ELDER: Obama whips out race card and tells ‘brothers’ how to vote

Published Oct 18, 2024  •  3 minute read

Former US President Barack Obama speaks as he campaigns for US Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on October 10, 2024. Photo by RYAN COLLERD /AFP

So, former U.S. president Barack Obama tells “the brothers” to vote for Vice-President Kamala Harris because she’s a black woman — and women have “been getting our backs this entire time.”

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Obama said: “My understanding, based on reports I’m getting from campaigns and communities, is that we have not yet seen the same kinds of energy and turnout in all quarters of our neighbourhoods and communities as we saw when I was running. (This lack of enthusiasm) seems to be more pronounced with the brothers.” He also said “(black) women in our lives have been getting our backs this entire time.”

Is this how Obama talks to “the brothers” down at the barbershop in Martha’s Vineyard? Of course, he wouldn’t implore “the brothers” to vote for, say, Republican Condoleezza Rice if she was the Republican presidential nominee. If people voted based on their race, Obama could never have been elected state senator, U.S. senator or president.

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Obama also told “the brothers” to vote for Harris because “you have somebody who grew up like you.”
This is quite a statement from someone who grew up unlike anyone most voters know.

Obama was born in Hawaii. His mom obtained a PhD in anthropology and his father an economics degree from Harvard. Obama’s mom remarried an oil company executive and Barack lived in Indonesia for a few years, where he attended a private school set up by his stepfather’s oil company for the children of its executives.

Obama’s mom sent him back to Hawaii because she wanted her son to get an even better education. There, he lived with his white maternal grandparents. His grandmother became a bank executive and his grandfather was a successful salesman.

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In Hawaii, Obama attended the prestigious Punahou prep school where the tuition for the 2023-24 school year is $30,480, not including student activity fees. He did his first two years of college at an elite school in Los Angeles before getting his undergraduate degree from Columbia and his law degree from Harvard.

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If, according to Obama, people should vote for those who “grew up like you,” why should “the brothers” — and for that matter most anyone else — have voted for Obama given how he grew up? So much for content of character and not colour of skin. Obama wants Jim Crow 2.0.

Beyond this, consider how blacks fared under Preacher Obama. As I wrote in 2015: “In 2009, when Obama took office, the black poverty rate was 25.8%. As of 2014, according to Pew Research Center, the black poverty rate was 27.2%.

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“CNNMoney says, ‘Minority households’ median income fell 9% between 2010 and 2013, compared to a drop of only 1% for whites.’ The Financial Times (in October 2014) wrote: ‘Since 2009, median non-white household income has dropped by almost a 10th to $33,000 a year, according to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s survey of consumer finances.’

“What about net worth and the black-white ‘wealth gap’? The Financial Times said: ‘The median non-white family today has a net worth of just $18,100 — almost a fifth lower than it was when Mr. Obama took office. White median wealth, on the other hand, has inched up by 1% to $142,000. … Both in relative and absolute terms, blacks are doing worse under Mr. Obama.’

“From 2010 to 2013, according to the Federal Reserve, white household median wealth increased a modest 2.4%, while Hispanic families’ wealth declined 14%, to $13,700. But blacks’ net worth fell from $16,600 to $11,000. This is an astonishing three-year drop of 34%. … The black/white ‘wealth gap’ has reached a 25-year high.”

What about unemployment? By 2014, the black labour force participation rate — the percentage of blacks working or seeking work — stood at the lowest since these numbers have been recorded.

As to home ownership? The Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies wrote, “Home ownership rates have fallen six percentage points among black households — double that among white households.”

Given Obama’s dismal economic record, why should “the brothers” listen to a race-card hustler who tells them to vote on race and gender?

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