opinion
iowa gOP win: santorum’s race
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I
t’s a pickle the former under-
performing
Pennsylvania
Senator has been in before.
Perhaps afraid of repeating past
electoral mistakes (flashbacking in
cold sweats to his 18 point loss in
2006 to current Sen. Bob Casey),
Rick Santorum appears to fall
back on race as a way to gain tac-
tical advantage in the Republican
presidential primaries.
Some experts call Santorum’s
come-from-behind photo finish,
statistical tie with frontrunner Mitt
Romney in the Iowa Caucuses
proof that retail politicking works.
While Romney, Newt Gingrich,
Rick Perry and others were look-
ing for the right social media trend
and relying on debate performanc-
es, Santorum went native in Iowa,
shaking hands, kissing babies and
slapping backs. Other experts call
it pure luck.
But some are calling it a cheap
attempt at racial coding that
worked. In a place where only 2
percent of the population is
African American, and the majori-
ty of caucus goers are rural white
seniors, aged 50 and up, Black
people become an easy target.
Santorum hasn’t been able to
shake that perception since right
before the caucus. “I don’t want to
make Black people’s lives better
by giving them somebody else’s
money. I want to give them the
opportunity to go out and earn the
money,” was Santorum in the
flesh, free-styling about Medicaid
and other social entitlements
before a small sea of white faces.
To Santorum supporters, and
rank and file Republicans, it’s as if
he didn’t use the word “Black.”
Passionate debates flared up
a gainSt the g rain
C. D. Ellison
throughout Facebook and the
Twitterverse, with loyal conserva-
tives (both Black and white)
swearing the senator didn’t say it.
Others blamed it on an invisible
reporter asking the question. Still,
when watching the CBS video that
went viral across the Web, it’s
clear as Hawkeye State snow on a
bitterly cold day what Santorum
President Marc Morial, who blasts
Santorum for picking on people of
color when nearly 85 percent of
food stamp recipients are white.
“By falsely suggesting that people
of color are a disproportionate
drain on resources provided main-
ly by whites, Santorum deliberate-
ly fans the flames of racial divi-
siveness,” says Morial.
Santorum’s been here before.
Back in July of 2011 when he
announced his run for the
Presidency under a hot Somerset
County sun, he was digging back
‘I don’t want to make Black people’s
lives better by giving them somebody
else’s money’
said:
“Black.”
It was an awkward moment.
Even the senator admitted as much
in a follow-up interview on CBS
News in which the host dogged
him with questions on what he
meant. Santorum reached for the
mental lapse defense, swatting at
his own comment as if a mosquito
were buzzing in his ear. He claims
he didn’t know the context —
while not denying he said it.
“If you look at what I’ve been
saying, I’ve been pretty clear
about my concern for dependency
in this country and concern for
people not being more dependent
on our government, whatever their
race or ethnicity is,” Santorum
said in the interview.
But, that’s a big part of the prob-
lem, argues Urban League
into old racial coding crates,
lamenting to cheers and applause
from an ocean of white
Pennsylvanians how “ … America
was a great country before 1965.”
It was the same question back
then as it was this week: Why pick
1965? Was the wine good that
year? Some observers, particularly
many civil rights historians and
activists, chomped on the sena-
tor’s bit about that, accusing him
of racial pandering to an anti-
Black conservative electorate
seething with resentment at any
sign of Black progress. It just so
happened 1965 was the year
President Lyndon Johnson signed
Executive Order 11246, otherwise
known to most as “Affirmative
Action.”
Later on in that same speech, he
rails on entitlements and clumsily
inserts recent small talk with Juan
Williams as validation. Williams is
the Black journalist famously dis-
graced from National Public
Radio, but now happily skipping
about on FOX News as their most
visible face of color.
“Juan Williams said to me about
a week after President Obama
decided to double down. I saw him
in the green room. And I said why
are you doing this? Here’s what he
said. He said, ‘Let me tell you
what President Obama’s team is
telling me.’ He said, ‘Americans
love entitlements, and once we get
them hooked, they will never let it
go.’”
Some suggest that Santorum
knows what he’s doing, but
observe that critics shouldn’t be so
fast to knock him as “racist.” It’s
all politics, they say, and the sena-
tor is doing what it takes to win the
primary.
“Look — Rick is from a state
where the Black population sur-
passes the national one,” says one
source speaking anonymously on
background. “He worked closely
with Black clergy and community
activists as a senator and found
federal money for programs when
they couldn’t. You can’t walk
around Pennsylvania and not
bump into a Black person.”
“But,” the source wryly adds,
“Rick has this habit — just like
most politicians — of sometimes
tailoring his message for a particu-
lar kind of base. And he’s always
Charles D. ellison Special to
the nnPa from the Philadelphia
tribune
Read the rest online at
www.theskanner.com
african americans lose, white Others gain
T
he unemployment rate is
falling for the third month in
a row, and in December
about 200,000 private sector jobs
were created. The monthly unem-
ployment report from the Bureau
of Labor Statistics indicated that
unemployment has declined by six
tenths of a percentage point since
August. Already, some economists
are saying we can expect another
decline next month.
I am surprised, however, at the
very tepid language that the
Employment Situation report uses
to describe the increase in African
American unemployment. A rise
of .3 percent among African
Americans, the second rise in as
many months, is described as hav-
ing “changed little”. It has
changed enough so that while
some are celebrating gains,
African Americans are losing.
Indeed, the African American
unemployment rate increased
from 15.5 to 15.8 percent.
Black women, it turns out, are
losing more than most. While the
unemployment rate for adult
African American women, at 13.9
percent, is still lower than the male
rate of 15.7 percent, African
American men gained jobs this
year, while African American
women lost them. Why? Nearly
one in four (23 percent) African
American women works for gov-
ernment, and federal, state, and
local governments are releasing
page 4 The Seattle Skanner January 11, 2012
B ennett
C ollege
Julianne
Malveaux
workers, not hiring them. And
while some governments will
attempt to get the economy mov-
ing by creating construction and
redevelopment opportunities for
men, teachers, nurses
and social workers,
mostly women, are
walking on eggshells in
fear of job losses. Even
when we know that
smaller classroom size
gives a better yield in
terms of educational
results, school districts
are being forced to shoe-
horn another student or two into
already-crowded
classrooms
because of cost issues.
The data that comes from the
Employment Situation report is,
probably much lower than the
reality of African American unem-
ployment. When we include those
marginally attached to the labor
force (stopped looking, etc.), as
well as those part time workers
that want full time work, the
unemployment rate for the total
population is not 8.5 percent,
but 15.2 percent. And the esti-
mate of the African American
unemployment rate would be
not 15.8 percent, but a whop-
ping 28.3 percent. More facts –
though the number of officially
unemployed people is dropping,
it is still high enough with 13.1
million actively looking for
word and not finding it. And the
average person has been out of
work for 40.8 weeks, six weeks
longer than a year ago. The head-
lines blaze optimism, the reality is
different.
Someone has to explain
why these policies aren’t
working for African
Americans
Add to this a recent report that
says that the wealth gap between
Congress and their constituents is
growing. In 1984, the average
member of Congress had wealth of
$280,000, excluding home equity.
In the twenty years since 1984,
Congressional wealth grew by two
and a half times, to $725,000.
Again, this doesn’t include home
equity. In contrast, the median
wealth of an American family
actually dropped slightly to
around $20,500, again, not includ-
ing home equity. It is very likely
that when home equity is added,
the gap is even larger.
This wealth gap perhaps
explains why Congressional repre-
sentatives are more interested in
tax cuts than in creating jobs. It
explains,
perhaps,
why
Republicans so resisted President
Obama’s plan to extend the Social
Security tax cut and also to extend
unemployment rate insurance.
Congress is operating in their own
self-interest, they aren’t thinking
about their jobless and economi-
cally challenged constituents.
If these members of
Congress got calls from bill
collectors, lived with less
money than month, had to
deny their children a new pair
of shoes or an after-school
trip because of dollars, or
actually had to visit a grocery
store on a budget, they might
have not so hesitated before
they eventually capitulated to
President Obama’s determination.
Still the growing wealth gap per-
haps explains why so few are
alarmed at some of the unemploy-
ment rate data.
To be sure, it is exciting to see
unemployment rates drop, even
slightly. It suggests that some of
the Obama policies are working.
But someone has to explain why
these policies aren’t working for
African Americans, especially for
African American women.