Democratic Texas State Senator and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis was heavily criticized for a political ad she ran against her disabled Republican opponent Greg Abbott. To clarify, she did not claim Abbott was an unfit candidate because he is disabled—that would be discriminatory.
She argued, and rightfully so, that Greg Abbott politicizes his disability yet he actively ruled and legally fought against the blind, deaf, and those with amputees among others. Despite his successful lawsuit for the injury he incurred 30 years ago, Abbott has consistently blocked disabled Texans from suing the state for discrimination under the American’s with Disabilities Act.
Davis’s logic, however, reveals the same fallacies about herself. She claims as a woman to support policies that safeguard and empower women yet has little to show for it. Consider the issue of birth control, for example. Davis, like the majority of female elected officials, claims women should have unfettered access to it. Yet, the birth control medications available and readily prescribed to healthy young women—Depo Provera, Ortho Evra, and the Nuvo Ring—are killing and/or destroying women’s health.
Davis is not “standing with” the women who cite numerous examples in class actions lawsuits of the life-long and life-threatening health conditions they suffer because of these drugs: blood clots, pulmonary embolisms, heart attacks, blood disorders, sterilization, and death. Young women are dropping dead and Davis is silent.
But more importantly, the first black president of the United States has caused more harm to black Americans than most of his predecessors.
Barack Obama’s policies of “hope” and “change” have increased long-term unemployment by 14 percent since he took office, increased the national debt more than all of his predecessors combined, increased inflation 43 percent more than President Bush, and caused more Americans to lose their health insurance and access to medical care than ever before.
Under the first black president, black unemployment is higher and black participation in the labor force (60.2 percent) is at its lowest since December 1977. Both unemployment and underemployment among blacks is more than double that of whites according to national labor statistics.
In Obama’s Illinois, it’s worse—less than 50 percent of blacks are employed. They face significant challenges in a state whose food-stamp enrollment outpaces job creation by nearly 2 to 1, and ranks last of all 50 states in job creation. In fact, Illinoisians are leaving the state at a rate of one person every ten minutes because of Obama’s disastrous economic policies.
Obama’s economic policies have fostered a cycle of abject poverty and erosion of societal cohesion distinguished by the largest increase in criminal activity in nearly two decades. Federal statistics reveal that violent crime, since 2011 is at an all-time high, with a significant increase of racially motivated hate crimes and “violent victimizations” of whites by blacks.
Worse still, black on black violence is escalating. In 2010 for example, 55 percent of homicide victims who were shot were black. Statistics indicate that 90 percent of black murder victims are killed by blacks.
In Obama’s Chicago, a city with one of the strictest gun laws in the country, there are more murders committed than in New York City or Los Angeles. In 2012 for example, compared to Chicago’s 512 murders, there were 418 in New York City and 298 in Los Angeles. Yet, Chicago is one third smaller than New York City and has one million less people than Los Angeles.
Much of this violence is committed by black youth. According to a Department of Justice Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 2012 study, in 2010 alone, black youths committed six times more murders, three times more rapes, 10 times more robberies, and three times more assaults than white youths.
Many attribute this increased violence to the breakdown of the family. To be sure, the fact that 75 percent of black children are raised by single parents is certainly a significant contributing factor. But in Obama’s America, black youth are struggling—more than 40 percent of them are unemployed, with no job creation incentives or skills training in sight.
In the first black president’s America, more black Americans are worse off today than they were in 2008—more are unemployed, underemployed, uninsured, killing each other or others, in prison, or dead.
This culture of death includes lost generations of babies. Since 1973, the black population has declined by roughly 36 percent from the loss of 16 million aborted black babies. Nearly half of all black pregnancies end in abortion, compared to 16 percent of white pregnancies. In New York City, for example, more black babies are aborted than born.
These numbers might be larger if infanticide, which Obama supports, was legal. As an Illinois state representative Obama repeatedly voted against or prevented the Born Alive Infant Protection Act from reaching a vote. The bill required doctors to keep alive abortion survivors. Obama argued, and still maintains, that abortion survivors are not people because they are not full-term nine-month old babies. Because they are not people, the Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause does not protect their right to life. Obama also opposes PRENDA, a law that would prohibit sex-selective abortions in America, because he supports access to abortion based on race and gender.
Americans should most certainly be concerned about hypocritical disabled or female politicians. However, if the socio-economic plight and culture of death within the black community is any indication of a black president’s concern for people of his own race, then the rest of Americans can expect a far worse catastrophe for themselves.
