Anderson@Large

State of the Union Postscript

MSNBC talking-head Chris Matthews, who famously said he “felt this thrill going up my leg” when Barack Obama speaks, now praises President Obama’s temporary absence of blackness:

I was trying to think about who he was tonight. It’s interesting: he is post-racial, by all appearances. I forgot he was black tonight for an hour.

Matthews’ gaffe comes on the heels of Sen. Harry Reid’s riff on the acceptability of light-skinned blacks with no “Negro dialect” and observations that Sen.-elect Scott Brown “looks like an American.”

More than 100 years later, W.E.B. Du Bois’ prediction remains as prescient as ever: “The problem of the twentieth twenty-first century is the problem of the color-line.”

State of the Union Remixed

President Barack Obama has delivered his first State of the Union address. After acknowledging the 10 percent unemployment rate and declining home values, Obama asserted:

Despite our hardships, our union is strong. We do not give up. We do not quit. We don’t allow fear or division to break our spirit.

Obama spoke about Americans’ shared anxieties:

So we face big and difficult challenges. And what the American people hope -- what they deserve -- is for all of us, Democrats and Republicans, to work through our differences; to overcome the numbing weight of our politics. For while the people who sent us here have different backgrounds, different stories and different beliefs, the anxieties they face are the same.

Obama addressed the concerns of small business owners, gays and lesbians, women and illegal immigrants, but said nothing about the racial disparities that are inducing anxiety in the African American community.

Obama’s overall message: “I don't quit.”

But Obama should quit taking black folks for granted. So, here’s the State of Black Americans, by the numbers:

23.9% -- Unemployment rate in Michigan (highest in the country)

16.2% -- National unemployment rate

15.6% -- Unemployment rate in Florida (Obama holds a campaign rally town hall meeting at the University of Tampa today)

$34,218 -- Annual median income in 2008

.62 -- Blacks earn 62 cents for every dollar of white income

$142 billion -- Estimated wages and salaries lost from 2008 to 2012

.10 -- Blacks have 10 cents for every dollar of net worth whites have

34.7% -- African American children living in poverty in 2008

24.6% -- Overall black poverty rate

19.1% -- Lacked health insurance in 2008

48% -- Mortgages to African American borrowers were subprime loans

$71 billion and $92 billion -- Estimated loss of housing wealth from subprime loans

35% -- Voter turnout in predominately black precincts in Massachusetts special election.

Mr. President, It’s Cold on Main Street

President Barack Obama will deliver his first State of the Union address tonight. Obama will propose a three-year freeze on “non-security” discretionary spending to rein in the federal deficit.

Never mind that candidate Obama said “the problem with a spending freeze is you’re using a hatchet where you need a scalpel.”

Bottom line: Obama was against a spending freeze before he was for it.

A proposed spending freeze leaves former Labor Secretary Robert Reich cold:

The bigger news is Obama is planning a three-year budget freeze on a big chunk of discretionary spending. Wall Street is delighted. But it means Main Street is in worse trouble than ever.

A pending freeze will make it even harder to get jobs back because government is the last spender around. Consumers have pulled back, investors won't do much until they know consumers are out there, and exports are miniscule.

[…]

His three-year freeze on a large portion of discretionary spending will make it impossible for him to do much of anything for the middle class that’s important. Chalk up another win for Wall Street, another loss for Main.

During a recent economic recovery workshop Ryan Sweet, a senior economist with Moody’s Economy.com made a similar warning about the risk of cutting back on government spending:

A self-sustaining expansion will only happen if stimulus spending is not withdrawn too quickly.

Obama: One and Done?

Polls show Americans have lost that loving feeling, but President Barack Obama says it’s all good.

In an interview with ABC’s Diane Sawyer, Obama said:

I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.

Here’s the exchange:

SAWYER: Ever in the middle of all that’s coming did you think maybe one term is enough?

OBAMA: You know, I -- I would say that when I -- the one thing I’m clear about is that I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president. And I -- and I believe that.

You know, there’s a tendency in Washington to think that our job description of elected officials is to get re-elected. That’s not our job description. Our job description is to solve problems and to help people. And, you know, that’s not just the view of elected officials themselves. That’s also the filter through which the media reads things.

And the reason I can say this with confidence is I’ve gone through this before. I went through this through the campaign.

When your poll numbers drop, you’re an idiot. When your poll numbers are high, you’re a genius. If my poll numbers are low, then I’m cool and cerebral and cold and detached. If my poll numbers are high, well, he’s calm and reasoned.

I wish I had a dollar for every time a black person told me that we should be cool until Obama is reelected in 2012.

The theory goes that in a hoped-for second term, Obama would be free to address issues of importance to Americans whose overwhelming job approval rating is propping him up in the polls.

In light of Obama’s pledge, speak truth to power now or forever hold your peace.

Black Joblessness the New Normal?

In a recent column, Dan Froomkin, the deputy editor of Neiman Watchdog Project, outlined seven things about the economy that should keep you up at night:

1. The middle class may never be the same again
2. The recovery could take a really long time
3. The recovery could only be temporary
4. Then what? This time, we don’t have the tools to get out of a recession
5. The ‘very serious’ people in Washington are still obsessed about the deficit
6. Whatever is making the stock market go up could go away
7. The hugely irresponsible financial sector remains unchastened

I would add No. 8: Double-digit unemployment may become the “new normal” for African Americans.

Ryan Sweet, a senior economist with Moody’s Economy.com, gave a presentation on economic indicators to watch during the “Tracking the Economic Recovery” workshop organized by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism.

Sweet said the economic downturn was “one of the most broad-based recessions in recent memory.” Though the economy is coming back, the “recovery is not being felt by everyone.” The pace of recovery and economic drivers vary from region-to-region.

If you’re in Alaska or Texas, energy-driven states, things are looking up. But if you’re in, say, Michigan, you may want to consider relocating to Alaska or Texas.

Sweet says the Wolverine State needs to “reinvent” its economy. But it may be “decades” before Michigan workers are back in the driver’s seat.

I sat up when Sweet posited that an unemployment rate of 6.5 percent may become the new normal for full employment. Before the Great Recession, an unemployment rate of 4 percent was full employment.

Since black unemployment is typically twice the overall rate, will double-digit unemployment be considered full employment? If so, what will be the policy, political and social implications?

The prospect that these could be the good old days is enough to keep you lying awake at night.

Massachusetts Miracle Postscript

White male privilege is back.

Before the polls had even closed in the Bay State, CNBC’s Donny Deutsch attributed Martha Coakley’s expected loss to voters’ “visceral comfort” with Scott Brown:

He is a traditional-looking middle-aged white male. We’re going back to basics, we’ve obviously had our first African American president we’ve had the female candidates and what-not – you look at him, he looks like the candidate, the traditional view of the candidate, and is there a visceral comfort in that for people? I’m just curious from real kind of sociological point of view.

In response, Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan said Brown “looks like an American.”

Massachusetts Gov. Patrick Deval, a light-skinned Harvard-trained lawyer with no Negro dialect, is up for reelection in November.

Should he be worried? You betcha!

Obama and Everyday People

They say the prospect of a hanging concentrates the mind. Ditto the loss of “Ted Kennedy’s seat” to an obscure Republican who a month ago had little more than a “truck, and a few dedicated volunteers.”

In the aftermath of the Boston Tea Party, White House strategist David Axelrod told reporters President Barack Obama will focus on the concerns of “everyday people”:

The president is a thoughtful guy, and he’s reflecting on what happened and thinking through what lessons there are there and how to move forward.

He’s every bit as determined as he was a year ago to make this system work for everyday people in this country and to make this economy work for everyday people, middle-class people in this country, and that was very clear.

And in case the MSM didn’t get it, he added:

The bottom line has to be and continue to be the economic security of everyday people. We need to focus the agenda of Washington on that.

Axelrod’s comments begs the question: Are black folks considered everyday people?

Keep in mind Obama told American Urban Radio Network’s April Ryan he couldn’t target the concerns of African Americans because he’s “president of the entire United States.”