By Raynard Jackson
NNPA Columnist
Well, it’s that time of year once again for me to pick my biggest winners and losers for 2013. Unlike most of the year end lists, mine will not be based on polling data, or popularity. Rather, it’s from the lens of a businessman. Based on the contribution of time, money, or intangible capital, did the person or group receive an appropriate rate of return on their investment?
I will begin with the three biggest losers and work down from there. By far, the biggest loser of the year and of the Obama presidency was and is the Black community. How can a group give a president 96 percent and 94 percent of their vote to him and have little, if anything to show for it. If the White unemployment rate was the same as the Black unemployment rate, it would be declared a national crisis. No sitting president, regardless of party, would have won reelection with that dynamic at play.
According to the November 2013 unemployment report (the most recent data available), the national unemployment rate was 7.2 percent. For Blacks, it was 12.5 percent; for Latinos 8.7 percent, and Whites 6.2 percent. According to Heidi Shierholz, an economist for the Economic Policy Institute, “the Black unemployment rate has always been higher, largely due to long term structural trends that include a lower education level and a more limited social circle.”
Blacks have been the most loyal voting bloc for Democrats and for Obama particularly in the history of the U.S. and yet this president says he is not going to do anything specific for Blacks because he is president of all of America. All except Black America.
Yet, this president can’t go a day without trying to shove homosexuality down the throats of Americans and Africans. He doesn’t have the guts to try this in the Middle East because he know how the pro-Israel lobby will react.
This president can hardly go a day without trying to give amnesty to those in the U.S. illegals. He wants to inject millions of new people into the labor market to compete with Blacks for low and unskilled jobs, thus further exacerbating the high unemployment rate in the Black community.
And to think, educated Blacks said all of last year, that if Obama won reelection he would then help Blacks since he didn’t have to face the voters again. When a person shows you who they are, you better believe them.
The second biggest loser is the “truth.” According to Obama, “You can keep your own doctor.” Enough said.
The final biggest loser is the media. They have bent over backwards to curry favor with Obama and his minions. They worked hand in hand with Obama to perpetuate the story line that Benghazi was about a video tape. They reluctantly covered the IRS scandal and many of them hold out Edward Snowden as some kind of hero. Obama has more active journalist in his administration than any of his predecessors, yet he is one of the least transparent presidents.
By far the biggest winner of the year is the homosexual movement, both under Obama and the U.S. Supreme Court. Obama has done more to expand the homosexual movement than any other person on the face of the earth. He is the same person that Newsweek magazine labeled the “first gay president.” It is estimated that homosexuals account for 2-5 percent of the U.S. population, but they have been showered with more tangible benefits under Obama than all other groups combined. And the Supreme Court has also been complicit in furthering that agenda.
The second biggest winner of this year are those in the country illegally. They can’t even vote, but yet they have received more attention and action from Obama than the Black community. As if this weren’t bad enough, you have the NAACP and the National Urban League supporting illegals and their push for citizenship. This defies logic that they would put a group of non-citizens before the interests of citizens they purport to represent. What is it about Black organizations that they have to be “inclusive” yet other effective groups look after the narrow interests of their supporters.
The third biggest winner is Vladimir Putin. During his annual state of the nation address two weeks ago, he said, “…We do not infringe on anyone’s interests, we do not force our patronage on anyone, or try to teach anyone how to live…We know there are ever more people in the world who support our position in defense of the traditional values that for centuries have formed the moral foundation of civilization, putting traditional family values top of the list.”
Wow! Who would have ever dreamed that the U.S. would be lectured by Putin on traditional values and the sanctity of the traditional family? This was a direct rebuke of Obama’s attempt to force other nations to accept his views on homosexuality.
So I end this year as I began—trying to get people to think a new thought. Happy New Year!
Raynard Jackson is president & CEO of Raynard Jackson & Associates, LLC., a Washington, D.C.-based public relations/government affairs firm. He can be reached through his Web site, www.raynardjackson.com. You can also follow him on Twitter at raynard1223.