I attended a candle light vigil in Tower Grove Park for the teen killed in Florida, Trayvon Martin. Upon my arrival the clouds opened and rained on the parade of folk coming from all directions to join in what was slated to be spiritual gathering. It was one of those unique moments in time watching the throngs of young folk, especially the young African Americans embracing the moment, absorbing the messages, participating respectfully.
But after walking through the mudded fields and standing for hours in the drenching rain and sheepishly contemplating when the program would eventually end, the solace was broken.
A speaker began talking about our President in a demeaning way, criticizing the President’s comment, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” claiming that the President’s one-liner was not enough and the President should be during more.
Unfortunately, either the speaker failed to mention in full what our President said.
“I can only imagine what these parents are going through,” President Obama said. “And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.”
The President also made it clear that he did not want to step on the legal process started by his appointee Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.
Al Sharpton responded to the President’s remarks with, “It really brings home to people that this kid is not some potential thug in a hoodie.” And Florida state Sen. Arthenia Joyner, chair of the state’s legislative black caucus, said the President sent a clear message. “I’m old enough to remember the Ku Klux Klan marching through the street,” Joyner said. “My perception of this man, who is our President, is that he gets it at every level.”
What upset me most about the speaker at Tower Grove Park was that the audience had a significant number of African-American young folk whom a lot of us are trying to engage in the political process with the hopes of re-electing the first African-American President. Instead of bashing the President we all need to be rallying behind his agenda, and especially his proposed budget.
Attacking the unacceptably high unemployment among African Americans, the President’s 2013 Budget would invest in low-income youth and adults with a new $12.5 billion Pathways Back to Work Fund to provide hundreds of thousands of low-income youth and adults with opportunities to work and to achieve needed training in growth industries
The President’s Recovery Act provided approximately 370,000 summer job opportunities through the public workforce investment system to young people in the summers of 2009 and 2010. These programs not only provided young people with their first paycheck, but taught them life-long employment skills.
The President’s proposed Pathways Back to Work Fund will provide states with support for summer job programs for low-income youth in 2012, and year-round employment for economically disadvantaged young adults and youth who are experiencing a rate of unemployment of over 40 percent.
I would have told the crowd to support the President’s efforts to increase the $120 million he spent last year to revitalize distressed urban neighborhoods. The President’s 2013 Budget provides $150 million for the Choice Neighborhoods Initiative to continue transformative investments in high-poverty neighborhoods where distressed HUD-assisted public and privately owned housing is located.
The President’s budget would also provide grants that primarily fund the preservation, rehabilitation and transformation of HUD-assisted public and privately-owned multifamily housing. The President is proposing a $15 billion series of policies to help connect Americans looking for work in distressed communities with the work needed to re-purpose residential and commercial properties. Project Rebuild will not only create construction jobs for African Americans, but also reduce blight and crime and stabilize housing prices.
The President is also targeting investments to modernize schools serving low-income students by proposing a $30 billion investment in education infrastructure that will modernize at least 35,000 public schools and community colleges, creating jobs while upgrading our schools.
The President led the charge to extend unemployment insurance for the long-term unemployed. Unemployment insurance for those unemployed over 27 weeks was initially extended through February 2012 but was recently extended through the rest of the year, which will help 1 million African Americans. The new extension provides additional reemployment services to the long-term unemployed, which is key for black unemployed workers, of whom nearly half (49.5 percent) have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks.
So instead of bashing the President, give him a break. If Trayvon Martin were alive, I believe he would.
Pruitt is President of the St. Louis Chapter of the NAACP.
