In 1979, President Jimmy Carter decreed that June would be Black Music Month. Each president since then has signed a proclamation recognizing the contributions of African American musicians and music. In 2009, President Barack Obama rebranded the annual celebration as “African-American Music Appreciation Month”
The legacy of African-American composers, singers, songwriters, and musicians is an indelible piece of our Nation's culture. Generations of African Americans have carried forward the musical traditions of their forebears, blending old styles with innovative rhythms and sounds. They have enriched American music and captured the diversity of our Nation. During African-American Music Appreciation Month, we honor this rich heritage.
There’s no better place to get the celebration started than at the mecca of African American culture, the world famous Apollo Theater.
I am a museum lover. Before the opening of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Portrait Gallery was my favorite Smithsonian museum. It’s now my second museum. When Barack Obama won the 2008 election, I thought that he will be included in the pantheon of American Presidents.
President Obama’s portrait was unveiled last week.
Today, Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald became the first black artists to create official, Smithsonian-commissioned portraits of a former President and First Lady.
And Michelle and I joined our distinguished predecessors and thousands of our fellow Americans on the walls of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.
To call this experience humbling would be an understatement.
That’s because, as a former president, when you choose an artist to describe your likeness, you have the opportunity to shape, quite literally, how someone sees the office of the American presidency. And how they might see themselves in that presidency.
[…]
The arts have always been central to the American experience. They provoke thought, challenge our assumptions, and shape how we define our narrative as a country.
Thanks to Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, generations of Americans — and young people from all around the world — will visit the National Portrait Gallery and see this country through a new lens. These works upend the notion that there are worlds where African Americans belong and worlds where we don’t. And that’s something Michelle and I hope we contributed to over the eight years we were so privileged to serve you from the White House.
Michelle Obama’s portrait will join the collection of First Ladies.
In case you missed it, check out “Obama Portrait Unveiling at the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery.”
An estimated 100,000 enslaved Africans were brought to Venezuela where their descendants, Afro-Venezuelans, are subject to colorism. As in the United States, if you’re white, you’re alright. If you’re brown, stick around. But if you’re black, get back.
Afrodescendants face discrimination in a region that has a fondness for racial caricatures. The Mexican comic book character Memín Pinguín is popular throughout Latin America. Loathed by Afro-Latinos, the caricature has been denounced by Hispanic American civil rights organizations, including the League of United Latin American Citizens and UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza).
A study on “Hate Speech and The Language of Racism in Latin America” found:
In Latin America where Jim Crow state-mandated exclusion never existed, racist speech about Afro-descendants is ubiquitous and facilitates the social exclusion of Afro-descendants. In addition, to the term “negro” (black/negro) being derogatory, Afro-descendants are stereotyped and referred to as inherently criminal, intellectually inferior, overly sexual, and animalistic. Because the racialized stereotypes of Afro-descendants are pervasive, they are commonly understood to smell like animals and in particular monkeys.
Racial caricatures have been used as brands across the region. In Colombia, Mimo’s ice cream flavours were depicted by race: a black man for chocolate, a white girl for vanilla.
A little over two years ago, a Venezuelan couple set up shop in Harlem. They chose to brand their products “The Monkey Cup.” The company’s logo bears a striking resemblance to Memín Pinguín.
The co-owner says the name stems from her husband’s love for monkeys. Truth be told, “monkey” is a common derogatory term Venezuelans use for people of African descent. Hugo Chavez, Venezuela’s first president of African and Indigenous descent, was called “Miko Mandante” (“Ape Commander”) by his opponents.
With the help of a Georgia-based company whose New York City marketing team is lily-white, the couple plans to open a second location on the street named after Adam Clayton Powell Jr., an iconic historical figure who fought against Jim Crow laws and practices.
There is a long history of monkey iconography that depicts blacks as less than human. The caricatures are used to support a system of white supremacy and racial discrimination.
The use of a name and image associated with American – and Venezuelan – racial exclusion effectively denies access to a public place to people of African descent. In Venezuela, I would be considered “brown” or “mestizo” so maybe I would be welcomed. But I’d rather drink muddy water than a drop of whatever they’re brewing at “The Monkey Cup.”
In 1937, President Franklin D. Roosevelt proclaimed Columbus Day a federal holiday. Eighty years later, cities across the country are telling the explorer who never set foot in North America to get lost.
From Bangor, Maine to Berkeley, California, Columbus Day has been replaced with Indigenous Peoples Day, a celebration of the millions of Indigenous Americans who were here long before Christopher Columbus sat sail from Spain.
Given the givens, former President Barack Obama’s 2016 proclamation may be the last White House acknowledgment of the devastation inflicted on those who came before Columbus:
[W]e must also acknowledge the pain and suffering reflected in the stories of Native Americans who had long resided on this land prior to the arrival of European newcomers. The past we share is marked by too many broken promises, as well as violence, deprivation, and disease.
In 1796, as George Washington set the precedent for a peaceful, democratic transfer of power, he also set a precedent by penning a farewell address to the American people. And over the 220 years since, many American presidents have followed his lead.
On Tuesday, January 10, I’ll go home to Chicago to say my grateful farewell to you, even if you can’t be there in person.
I'm just beginning to write my remarks. But I'm thinking about them as a chance to say thank you for this amazing journey, to celebrate the ways you've changed this country for the better these past eight years, and to offer some thoughts on where we all go from here.
Since 2009, we've faced our fair share of challenges, and come through them stronger. That's because we have never let go of a belief that has guided us ever since our founding—our conviction that, together, we can change this country for the better.
So I hope you'll join me one last time.
You can join him via livestream here. For African Americans, Barack Obama’s parting will be such sweet sorrow.
President Barack Obama reportedly will go on a "farewell tour" in mid-January. In light of Democratic losses since 2009, he may want to fly over some states.
Washington Post political commentator Chris Cillizza recently wrote:
What Democrats expected to be the historic election of the first female president was instead a devastating loss — for Clinton, Obama and their political vision. That reversal of fortune was palpable in the days following the election as Democrats reeled from a knockout blow that they never even saw coming.
When President Obama passes the baton to President Donald J. Trump, Democrats will be left with memories.
It’s Week Two of the reality of President-elect Donald Trump.
The pundits and pollsters who predicted Donald Trump would lose are now wondering, “What happened?” They are particularly at a loss to understand Trump’s support among black voters. So let me help them out.
I had long predicted that Trump would receive more support among African Americans than reflected in the polls. The reason: illegal immigration. I have been writing about illegal immigration since 2005. Until President Barack Obama, poll after poll found African Americans oppose amnesty. However, they muted their opposition because they are protective of the first black president.
When I’m out and about, I hear black men complain that they have been replaced by illegal immigrants on privately-financed construction projects and locked out by project labor agreements on public projects.
In 2009, African Americans were shoved aside as Obama’s “shovel-ready” jobs went to illegal immigrants, union members and unionized contractors (98% of black-owned construction companies are non-union). Black-owned businesses were shut out of stimulus-funded contracts.
The day before the election, the New York Times asked, “Are There Really Hidden Trump Voters?” The columnists smugly concluded:
Unfortunately for Mr. Trump, the respondents who appear to favor him — but not enough to say they will vote for him — are also more likely to believe that it may be better to just stay home. This result also suggests that instead of tipping the uncommitted one way or the other, late-breaking negative headlines may simply further decrease turnout among this group.
And so on Election Day, don’t be surprised if most hidden Trump supporters remain hidden.
In the privacy of the voting booth, black men who support Trump did not have to hide. They were among the cohort of voters whom Trump campaign manager Kellyanne Conway dubbed “undercover.” Indeed, 13 percent of black men who turned out on Election Day were “undercover” brothers.
For eight years, African Americans have had President Obama’s back. Still, I watched in disbelief as black Philadelphians cheered when he bragged that “more Americans are working, more have health insurance. Incomes are rising. Poverty is falling.”
Parenthetically, Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the country. The poverty rate is 26.3 percent; nearly 37 percent of children live in poverty. Philly has the highest rate of deep poverty (12.9 percent) of the nation’s 10 most populous cities. Roughly 200,000 residents have incomes below half of the poverty line.
Now, I’ve praised President Obama on his amazing management of the great recession as well as his consistent job growth and overall economic progress. However, that success, unfortunately, includes every race except for blacks. The unemployment rate for blacks is nearly 9 percent and remains twice that of whites.
As the unemployment rate for blacks has risen, the same stats for whites, Asians and Latinos declined in the latest October 2016 jobs numbers from the Labor Department. The youth unemployment rate for blacks ages 16-24 has been over 18 percent this year and is more than double the rate of the white youth unemployment rate.
One would hope that the healthy 16-24 year olds who make up our nation’s most underserved race would be a vibrant work force. Well, the fact is that nearly 60 percent don’t work at all.
The unfortunate reality is that, for a growing number of underserved blacks in this country have lost the American dream under Obama. Backing Obama’s economic policies did Hillary Clinton no favors with millennials and working class blacks when it came to jobs and the economy. Blacks also had to take into account that Hillary and Bill themselves amassed $100 million to $200 million in personal wealth.
Throw in Obamacare premiums rising at staggering rates and this had to push a number of black voters away from supporting the Clinton ticket, as they dealt with the realities of financial struggles.
Brewer continued:
I voted for a hope of making black America great again too. I voted for an end of 30 years of establishment rule in America. I voted for President Donald Trump, with hopes that God frees his mind of the bias and division long enough to do great things for blacks and all the citizens of our great nation.
I, too, voted for change. I voted for Donald Trump.
