Black People Politics : Why no Town Hall meetings in the Communities of Obama's Largest Constituency??















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Sun, 21 Aug, 2011
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TOUR PUSHES OBAMA FOR NATIONAL JOBS PROGRAM



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Detroiters listen intently to Smiley and West during Poverty Tour Townhall Meeting Aug. 8.




Published
• Sun, Aug 14, 2011

Smiley and West stir debate over Obama administration

By Zenobia Jeffries
The Michigan Citizen

DETROIT — “What this tour is about, very simply and unapologetically, is raising the plight of the poor higher on the American agenda,” media personality Tavis Smiley boomed to over a hundred Detroiters gathered in the auditorium of the Coleman A. Young Municipal Center, Aug. 8. “The truth of the matter is the poor of this country are being rendered more and more invisible everyday.”

Smiley and Princeton Professor Dr. Cornel West were in Detroit for a two-hour town hall meeting as part of their 17-city tour across the country discussing American’s poverty in an effort to put the issue at the forefront of the national agenda.

“If you’re going to tell the truth about poverty in America … [it’s] happening here,” Smiley said. “We would not have any integrity. This tour would not have credibility if somebody thinks we could bypass Detroit.”

Smiley says the greatest number of children fell into poverty between 2008-09. While the pair does not blame the Obama administration for this unprecedented increase in poverty, they are holding it responsible for “doing something about it.”

“It’s the telling of the truth that allows suffering to speak. The powers that be will ignore [it] if somebody doesn’t speak [out],” he said. “Black folks in Detroit and beyond are living at depression-era levels.”

Smiley told Detroiters, “The data … tells the story of what has happened and what is happening in this state and in this city regarding the poor.”

With unemployment nearing 50 percent in Detroit, attendees were all too familiar with the data, telling Smiley and West things going on in the city and across the state the two didn’t know, like the unprecedented emergency manager law (Public Act 4) that usurps citizens democratic rights to have their elected officials in office, the recently passed welfare law limiting recipients to 48-months of aid – retroactively, a cap on unemployment benefits, state takeovers of the school district and city resources (i.e., Cobo Hall and water department), budget cuts that significantly reduce education funding and revenue sharing cuts in already financially-strapped cities across the state — mainly urban, mainly African American — Detroit, Benton Harbor, Pontiac.

“There have been 60 bills created that are anti-working class people under Gov. [Rick] Snyder,” Herb Sanders, AFSCME attorney, told Smiley and West during the meeting, holding a petition to recall the governor.

Sanders is among a team of area attorneys who’ve filed a lawsuit to end the emergency manager law, known to Detroiters as the dictator law. “If you want to do something, get you a pen, a petition and a clipboard,” Sanders said, also announcing the petition circulating to repeal PA 4.

A middle-aged woman came seeking help, stating, “I am the face of poverty.” After 18 years on her job, she was let go with a check for $200. “I feel like I did everything I was supposed to do … I educated myself, educated my children, homeownership … but at this age, I’m unemployed … my home has an auction date of Aug. 16.”

Acknowledging her situation is not unique in Michigan or even across the United States, she implored, “I want somebody to know that I’m the face of poverty.” It’s just such cases that Smiley gives as the purpose for the Call to Conscience Poverty Tour.

“This is what Dr. West and I have been saying for the last few days on this tour,” he said. “I’ve been saying, and Dr. West has been saying, the new poor in this country are the former middle-class.”

West called the current poverty issue in America a war against poor and working class people “led by Wall Street oligarchs and corporate plutocrats.”

“In the name of deregulating markets that leave poor people socially neglected, economically abandoned, poor people have been demonized, poverty has been criminalized,” West preached.

Throughout West and Smiley’s opening speeches, a small group of attendees constantly booed and interrupted them both. Wearing T-shirts with a picture of President Barack Obama, many called the poverty tour an anti-Obama tour, loudly opposing some of the comments the speakers made.

“I did 65 events for the brother [President Obama],” said West, defending his position. “And when he won, I brokedance like MC Hammer. But I’m not breakdancing now.”

West told the group, “I said then that when he wins, I will be a major critic, if I see him in any way leaning toward the strong, the wealthy, the oligarchs and the plutocrats … I told him then …. when I looked at his economic team and he chose [Treasury Secretary] Tim Geithner and Larry Summers, former adviser to Bill Clinton … I knew if he listened to them … focusing on poor people would be secondary.”

West explained he was familiar with Summers, former president of Harvard University, who, according to West met with all heads of institutes department except Afro American Studies, and told West his association with hip hop is an embarrassment to the university.

“The line in the sand is between the greedy oligarchs and the working and poor people,” West said. “You and your precious children are on the side of the working and poor folk.”

West told Detroiters these are “deep class wounds … we gon’ need each other.” Most attendees didn’t share the protestors’ opinion that the tour was against President Obama and thanked Smiley and West for bringing national attention to Detroit.

“Thank you for coming to let us have a national dialogue of what’s happening in this city,” Valerie Burris, a Detroit resident told the two. “I love the president of the United States, but we have to push him. He said give him an agenda, so let’s give him the agenda. Let’s help our brother help us.”

There was loud applause for Burris’ comment.

Smiley says what he and West are doing might seem “counterintuitive,” but their goal is to help the president by reminding him of what he said when he ran. “We help the president by holding him accountable to what he said. Great presidents aren’t born, they’re made,” Smiley said.

He added that the Obama campaign has to find a way to energize their base. “And we are hoping ... what we are doing on this poverty tour is telling Black folk, if we get enthusiastic about getting behind him for the purpose of helping him get a jobs bill done, get behind him to remind him of what he said, get behind him to make him do what he said he was gon’ do, then he has a chance of winning,” Smiley offered.

“We have a piece of legislation that did not extend unemployment, did not close corporate loopholes, did not raise revenue on the rich or lucky. Corporate America got away scott free again, wall street got away scott free again,” Smiley said, noting the debt ceiling legislation recently signed by the president, who he says was not forced to sign.

“Nobody makes him do anything. He agreed to sign a piece of legislation to raise the debt ceiling that did not include any extension of unemployment benefits.”

Smiley says a spotlight has to be put on the poor in the country, voices have to be raised. “When these cuts start to kick in, this is going to get ugly,” he said. “As bad as it is right now, it’s going to get worse if we don’t find the courage and the conviction and the commitment to speak truth about this suffering.”

Ernest Johnson, spoke on behalf of those protesting Smiley and West’s comments. Johnson told the Michigan Citizen he was in attendance on behalf of the Community Coalition and said the meeting was good but he didn’t hear any solutions.

“I think they changed their message because of the turnout [of those of us wearing Obama T-shirts,” Johnson said. “They’ve been heavily criticizing the president…they didn’t have a bus tour criticizing Clinton [or] Bush. They shouldn’t be doing it to a Black president.”

Johnson told Smiley and West during the meeting that the attention should be focused on the 2012 election.

“My big concern is President Obama is against the ropes. That is our president; we elected him … I haven’t seen no city organized or no group of organized Black people stand up and speak up to support our president. I think it’s time for us as a group to start organizing, to give some back-up to our president … right now is the time to be preparing for ’12,” he said.

Maureen Taylor and Marian Kramer of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization spoke saying the president is moving too slowly. “I voted for Barack Obama and I support him today,” Taylor said. “But because I voted for him I’ma get in his face, he’s too **** slow.”

Taylor says something needs to be done quickly because 13,000 welfare recipients will be “kicked off” aid in October.

“Let’s set the agenda to eliminate poverty,” Kramer said. “We want you to tell the world they need to be taxing the rich and leaving us the hell alone.”

For more information on the Call to Conscience Poverty Tour, visit www.povertytour.smileyandwest.com.

The tour focusing on poverty in America will air for a five nights on PBS the last week of September/first week of October spotlighting what Smiley and West have seen and heard on their tour.





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Whatever happened to 'we the people?' It's up to us to put out issues and problem back on his list of 'to do' things...Isn't that what members of the CBC ARE doing...THEY did come to Detroit, and heard THEIR complaints...Do peep our Michigan Citzens paper too...FYI...

$$RICH$$, 22 minutes ago

And I bet he had less votes in them mostly white communities in his first run
so why not target them ......wouldn't you ? I sure would !

In the Spirit of Sankofa,

.......Brother, you and $$RICH$$ are making the most sense in this thread of all the posters, to include the OP. Continue to speak truth to power, for real straight-talk.

Peace In,
 
And I bet he had less votes in them mostly white communities in his first run
so why not target them ......wouldn't you ? I sure would !

Yes,this would make sense to put your efforts to gain favor with voters that really didn't vote for you the first time around.

Peace!
 
And I bet he had less votes in them mostly white communities in his first run so why not target them ......wouldn't you ? I sure would !
Yes,this would make sense to put your efforts to gain favor with voters that really didn't vote for you the first time around.
those white people are NEVER going to vote for obama.
here is a case of a man destroying his own presidency running after the approval of white people.
stockholm syndrome strikes again. sad.
 
TOUR PUSHES OBAMA FOR NATIONAL JOBS PROGRAM

8-12-2011-10-51-07-PM-1219537.main..gif


Detroiters listen intently to Smiley and West during Poverty Tour Townhall Meeting Aug. 8.

In the Spirit of Sankofa,

.......Say chuck, you seem like a fair guy, here is the counter-point to what you've posted. Take a read and listen the same as I've read this information you've posted, and lets see if we can meet in the middle somewhere, okay brother:

1. Steve Harvey Calls Cornel West and Tavis Smiley Uncle Toms

Steve Harvey has decided to throw himself into the ring as a critic of the Poverty Tour of Tavis Smiley and Cornel West. This week on his syndicated radio show, Harvey went in on West and Smiley in ways that turned heads.

Click for the audio/video chuck:
http://yourblackworld.com/2011/08/10/steve-harvey-calls-cornel-west-and-tavis-smiley-uncle-toms/

http://destee.com/index.php?threads/politics-from-the-black-perspective.66166/page-9#post-696421

Peace In,
 

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