to head toward Union-specific jobs in America, and that meant a WHOLE HELLUVA LOT of boat-lifting.]
2. Announced a plan to responsibly end the war in Iraq. [Why it’s important…]. Of course, the highest combat casualties continue to be whites, to the tune of more than 70-percent. They are the ones, though, who start the wars, who finance them, and profit from them, so to give up their lives for what profits them and their families is no big deal. To end those wars, the ones that NO Black people should be participating in nor saluting, and should really be taking a ‘Colin Kaepernick kneel’ on, was a good thing. Thump has shown us that the last thing Black people need to be doing is putting their lives on the line to protect a white supremacist nation that will never respect them, not even as Black American soldiers.
3. Provided funding to families of fallen soldiers so that expenses would be covered when the body arrived at Dover AFB. [It ain’t reparations, but too many of us have lost our lives in senseless and useless terrorist American wars against other ‘people of color’ around the world that only empowers the enemies who also terrorize us on the stateside. [See Item 2.]
4. Ended media “blackout” on war casualties and the return of fallen soldiers to Dover AFB; meaning we could no longer remain IN THE DARK about our own fallen. The truth had to be told, boldly. Thanks to the Trump attack on the media, the lies are back on full glorious display, and so is the attempt at gaslighting it into being truth, or shall we say an ‘alternative’ truth. [See Item 3.] But since Trump has, only a year later, lost ALL credibility on all topics named and unnamed, nothing he opposes or supports matters a hill of beans any more. Not in THIS America.
5. Obama announced and brought forth the “Making Home Affordable” refinancing plan. [Note: The ARRA of 2010 had no overall impact on the economic recession caused by the Bush Administration; and Black and Colored (Latino/Hispanic) unemployment nearly doubled on Obama’s watch because the inherent centuries-old racism in America got worse, not better. President Obama had no control over that, but we chose to join in one accord with white racism and criticize rather than work the problem. As a result, Whites were pretty much ‘untouched’ by the Bush recession except for the 2.5-percent that their unemployment numbers rose. This failure didn’t come about because the ARRA was a bad thing, but because it did not specifically address the microeconomics that makes up minority populations. Making bricks without straw had always been a ‘necessary thing’ for Black economics and finance, but spinning straw into gold? Rumpel Stiltskin obviously wasn’t a Black man.
We Black folk were the Biggest Losers on prime predatory home lending and he worked overtime to fix it. Obama was overly-cautious in not wanting to seem as if he was ‘in favoritism’ of Black American microeconomics, but it would have behooved us to be there with him to ‘tell the truth and shame the devil’. He got shaky and played chicken on some things, but understandably so. There was a lot of pressure on him not to appear as a ‘Black racist’, so as an agent of change, Black folks helped him to peel out on the equity and make it more about Latinos (Mexicans, they call them) than us. The Latinos/Hispanics won and got most of their homes back AND managed to turn Bank of America into “Banco de Americano. We lost, as usual, trying too hard to sacrifice and be “diverse” when we’re truly the only diverse race on the planet regardless.
6. Obama launched a $15 billion plan to boost lending to small businesses. [Many Black Americans had given up on the possibility of small business ownership during the Bush years, especially DOTCOM ownership that was so hot in the 1990s, so access to capital – through ‘Black’ banking institutions – was expedient. We didn’t do anything with that either, but he tried.]
7. Invested heavily in education both as a way to provide jobs, and laid the foundation for long-term economic prosperity. [Black America has always claimed to be BIG on education, and with us, skipping over some heavy money stones was totally necessary. From the wrongheaded private tax-paid for-profit schools of the Devoses of Michigan to STEM-oriented educational projects in the public sector required a huge leap of faith, not a prosperity gospel sermon. Most of us missed that RISING TIDE while we were busy on the BACK of the boat bitching with supremacist whites about what Obama ‘didn’t do’ for Black people.]
8. Provided the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) with more than $1.4 billion to improve services to America’s Veterans, something those “what have you got to lose” Trumpeans don’t seem to give a holy flying shit about. Black Americans who were already spat upon as soldiers while wearing those costly shady plastic patriot souvenir uniforms could have at least ridden the back of the boat as Veterans, but alas…#TrumpNation prevailed.
9. Signed an Executive Order establishing the White House Office of Urban Affairs. [Hell, how ‘black’ (retro-urban) was that supposed to be? Bet we’re now back to the NAACP and Urban League, which you have likely never heard from in your entire life.]
10. Answered questions at the first online Town Hall from the White House, questions that were submitted and voted on transparently by the public at WhiteHouse.gov. [There was a transparent Open House to air grievances that Trump will never hear. But if we had anything to say that Obama could have done something about at the time, we did not need a white privilege version of a green-weaved green-lipstick’d Aunt Jemima with 9″ #fakenails ‘acking up’ with celeb-headed questions to represent that on the air. Missed it, but we had a lot of bitching going on about it afterward. If we can’t take ourselves seriously, who could?]
Items 11-20
11. Established a central portal for Americans to find service opportunities. [Boat-lifting, all-inclusive. If that isn’t gone yet, it will be before 2020. We need portals, we do.]
12. Launched Business.gov – which enabled conversation and online collaboration between small business owners, government representatives and industry experts in discussion forums relevant to starting and managing a business. [Oops, how many of us took advantage of that one? Last I heard, we still aren’t doing too well on business ownership and hiring.]
13. Signed the Children’s Health Insurance Reauthorization Act on February 4, 2009, which provided quality health care to 11 million children – four million of whom were previously uninsured. [No, it wasn’t a micro-CHIP, it was the CHIP, aka ‘CHILD HEALTH INSURANCE PROTECTION’ ACT, that ended up being an integral part of Obamacare in 2010. Surely, Black folks with children who lack health insurance and proper medical care can’t be unfamiliar with that rising tide or that boat.]
14. Issued an Executive Order repealing the Bush-Era restrictions on embryonic stem cell research. [Well, kinda d’uh. We have a lot of conspiracy theories floating around about how Blacks are being killed and their organs harvested in order to enhance and Youth-enize white-skinned people, all because we have deployed within us by nature that eternal ‘fountain of youth’ that whites kill for. The same Fountain that ties us back to the beginnings of humanity and falls explicitly in line with the Word of the so-called ‘Bible’. Stem cell research was about using that which was already deceased to study the future in medicine, not about killing Black children in the streets so white people can use our dead bodies -out of funeral homes and morgues- in order to figure out why it is that ‘black don’t crack.’ Check their body-building “muscle milks” guaranteed to extend their lives, make their dicks bigger, and keep them strong and younger longer. It’s all filled with illegally-harvested human Black genes and organ tissues. Hint: It’s not a conspiracy.]
***
15. Signed the ‘Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Act’, the first piece of comprehensive legislation aimed at improving the lives of Americans living with paralysis. [Know any Black folks who are paralyzed, whether by hook or by crook? I’ll bet you do.]
16. Announced creation of a Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record for members of the U.S. Armed Forces to improve quality of medical care. [See Item 4.]
17. Ended the previous stop-loss policy that kept soldiers in Iraq/Afghanistan longer than their enlistment date, even past their planned retirement date after 20 years of loyal ‘stop-loss’ service. [See Items 2, 3, and 4.]
18. Provided federal support for stem-cell and new biomedical research. [See Item 14. Watch it this time, carefully.] Because they don’t think we should live long lives unless they can benefit from it in some way, as usual. Our genes are ‘lost’ on us, as far as they are concerned. Whites need them more than we do, which explains a lot about why our children are poisoned when it comes to food and water and even air quality. Nobody heard that there is a reason why Black children “behave” differently, especially in school … and much research has revealed the poisons that flow so freely through the Black community in the form of medicines, shots, and many ingested items. But we don’t take the time out to understand it, nor the medical research that supports the facts. It’s sad, really. We trust what we should not and don’t trust what we should – our inner instincts.]
19. Obama provided new federal funding for science and research labs. [See Item 18.]
20. Played a lead role in the G-20 Summit that produced a $1.1 trillion deal to combat the global financial crisis. [It is long overdue for Black Americans to become global citizens, especially with regard to up-and-coming African enterprises. We don’t have any business whatsoever dealing only with America when it comes to business; this monetary system is historically set up for us to fail. ‘GO GLOBAL’ now, before Trump shuts that down just because “Obama did it”. Hell, if Obama ended cancer somehow, they’d shoot themselves up with it just to destroy his legacy. You know it.]
Items 21-30
21. Ordered the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay and a review of our detention and interrogation policy, and prohibited the use of torture. [One Black woman who was paying too much attention to his blackness and looks failed to hear him when he said he was GOING to close Gitmo on the 2007-2008 campaign trail. Next thing we know, she’s slobbering crocodile tears all over CNN about her son and the USS Cole terrorist bombing, thus co-signing with racist whites who say Black people vote without knowing what they are voting for and that we all voted for Obama ‘just because’ he is Black. They negated the fact that they voted against him just because he wasn’t white, and they used an unknowledgeable Black woman to do it.
So Black folks like me who had studied Obama profusely before choosing a vote were laid to the side and mislabeled by a white America that truly believed the bullshit that they put on TV about all Black people. They wouldn’t have put me on that CNN show, because I’d have given them the WHOLE truth and not just their peculiar version of it. Then I’d have done a follow-up interview with Black media to make sure my true intentions were clearly portrayed. But Obama closed GITMO, as PROMISED during his campaign trail, that she apparently wasn’t paying attention to.
In the meantime, they used those colored Arabs (they call them ‘sand-niggers’) from Iraq just like they use and stereotype ‘niggas in America’ – i.e., “all Muslims are alike.” “All Black folks are alike,” et al. Shaquille and Bill are the same to them, “Mr. Cosby”. There are STILL too many of us signing up for the egregious patriotic bullshit, like we had a real reason to back that race-mongering lie about ALL Muslims. We should easily recognize that as a solid lie, but any 15 seconds of “celeb-like viral internet fame”, for some of us, is better than no fame at all.]
22. Empowered states to enact federal fuel efficiency standards above federal standards. [Yes, all RISING TIDE and LIFTING BOAT People, we live here, too. Clean air and fuel standards ought to be just as important to us as it is to them.]
23. Increased infrastructure spending (roads, bridges, power plants) after years of neglect. [Yes, we could have used those GOOD JOBS in the Black community, especially our contractors and builders. They pay well, and are usually deeply UNIONIZED, with fabulous fringe benefits.]
24. Increased minority access to capital. [Uhm, d’uh. Nuff said. No explanation needed here.]
25. Enacted the Fraud Enforcement and Recovery Act which gives the federal government more tools to investigate and prosecute fraud, from lending to the financial system, and creates a bipartisan Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission to investigate the financial practices that brought us to this point. [Like WE Black folks didn’t have some serious highball issues with “Buy-Here-Pay-Here-Rent-A-Life-Give-Us-Your-Car-Title-and-all-your-money” predatory lending bloodsuckers all over our neighborhoods, with their plentiful straws and feeder veins to make sure they find and keep more than one way to break us just to make themselves rich-er at our expense. Not Black enough, yet?]
***I could stop here, and you should have the picture by now, BIGLY, with all of its tweetly internalized ‘covfefe’ intact. But let’s keep going, just for the scandalously delicious hell of it. “Count 97″ is still a long way away.***
26. Obama signed the ” Helping Families Save Their Homes ” Act. [Black folks hit the hardest by predatory home loans during the Reagan, Clinton and Bush years should have gotten that ACT together the moment it was enacted.]
27. Unveiled a program on Earth Day 2009 to develop the renewable energy projects on the waters of our Outer Continental Shelf that produce electricity from wind, wave, and ocean currents. The regulations were to enable the nation, for the first time ever, to tap into our ocean’s vast sustainable resources in order to generate clean energy in an environmentally sound and safe manner. [With Black America always at the brunt of low air and water quality and in higher counts traumatized and devastated by urban blight and pollution, we were highly in need of solar and wind energy to save our lives and our very asthmatic breaths. We are too often the main targets of environmental racism and pollution–just ask Van Jones. That is a REAL no-brainer in Black America, but we were still too busy bitching about what Obama was NOT doing for Black America to pay attention to what he DID do.]
28. Announced new policy steps towards Cuba.
[It is -‘was?’- well-known by the world that Cuba had a specific and unique homebound love for advancement in the Black community, especially in the field of medicine. They are also greatly protecting our beloved and wrongly accused Assata Shakur, as they should. It is also well known that anyone with a true “love” interest in investing in Black America will get unspecified ‘darts and arrows’ above ‘hearts and flowers’, especially from certain racist aspects of white America. If they, the world, loves on us, for any reason whatever, white racist America hates them. America wants us subservient, or dead. Period. Know it and stop being jaded and acting clueless. Pay attention to ‘Racebook Facebook’ from a cumulative OUTSIDER’s point of view, if you care to be that over-educated about it.]
29. Approved funding for advanced manufacturing technologies. [As Black parents, there should not be one of us who is uninterested in the future advancement of STEM-related (Science Technology Engineering and Medicine) disciplines in the Black community. Any of us who are not up to speed on current progress in these areas…now is as good a time as any to catch up and keep up. This is the future of entrepreneurial fortitude and enterprise, and it is already making vast inroads, especially with artificial intelligence (AI). (The ‘Late Freight’ of Freeport Enterprise?) has already left the gate. Better catch it, catch up, and catch on while you still can.]
30. Issued a Presidential Memorandum on the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), instructing the Attorney General to issue new guidelines to the government implementing those same principles of openness and transparency in the processing of FOIA requests. [Speak with a Black Journalist or Black media specialist on how leverage from freedom of the flow of information enhances their position as professional writers and authors. In the era of Trumpanesque #fakenews, it is HIGHLY important that ‘disconnected’ outsider Black journalists who are uncared for in mainstream media make their mark at Trump’s expense. We can afford to VET our news, or render an opinion outside of his beefy claims of #fakenews, because they could give a shit less what we think, and because we are not subject to corporate control as they are. This is important. We can’t fake it because we are not inside the Wizard of Oz Back 40, where most of where Trump’s #fakejournalists live.]
Items 31-40
31. Funded the design of a new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History scheduled to open on the National Mall in 2015. [Uhm… NO-BRAINER classification this one. It’s 2018, and it’s open. They raised hell to stop it, but whoomp, there it is.]
32. Signed the Executive Order on Presidential Records, which brings presidential records to light by giving the American people greater access to historic documents, severely curtailing the ability to use executive privilege to shield those documents. [Well, darn. You mean we HAD access to national records that could have stopped ‘white revisionist history’ from bleeding our history, and yet we didn’t get the keys to the record room and bust the door down for 8, count ’em EIGHT, whole years? Unh.]
33. Signed the Edward M. Kennedy ‘Serve America’ Act, a hallmark piece of ‘liberal’ legislation. [Say what? What’s that? LOOK IT UP, even though Trump probably killed that by now, too; just because Kennedy was aligned with Obama, and just because he can.]
34. Signed the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility, and Disclosure (CARD) Act to protect Americans from unfair and deceptive credit card practices. [LOL. Not gonna comment on this, especially since the explosive Equifax ‘dark web’ hacking event that left us wide open to greedy predators and Russian foreign money tactics. It wasn’t like they weren’t already ripping us off -left and right- on racist ‘insider’ credit reporting practices and stipulations, but it was made worse by the underscored fact that we came out of the gates of the Big House 150 years ago already severely economically damaged. This was never rectified. Reparations are still due and owing, but we’d rather give it to white-drawn “Israel” and a holocaust ‘survivors fund’ that had nothing to do with us. Hell, Hitler killed US -our Rhineland ancestors in Germany- before he ever touched a “European Jew.” They still ain’t paid for that.]
35. Signed an Executive Order establishing a ‘White House Council on Women and Girls’ in order to provide a coordinated Federal response to the challenges confronted and to ensure that all Cabinet and Cabinet-level agencies consider how their policies and programs impact women and families. [We Black women weren’t racially divested on this initiative, until now. But the misogynist white male Klannish Republican Party and their similarly hooded white females, whom their pussy-grabbed brigade seems to love for whatever reason (Stockholm Syndrome anyone?), will soon kill all that woman-friendly noise, unless they already have.]
36. Launched a U.S. financial and banking rescue plan. [See Items 25 and 34.]
But in all fairness, none of this would have been possible had the GOP not shown ‘poor middle-class white America’ that once they were sufficiently rid of us Black folk, with their Anglo-help, that is, they were next in line to get economically pinch-pleated in the name of monetary Wall Street greed. WE didn’t even want to understand that Obama was in no ethical position to do any more than any other President before him, so it was morally EXPEDIENT on us to use that as leverage, which we did not do. Time is gone, done, over for that. We missed a helluva Chess move to play while busy rallying with white supremacists on the “Obama didn’t do’s”.]
37. Ended the previous military policy on torture and waterboarding. The US now has a no torture policy and is in compliance with the previous Geneva Convention standards. [We Black folk were the first of humanity to be persecuted and tortured by others in our own lands; and in this one. #HUMANITYMATTERS.]
FINISH THIS LONG HEAVY-DUTY MID-TERM OBAMA QUIZ on your own, Black America. You already know what time it is.
Or do you?
38. Launched U.S. Auto industry rescue plan. [Know any Black folks who work for auto companies, or are retired from them and relying on UNION PENSIONS? There you go.]
39. Provided better body armor to our troops. [Know any Black folks in the American military? Like the Black one killed in Nigeria, whose Black FEMALE widow was told by Trump “He knew what he was getting himself into” even as he, Trump, saluted and empathized with white soldiers who were killed there at the same time. Stand down. Seriously. They need to fight their own damned wars. Alone.]
40. Re-engaged in the agreements/talks on global warming and greenhouse gas emissions, and addressed the U.N. Climate Change Conference. [See Items on ‘Environmental Racism’, green jobs, and call Van Jones, whom we allowed to be fired on Obama’s watch for trying to protect us and our children and neighborhoods and spur economic growth at the same time. Or don’t call him. Trump pulled out of the Paris Climate Accords anyway, therefore making “America First” America Last.]
Items 41-50
41. Supported the first steps of a legally-binding treaty to reduce mercury emissions worldwide. [See Item 40.]
42.Engaged in several natural disasters successfully, including severe winter ice storms and flooding in several states. [Bet a LOT of Boat-lifted Tide Riders were impacted by this Obama initiative.]
43. Provided a ‘new car’ tax credit to spur economic growth. [No free weaves or Colt 45s with the income tax returns, but how we do love our new cars, don’t we? Benz’s, Caddies, Lexi’s, Jags, SUVs, et al … Whilst we are busy buying ’em, we might as well get SOMETHING OUT OF IT besides a big white-empowering banked up car note and some high-ass Pakistani gasoline bills.]
44. Provided attractive tax write-offs for those who buy hybrid automobiles. [See Item 43.]
45. Provided American-made fleet of vehicles for the federal government. [And some Black folks with dealerships and auto industry jobs got PAID, too.]
46. Helped reverse a downward spiral of the stock market. On January 19, 2009, the last day of President Bush’s presidency, the Dow closed at 8,218.22. As of February 2010, the DOW had closed at 10,309.24. [Trump has crashed it out twice in less than two years, ditched the jobs, and further empowered the race-mongers you were already paying. If you are a Black person who invests in the Stock Market (bitcoins, lol) and still has hopes for a good retirement “someday”, good luck and have fun with that rollercoaster ride. You have three to 10 more years to hope you’re not dead broke before he’s gone.]
47. Provided affordable, high-quality child care to working families. [If you haven’t gotten lost on that gravy train already, hang on. You will.]
48. Obama restored America’s reputation as a global leader that was to do the “right thing” in world affairs. [Oopsies. Trump said “White America First,” or at least, he behaves like that’s what he means. I recommend getting a dual citizenship SOMEWHERE, if Trump hasn’t taken that possibility away yet, and staying connected with Obama’s first initiatives in global responsibility. Trump’s America First isn’t about YOU Black people, that much is certain.]
49. Issued an executive order to create the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. [See Items on banking and financial reforms that have since been destroyed by “you got nothing from Democrats” Trump and his cronies. And if you work for the FED, LOL, even better. At least Obama knew that his “executive orders” were standards for federal employees at the FED level, not a demand for cities and states who didn’t agree with it. Trump seems to think his executive orders means states have to bow down and throw him a military parade. #Not. It’s the first time in American history, however, that “state’s rights’ are actually a good thing.]
50. Increased funding for 2010 student loans and Pell grants. [Still can’t afford college? The money Obama put there to help pay for school is probably “Devos’d” into privatized ‘white jesusy “alleged Christian” ‘for-profit’ charter schools by now. Did that while you were busy watching “Orange is the New Black”. BTW, have you seen any new prisons or jails being built in close proximity to Black neighborhoods lately? States with GOP Leadership are on top of that for you. That ‘school to prison pipeline’ you claim to hate so much is blustering by now. But it’s only YOUR tax money in their control. No biggie.]
Items 51-60
51. Obama provided tax credits to workers thus cutting taxes for 95% of America’s working families. [Your Trickle Down –i.e., pisson– president, Trump, made sure you got that BIG CORPORATE BONUS, though, those of you who are left with any jobs after all the recent company store closings. Put it all in a savings account, hon. You’ll need it for that Rich Boy Tax Bill you’re about to pay on April 15. Trump told them at a meeting that they just “got a lot richer” behind his tax bill, and he wasn’t talking to any broke or half-broke Democrats. You’re a-paying for those tax cuts, because the bills don’t go away just because they make themselves not have to pay them. Along with his wife’s refusal to stay in DC, his children’s numerous personal Russian business side deals and unnecessary tax-paid trips to places where they do not belong and are not wanted, and Trump’s numerous golf trips to his own hotels, Trump is getting it in without paying taxes himself, and you are. Mr. FICA said so.]
52. Obama cracked down on companies that abused the employee classification of independent contractors and used it to deny sick pay, vacation, and health insurance to certain workers. Such companies also avoid paying Social Security, Medicare and unemployment insurance taxes. [NO-BRAINER on Black folks. They may have gaslighted us into thinking they were doing us a ‘favor’ on taxes, but the truth is, we don’t have a damned thing we haven’t earned and earned FOR them, over CENTURIES. We are BIG on independent contracting nowadays, especially with the tremendous racism that poisons corporate America. But for some of us, even that move on Obama’s part wasn’t “black enough.”]
53. Signed the “Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act” that made it a federal crime to assault an individual because of his or her sexual orientation or gender identity. [DAMNED, JAMES, DAMN! Too bad he had to roll James Byrd into the “gay hate crimes” bill in order to make Byrd acceptable to the top white status quo. It wasn’t good enough that Byrd, down in Texas, as was Sandra Bland, was murdered for being Black. That was PURE WHITE SUPREMACY for Byrd, not a “gay hate crime.” However, was it good legislation? Hate is hate, and no one deserves to die for being who or what they are, whether they were born it or chose it. That act is rightfully called the JAMES BYRD JR. AND TRAYVON MARTIN NATIONAL HATE CRIMES PREVENTION ACT. “Matthew Shepherd” is not who we are, especially when it comes to racism in America. Sure, Obama played chicken on that one, as he did on a few other things, but Byrd -dragged to death until his body parts, head detached, went in separate directions for “walking home from a party while Black”- at least got an “Honorable Mention”, as tagged behind a white gay guy.] FYI: The Emmett Till Unsolved Civil Rights Crime Act of 2007 was not passed for the many hundreds of race murders by white supremacists that have occurred since October of 1969, by the way.
54. Appointed the first Special Assistant to the President for Disability Policy. [Bet Trump fired that one by now. Black folks on disability assurance? He just got started moving YOUR money–and theirs–into his personal coffers. At least Obama cared enough to want to hear firsthand what was going on with Disabled Americans, most presidents don’t give a frik. They don’t want you empowered, they want you dead. May Obama be re-elected in 2020 to pick up where he left that.]
55. Signed the Veterans Health Care Budget Reform and Transparency Act to authorize advance appropriations for the Department of Veterans Affairs. This Act was to provide two-fiscal year budget authority and enable better care for veterans. It was endorsed by the American Legion, American Veterans, Blinded Veterans Association, Disabled American Veterans, Jewish War Veterans, Military Officers Association, Military Order of the Purple Heart, Paralyzed Veterans of America and Vietnam Veterans of America. [Gonna have to Google that one. I will take a hot guess and say that most, if not all of them, are scraping for funds again, and ain’t gonna get them from Trump. But he may have spared them in his anti-American tax cuts binge of 2017.]
56. Held impromptu press conferences to urge Congress to investigate Anthem Blue Cross and other corporate health insurance companies that raised premiums into high amounts without legitimate explanation. Rep. Henry Waxman launched the probe. ABC tried to raise premiums 39% in retaliation for Obamacare (i.e., the ACA, or “Affordable Care Act”). They put the increase on hold for two months (as of February 2010). Legislation preventing such increases were pending at the time this investigation began. You will likely see that update reflected in your “rich white boys just got richer” Trump premium insurance billing soon.
57. Designated $1.5 billion from the Troubled Asset Relief Program to fund programs at local housing finance agencies in the states hardest hit by the housing crisis: California, Florida, Nevada, Arizona, and Michigan. The MBA forecasted foreclosures would peak in the last quarter of 2010. They did. [New HGTV show idea: “Flip that Flop”. Black folks own a lot of property in all of those states except Nevada and Arizona, our population numbers in those states are lower; but we do have a mixed very light presence there as well. The basis was predatory lending, which hit Black America the hardest. Still not “Black enough” for you? NEXT:]
58. Protected 300,000 education jobs, such as teachers, principals, librarians, and counselors through the Recovery Act that would have otherwise been lost. [Okay. So how many of us know any Black teachers, principals, librarians and school counselors? Do we know more white ones than Black? Probably not. And most of them are probably and most likely BLACK WOMEN at that. They, so many Black women, nearly lost their jobs/careers/retirement pensions/benefits; and Obama still wasn’t “black enough.”.]
59. Extended discounted COBRA health coverage for the nation’s unemployed from 9 months to 15 months. Workers laid off between September 1, 2008 and February 28, 2010 qualified. [COBRA was the over-priced health insurance mess-up that happened before Obamacare was solidly in place. If you ever worked in corporate America, you already knew most of ‘us’ couldn’t afford COBRA premiums anyway, so we went without coverage and used emergency rooms for routine care. Obamacare/Obama Cares was simply better than ‘COBRA-don’t-care,’ and would have been even better if we had not allowed the GOP to run interference on the original face contract, National SINGLE-PAYER Healthcare. By way of reference, if it makes you feel better to know that a white man backed it (other than Joe Biden), then a little FYI for you: Teddy Roosevelt actually started that idea more than 125 years ago on the REPUBLICAN Party ticket. It wasn’t all Obama’s idea, it wasn’t even a Democrat idea on origin, it was just a very good one that the Dems had to try to hit out of the ballpark. They failed; but, BTW, they shut Roosevelt down, too. Greedy and cantankerous GOP, always and forever.]
60. Extended unemployment benefits for Two Million unemployed Americans by 20 weeks. At the time the bill was signed 7,000 unemployed Americans were losing their unemployment benefits each day. [Know any Black folks who were on Unemployment due to Bush policies? As a matter of information, before Bush, less than 20-percent of the food stamp rolls nationwide were Black Americans (higher numbers were only higher in disproportionately higher-poverty areas, of course). After Bush, however, the number of Black people on food stamps increased to nearly half the rolls. Don’t know how far we managed to climb out of that hole on Obama’s watch, but since his fiscal policies ran on over into October of 2017, we DO know that Trump took credit for Obama’s work. It was Obama’s work that caused the unemployment rolls to go way down, and Trump’s TRUE fiscal year didn’t begin until October 2017. By December of 2018, we will know the real impact of Trump’s tax cuts and fiscal policies, and someone who has filed bankruptcy four times and was on his way to a fifth before Russia decided they wanted to use him to take tax money from Americans isn’t the one who knows how to handle money. Obama’s taxes were paid, and so were all of his bills – the quintessential Black man with A-1 credit and credibility who was “privileged” enough to humbly admit that he was privileged, in writing. #thanksTrump Yet, Trump has no more ‘rollover gifts’ left from Obama. He’s going to have to admit Obama was right, or burn in his own lustful greedy selfish sins as a #fakewhiteChristian.]
Items 61-70
61. Obama rescinded the Global Gag Rule. [Look that one up. It’s specifically black-alicious in context; but if I were to try and spin that one for myself, I have a personal REAL bad attitude about GAG RULES, period. They are usually racist as hell, these GAG orders, and I have been subjected to the kind I’m thinking about. This act on Obama may not have a damned thing to do with what I’m thinking, but all I can say about Obama here is: “My Black Hero”.]
62. Appointed the most diverse Cabinet in history, including more women appointees than any other incoming president. [Okay. No explanation needed here: NO BRAINER. Nearly half his original Cabinet was Black come-alongs from his campaign trail, many of them were STRONG Black women with experience and education and field knowledge; but we LET them strong-arm Blacks out of office, and then tacitly surround Obama’s administration with racist whites from the stark beginning. We did nothing to stop it. President Obama attempted to back them up, including Van Jones and Susan Rice, but we stood down and let it roll, then bitched when he was surrounded by whites who truly hated his guts, and ours. Left him with Joe Biden alone … but this is why he can’t trust most Black folks. It’s unfortunate, but I am more than certain that we’ve discovered by now that unmitigated evil doesn’t come pre-packaged in a skin color, not on all counts.]
63. Committed to ‘no permanent military bases in Iraq’ through the Defense Authorization Act, as a matter of reference. [Know of any Black military folks who almost spent more time in Iraq than in America, like a wayward traitorous Russian exiled to Siberia? They were about to do that permanently, under consent of the government, and against the consent of their families and the American people.]
64. Provided tax credits to first-time home buyers through the Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 to revitalize the U.S. housing market. [See the other stuff above about the prevalence of predatory lending in Black America that kicked our literal asses in homeownership, landholding, economic enterprise, and small business startups. It is land and homes that are often used as leverage or collateral to build businesses – businesses that employ us and thicken the economy. We were long overdue for some kind of credit for something. We had bled out long enough making white people rich. It was a good thing, #thanksObama.]
65. Provided the Department of Veterans Affairs the largest spending increase in 30 years to improve medical facilities and national cemeteries, and to assist states in acquiring or constructing state nursing homes and extended care facilities. [Skip this one. It doesn’t apply to Black people in any way, shape, form, or fashion. Frikkin’ LOL. Seriously though, we shouldn’t be dumping our parents and disabled people into “homes” anyway, but they do become necessary at times in this society. It just reminds me of what Dr. John Henrick Clarke said about how African nations did not have terms for orphanages and nursing homes, because we didn’t “throw away” our children and elderly and sickly people until we came here to the states.]
***
66. Empowered states that legalized medical marijuana to regulate themselves. Fourteen states have allowed some use of marijuana for medical purposes: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Maryland, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. [All kidding aside, especially since white supremacists love making white-laced drug addictions all about Black people … there are some of us, too many of us, who have taken to the weed-heading like there is no tomorrow. Move to those states, you’re home-free. Until BEAUREGARD Jeff Sessions decides against it, that is.]
67. Allocated special funding to the Labor Department to provide green job training to veterans.
[Know any Black folks who need specialized upgraded job training skills, especially Vets? Better get it before Trump discovers it’s there, if it’s not already gone. Along with his dire need to destroy the nation on global warming by ditching the Climate Accords, Trump putting “America First” destroyed the future and put America Last with the world. Regardless, whether he or cares or not, we have to live with the rest of the world. Also, Trump has to leave, sooner rather than later; and now would be a great time to understand Black people’s impact in world history and not just in America. We could have green-jobbed the world, as it was when God created Man; but we are world citizens, global people, not just Americans. We ARE THE WORLD, the only diverse people on the planet, veterans and all.]
68. Allocated funding to states and the Department of Homeland Security to save thousands of police or firefighter jobs from being cut during the recession. [Don’t play. You do have Black cops and firefighters in this country, even though the big media ads and First Responder stuff -whenever there is an emergency of national proportions- makes it appear that we don’t exist. Ain’t that America, too? All those Black “rescuers” during 9/11, and if it had not been for Black media, we’d have never known any Black people lost their lives in that political debacle, let alone sacrificed their lives rescuing others. Bush started that mess and a lot of Black people lost their lives, and many nearly lost their jobs over it. Triplicated sadness, we’re used to, and when laced with racism, it quadruples. But when we end up doing the job that no one else will, standing in honor in spite of them, we are often cast aside and ignored by their media. Our sinners are never compared to their sinners, like they never compare fat white women to fat Black women. Anyhoo … given the circumstances, job preservation was the least Obama could do. Black people won on that boat ride, too.]
69. Obama created and sustained 2.1 million jobs and stimulated the economy 3.5% [as of December 31, 2009] through the ARRA, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. [On the Civilian Side, see Item 68. Yes, many of us, we Black folk rode the ‘lifted boat’ and benefitted from that also.]
70. Signed on to the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. [Didn’t Trump ridicule a disabled white man, blast some washed-out Haitians with Bounty paper towels, and get rid of pro-disability rights while he was at it? #ThanksObama, for at least thinking about us, as well as all of the white people who still benefit from our taxes, our #blacktaxes, and our labor to this day. Black folks are still trying to get a seat at the Grown Folks’ table, but in a minute, if we’ve been paying attention and figuring out how to win this round, we will soon know that the bountiful table was ours anyway.]
Iems 71-80
71. Responded with compassion and leadership to the earthquake in Haiti. [Obama didn’t take corporate-owned paper towels to that majorly Black nation as Trump did during the 2017 floods. He took his whole entire Black ass and a whole LOT of money and love and empathy. Not Black enough 4ya yet? keep reading…]
72. Signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. The Act extended the Ryan White programs through 2013. [Don’t know what happened to that. Do know that AIDS treatment is no joke in the Black community. We are disproportionately impacted by it, as we are in nearly all medical arenas. #Obamacare2020]
73. Ordered a review by the Sentencing Commission of mandatory minimum sentences. [We had been bitching about that one for decades. However, regardless of how badly these ‘mandatory minimums’ impacted us as a People, they impacted whites more because white people still make up a good majority of the national prison populations. The mandatory minimums never justly fit the crime, just the head count for their for-profit owners and under-the-table profiteers. Had the industrious ‘they’ not over-criminalized “weed” as an alleged ‘Black thing’, the prison systems would still only contain about 18-percent Black prison population numbers. As it was in the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, before Reagan AND Clinton screwed us with their own special brand of media race-hyping, school2prison was used to satiate their need for free labor, not to punish anyone for committing a REAL crime. Robbers and murderers often get lighter sentences because more whites tend to do it; drug sentences are harsher because more Black people are jailed for majorly white drug addictions due to media propagandizing. President Obama was well aware of it, probably saw a lot of it during his community organizing years and time spent with Dr. Jeremiah Wright and Bill Clinton, and during his days in court trying to decode a highly racist U.S. Constitution. Maybe that one was a little TOO Black, especially by count of his white constituency.]
74. Expanded the Rural Energy for America Program and USDA energy grants to empower farmers that want to use renewable energy. [Yes, we still have Black farmers in this country, though not many are left. We need more, so if you really want to be ’bout dat life, get on a farm and do some REAL work, like our ancestors used to.]
75. Obama increased funding to the Land and Water Conservation Fund. [Want to know more about this, Black Folks on Lifted Boats? Go to a Property Tax Class in your state. You will learn handily about why the Black people who are left with any homesteads, farms, and land would have needed this to stay in place. You may also learn why your land should probably be classified as tax-exempt under the Conservation Fund laws in your state.]
76. Launched and extended the “Cash for Clunkers” program. [Clunkers, we got ’em. Sitting up on blocks and cluttering up our streets and neighborhoods. It was a temporary program, but I’m curious as to how many Black folks actually heard of it and took advantage at the time.]
77. Donated his $1.4 million Nobel Prize to nonprofits. [Wish I’d been there for a piece of that. I wouldn’t know of anyone in my immediate vicinity who would still be looking for a job right now.]
78. Revitalized and empowered the EPA, OSHA, and the SEC to protect workers and consumers by regulating business practices. [We may not pay a lot of attention to it, but we’re impacted by these federal regulations more than we care to discover.]
79. Obama signed the ‘HIRE’ Act. [Not knowing all of the details at hand, we can say that white people always hire their own first. How many Black people did YOU hire? At all? Did you even make an attempt to help take down those Black unemployment numbers back then? How about now?]
80. Made incredible fools of every racist this nation has ever seen or heard who dared to speak a word of ill-will about Black Americans in general. He didn’t have to talk about it, he LIVED it.
A ‘charmed and exemplary privileged American lifestyle’ that whites thought Black people / African-Americans were eternally incapable of. On Obama’s watch, everything any racist whites had ever said about Black people went down the tubes. It didn’t matter that they refused to acknowledge it and kept playing the “monkey poop” card game with Obama’s wife and daughters, they ended up making pure de apes of themselves, “Big Neanderthal Lucy” style.
Items 81-90
81. Twenty (20) million people peopled gained health insurance coverage through the Affordable Care Act (better known as Obamacare), which decreased the percentage of uninsured Americans from 15.7% to 8.6-percent; cut it in half. [Health disparities, we’ve had more than our fair share of them since the beginning of incorporated poisoned America. The ACA, Obamacare, that is, was the best thing that happened to Black America in a very long time. However, some of us forgot about all the gout, the diabetes, the HBP/hypertension, the worse outcomes in cancer care and treatments, AIDS, the transplants, the Epi-pens, the asthma, the higher incidences of strokes, the dental and vision care we could barely afford, even the gym memberships we couldn’t afford, while busy tossing Obamacare off as a big noisemaker “side deal” that had nothing to do with us. Yeah Right. D’uh.]
82. Eleven point three (11.3) million new jobs were created in America, and the unemployment rate dropped to 4.7% — the lowest it had been since 2007. Over the course of Obama’s presidency, the economy saw 75 straight months of job gains (the longest streak on record). [So gainful that it made its way over to Trump’s days throughout the entire year of 2017. Remains to be seen, but if past Republican economic policies are any evidence, all of that gain and upward movement of the squiggly arrow is dead by the end of 2018.]
83. Solar and wind energy prices dropped and investment grew. [That was up and running when Obama left office, but he was so busy dealing with signifying Black folk and racist whites that he didn’t get moving on that as much as I had hoped he would. The wind, the sun, the moon, the stars, and the water – that was all God; and jobs and business that we could have used in green energy sales and installation. Killing the earth to get what we need was not an option, but it’s a good thing that the Earth kicks back with a vengeance and makes us all deathly ill in exchange for the bad treatment.]
84. Obama also created the National Equal Pay Enforcement Task Force to fight wage discrimination. [LOL. Like Black Americans have never had an issue with wage discrimination in the history of this nation. Obama didn’t do a damned thing for Black people, and all of this ‘didn’t happen’ BEFORE his second term either. So, what’s Trump doing for ‘Blah’ People right now, besides reminding them how Blah they really are?]
85. Because of Obama, diplomatic relations between the United States and Cuba resumed, for the first time in more than 50 years. [As they well should have. But Trump is upset about that, majorly because Cuba is still too overtly “black-friendly”. He hasn’t closed off all initiatives, however, especially since the doors are now open to turn Cuba into another deracinated Black-hating country on his watch. It will happen, because once again, we’re not minding the store that we should have been opening while Obama was still in office.]
86. The American auto industry was revived through bailouts to suffering industry giants, mainly General Motors and Chrysler. [A whole HELL of a lot of Black folks nearly lost their jobs and lifelong hard-earned pensions over that bailout. Bush was trying to bail out the banks and insurance companies, the heck with automakers; but President Obama interceded and made sure that some of that money went to the unions who were in the act of protecting blue-collar auto workers’ jobs in Illinois, Ohio, and Michigan – and elsewhere. The jobs in insurance, finance, and banking were important, but most them are still majorly populated by whites and white-oriented Asians and Hispanics. Black people stood to lose the most if the auto industry tanked. #ThanksAgainObama.]
87. Obama expanded the Hate Crimes legislation to categorize crimes motivated by actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability as hate crimes. [Okay, this one is easier to trouble the waters than most. ‘We’ swore that the President spent a lot of time on gays, illegals, Hispanics, and white women — but I have to admit that I saw them gearing up for an Obama win before it happened. They were ready. They were expecting him to win and they put their duckies in order before he got there. These various classes of social put-upons went to President Obama prepared, and I heard far too many of ‘us’ saying that “they” weren’t going to “let” him win all the way up to October of 2008: Late Freight. In the end, we were hand-held by Obama with “My Brothers Keeper”, that certain “Chicago homeboy people of color initiative,” but Obama is gone from office now. And we still ain’t ready. Not even if Obama runs in 2020 and wins again, we ain’t ready.]
88. High school graduation rates hit an all-time high of 83.2% and the controversial “No Child Left Behind” law was replaced with the Every Student Succeeds Act. Good job! Onward.
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89. Obama signed the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act to limit excessive financial risk and prevent another major financial crisis like the one that occurred in 2008. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was created under Dodd-Frank. [Trump has now crippled that Obama initiative and given greedy rich boys the “right” to trick anyone who allows themselves to be tricked. Predatory lending has been re-empowered, especially with excessively high-interest rates that are not consumer-friendly. Dabble at your own risk, but first, tune in to your Netflix subscription and watch “DIRTY MONEY”. You may think twice about trying to have what you can’t pay cash for at a deep discount. Hint: It ain’t worth it, not even at the “RentACenters”.]
90. The country’s financial deficit decreased by almost 75% and the stock market tripled in value. [That fine Obama two-step was reversed by Trump, who has had three stock market crashes and two government shutdowns, so far, in less than two years. The deficit has also expanded to about 10x what it was during the Bush trials, without any reciprocal GNP. That alone says a lot about why Trump filed all of those personal bankruptcies and won’t stoke the financial fires by revealing his own tax returns. When you owe more than you own and have had that many bankruptcies, you’re dead ass broke. Trump doesn’t know his asshole from his appetite. However, stock market take-downs, shutdowns, and deflated worldwide valuations of the GDP and GNP, that was solely a Trump accomplishment that never happened on Obama’s watch, even in the midst of a post-Bush Reagan-era economic recession.]
Items 91-97
91. Obama enacted the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (“DACA”) policy, granting temporary legal status to as many as 750,000 youths brought into America illegally (through no fault of their own), so they could go to school and work without fear of deportation. [If you haven’t heard that one shouted and screamed all over the latest headlines of 2017 and 2018, it’s no wonder Trump is sitting in Obama’s office playing grade-school reality-show-drama president. Listen up…all of those illegal imports under DACA are NOT white foreigners, no matter how the media portrays it. Trust that they aren’t having an ‘issue’ with it just because these DACA arrivals are mostly Italian, Spanish, or German…]
92. The number of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were significantly reduced. [If you had a loved one over there who is home now, #thanksObama.]
93. Homelessness among veterans was reduced by one-third. [Hint: Homelessness, while not exclusively a “Black thing,” disproportionately impacts Black families. We can least afford to be economically disenfranchised, because we never got a decent financial foothold over the past 50 years regardless of the richest amongst us. No, the “Huxtables” are still not a true economic representation of most of Black America; and no, being rich and Black is not a pass-through against American racism.]
94. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted in favor of net neutrality rules, which ensure a “fair and free internet” in which service providers cannot give preferential treatment to certain websites. [This one isn’t about ‘blah’ people wanting “free stuff.” White folks used our labor for free for more than three centuries, and are still benefiting from our tax dollars now, which we really shouldn’t be paying. This is about FAIRNESS and equitable internet access from the government that we STILL pay for that never respected us or our contributions as citizens, nor as involuntary non-citizens. Didn’t even respect Obama as President, and he’s a REAL African-American who knows where his AFRICAN ancestors were born. What the hey? Bottom Line: Net neutrality is important for Black people, particularly when we’re helping to PAY FOR IT.]
95. Michelle Obama taught us to “BE NOT AFRAID” of them or anyone else.
Barack Obama married the best and brightest among Black womankind, and she was not even media attention-grabbing “light-bright-damned near white” like Miss Meghan. She was, and always will be, an African-American Queen amongst women, thick and Black, beautiful African-coarse hair, and definitely above and beyond a Trump type. And her Black man, he inspired her to be PHENOMENAL best, because he knew what to do make her feel that way. Her specialness as a wife is something a lot of Black women could use, and a whole lot of white women too. They worked together and gave us the best President and First Family that America and the world has ever known. They wanted him so bad, but #HesOurs …
96. Sasha and Malia Obama taught us that not all white people are our friends, or trustworthy, or even worthy of our respect. Yet and still, their envy eats them alive and we end up -as Black women- with enemies, both foreign and domestic (white and Black). Yet and still, evil simply does not come in a color. We all learn that one the HARD way.]
97. The entire Obama Family, along with a long line of protective mothers, grandmothers, grandfathers, dads, aunts, uncles, and friends, taught us that family is the most important thing of all. Above all else, love is lovely, and not everyone in our family can be saved no matter what we do; but we … Love, learn, break bread together, and then let it all go.
^^^CONCLUSION^^^
The pain can’t stay forever.
President Obama still hasn’t lost so much of his internal self-confidence that he has shown us George W. Bush’s final outgoing letter. May he never. As did Trump, REAL men who are internally lacking in self-confidence need outsider validation. The valor of former presidents was shown in their ability to exercise discretion.
Obama is and was the finest example of a Black man that America has ever known on a national level.
With assimilation, true enough, we lost out on the pride of our Black, Deep, and African ancestry and roots in the world.
Our world history was lessened to nothingness under a temporary white rule, and this, too, discouraged many of us from becoming our best and highest version of a self-actualizer. However, we’ve seen worst racists than Donald Trump, and we’ve gone through and slayed worse and more ginormous beady-eyed hell-bats than Trump’s compartmentalized white compatriots. We’ve either overcome or been outdone.
True enough, without assimilation, we’d have never known what the hell we were trying to be equal TO, but there is no excuse for us not to march past Trump and stomp right down on his decrepit face on the way up and over.
Some have said we are not on the same page when it comes to racial politics in America and yet I beg to differ. The glass is 3/4’s full in my mind. Racism is a huge elephant, and we -those of us who are unjaded- get it.
We are all just feeling on several different parts of the elephant, while circumstantially blinded to the other parts that others are feeling. How do you eat an elephant? One piece at a time, of course.
So…Where do we go from here?
There is only one way to improve on Black America from this place, in this hour, at this time, and that is to stop the dependency and neediness of living under racial oppression BY CHOICE in this Millennium. It is to claim what belongs to us, what we earned for others, by demanding reparations. It is to stop pretending it’s anyone’s fault, FROM NOW ON, but our own … ESPECIALLY when we fail to follow-through and own our own boats, and our own votes.
Black America, if you’re going to vote, and you REALLY need to, you’ve got CIVICS work to do after the election is over. Always. It does not end at the polls.
They say Obama’s legacy is “under threat.” WE will NEVER FORGET, and we will record it and leave the true history of President Barack H. Obama Jr. for all of our children to read about in spite of them.
Obama said that he would not concentrate specifically on black people because he was not confident in his abilities to persuade members of congress to commit to a multi year, multi million dollar solution to help specifically black people…….he was right. Instead he tried to change things in which all black people participate in like health care. His thinking was when the tide rises up, everybody rises up.
Black people did to Obama what they did to Black Panther, they criticized both. Black people were pissed because Obama (in their minds) didn’t do anything specifically for blacks. I believe the biggest reason why blacks are still in the position we are in is because black people have no clue on how to capitalized on opportunities. Instead of bitching and whiny about what Obama did or didn’t do, we should of be grooming the next Obama who could of done more. We should of took advantage of his credibility and use it to advance those blacks who we deemed worthy of our support and who would advocate for our issues. Instead we looked ridiculous criticizing the first president of color more than white people.
To give you an ideal of how Obama has helped black americans, lets take a look at all of the record number of black judges that were appointed…….this is how we should taken advantage of Obama’s legacy. The problems black people have took 400 yrs to create. To expect Obama to solve all of our problems in 8 short years was unreasonable. Our problems will take many black presidents to resolve.
Black Panther is an excellent opportunity for us because we have proven that we are bankable and that leads to larger budgets, more work for black actors, black producers etc which hopefully means more money spent in the black community. So yes the white man is getting paid but if we were smart we would take advantage of that opportunity to create an even greater number of opportunities for black americans which is basically what Obama tried to do. Who cares that white man gets paid, what we should be concern about is how can we capitalize on it. But no, black people would rather cut their nose off to spite their face.