Once we stop rehashing this term out of context, we can stop accepting as a
given that African-Americans have already had their black president, and focus
instead on this actual African-American candidate we have before us, Barack
Obama
A Princeton assistant Professor of political and African-American studies goes ever farther. She claims that a lot of credit President Clinton receives from Black Americans is undeserved and the perception differs greatly from the reality of the nineties.
By the time Clinton left office, many African-Americans incorrectly
believed that blacks were doing better economically than whites. In the '80s,
barely 5 percent of blacks believed blacks were economically better off than
whites. By 2000, nearly 30 percent of African-American respondents believed that
blacks were doing better economically than whites. This belief is simply wrong.
She also states that those who had a stronger affection for Clinton were more likely to believe the falsehood that blacks were doing better than whites. Also pointed out in this article is that the poorest of blacks did not fare very well during the era of prosparity during the 90's.
As Clinton performed blackness, real black people got poorer. The poorest
African-Americans experienced an absolute decline in income, and they also
became poorer relative to the poorest whites. The richest African-Americans saw
an increase in income, but even the highest-earning blacks still considerably
lagged their white counterparts. Furthermore, the '90s witnessed the continued
growth of the significant gap between black and white median wealth.
While I have always thought that most of the factors driving inequality are outside the control of the President, this is not a belief held by many liberals and economic populists.
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