Will Obama walk picket line in Wisconsin?
>> Sunday, February 27, 2011
One of the most interesting phenomenons in the Obama Post-Racial Internet Age, when you flip-flop, it's documented.
In 2007, President Obama said, "If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain, when I'm in the White House, I'll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I'll walk on that picket line, as President of the United States of America."
"When did American workers become the enemy?"
As Colorlines.com writes, "Thanks to the destruction of manufacturing jobs and unions, black and Latino workers in manual occupations have disproportionately suffered high rates of poverty and incarceration as many of their families disintegrate. The one toe-hold many black and minority workers (and especially women among them) still have in the economy is in unionized public employment. Now, the Republicans want to take that away."
Indeed, here in the Bay Area, when private employers refused to hire "Negroes," it was the public sector -- particularly the federal government -- that hired Blacks. Public sector employment has become one of the largest sources of social mobility for the stable working class, aka the "Black working class." So as my Black Family professor at Laney College, Dr. Mary Lewis said, "When [they] talking about downsizing, or shrinking government, you're talking about taking away employment of the Black Middle Class."
But it Wisconsin, home of "Cream City," it should become more evident that this is class warfare. Most of the people I've seen on TV protesting were white. So, in instances like union busting taking place across the country, it should become more obvious that social constructs like race are only distracting us from the reality of class warfare.
As rapper and activist Jasiri X asks, "Can Main Street get a bailout? Tell the President our checks weren't bailed out. Reporting from Wisconsin, Jasiri X notes American Workers and up against Multi-Billionaires and their media lapdogs.
Considering that it was a liberal, multi-ethnic, inter-generational -- dare I say the "D" word, diversity -- coalition that elected Obama, where does the President stand on Wisconsin and corporate stooge Gov. Scott Walker's proposal?
He called it "an assault on unions" but Obama hasn't made his way West to Wisconsin. Yet.
Will Obama walk the picket line in Wisconsin? Or will pick some more lines in the budget to boost the bucks of his Wall Street buddies?
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