In 2008, 96 per cent of black Americans voted for Barack Obama; in 2012, 94 percent of us did. We have been his most loyal constituency. As a prominent black Republican, even I voted for Obama in 2008, partly because of the historical significance of his candidacy, but also because I believed he had a better programme than John McCain and Sarah Palin.
What a disappointment the past eight years have been! Despite Obama’s mantra of “Hope" when he first ran for President, on any objective measure, blacks have fared poorly.
The black poverty rate was 25.8 per cent in 2009 and had climbed to 27.2 per cent five years later, according to the Pew Research Center. The earnings gap between blacks and whites is wider than it was in 1979, according to the Economic Policy Institute. As median incomes rose with the recovery last year, they went up more slowly for black people.
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