By Nia-Malika Henderson and Perry Bacon Jr.
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, July 11, 2010
KANSAS CITY, MO. — Curtis Adams, who owns Curtis A’s barbershop here and who is also the establishment’s senior political analyst, is a close observer of President Obama. This is something of a full-time job itself at Curtis A’s, a gathering place in a black neighborhood five miles from downtown. All day every day, men (and occasionally women) come for a trim and wind up lingering to argue about jobs and the oil spill and the war in Iraq.
But mostly jobs. “If Obama was in this chair right here, I would tell him to give me a job. That’s what I would ask for,” said customer E.J. Jones one recent afternoon. Jones has worked off and on since he was let go from an Army ammunition plant in 2008.
The recession was especially rough on Kansas City’s black community, where unemployment is 15 percent, nearly three times the rate for whites. Adams pointed to the empty chairs in his shop. He’s down 75 customers a week. Of Obama, he said: “That man has a hell of a workload, and Bush left a hell of a mess. I like what he’s doing. But I can’t feel it.”
Despite his frustration with the slow pace of the recovery, Adams, who has portraits of the first family on the walls of his shop, doesn’t think Obama bears the blame for his troubles. And neither do most black Americans. Just the opposite: Polls show that 90 percent of African Americans believe Obama is doing a good job, far higher than the president’s overall 46 percent approval rating. Obama’s popularity has dropped among nearly every segment of the population — old, young, Republican, Democrat, white, Latino. Yet blacks still overwhelmingly support him, even though they are among those who have lost the most since he was elected.
“We understand the difficulty of being a black man in his position, because of our close proximity to race and how it affects our lives, so we are willing to give him the benefit of the doubt,” said Rodney Knott, who runs a fatherhood initiative and blogs on local issues. “Black folks are taking this personal because we identify with him so much.
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- Tags: coyotes and Drug cartels, Illegal immigrants, Immigration laws, USA/Mexico border
This is from an email I received.
This is not a racist message.
A veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made
payable to The United States of America for an amount “up to and including my life.” That is Honor, and there are way too many people in this country who no
longer understand it.
This is not meant to offend anyone, but if it does, so be it !
* * *My grandfather watched as his friends died in WW I
* * *My father watched as his friends died in WW II,
* * *I watched as friends died in Vietnam
* * *None of them died for the Mexican Flag. All of them died for the American flag.
Texas high school students raised a Mexican flag on a school flag pole, other students took it down..Guess who was expelled. the students who took it down.
California high school students were sent home on Cinco de Mayo, because
they wore T-shirts with the American flag printed on them.
Enough is enough.
This message needs to be viewed by every American; and every
American needs to stand up for America . We’ve bent over to appease the
America-haters long enough. I’m taking a stand I’m standing up because the
hundreds of thousands who died fighting in wars for this country, and for
the American flag.
This statement DOES NOT mean I’m against immigration
YOU ARE WELCOME HERE, IN MY COUNTRY, welcome to come legally:
1. Get a sponsor!
2. Learn the LANGUAGE, as immigrants have in the past!
3. Live by OUR rules!
4. Get a job!
5. Pay YOUR Taxes!
6. No Social Security until you have earned it and Paid for
it!
AMERICANS, stop giving away Your RIGHTS
End email…..
ADMIN NOTE: Arizona and Texas are under pressure having their borders with Mexico and with all the coyotes (human smuggling) and drug cartels using our borders to cross into the USA for their criminal acts and violence against anyone who gets in their way and even innocent bystanders such as USA ranchers who live on the border.
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