Mary Mitchell, writing at the Chicago Sun-Times, says that she hopes the second-term president will focus more explicitly on the needs of a group that he can always depend on for support.
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Contrary to popular thought, black people didn’t vote for Obama because he is black. They voted for him because they were scared to death of the alternative.
Frankly, Mitt Romney’s threats to rescind Obamacare were enough to get black people to the polls.
But four years ago, black people flocked to voting booths out of a sense of pride and gave Obama the votes he needed to become the nation’s first black president.
This time around, black voters were more subdued. They still voted overwhelmingly — 95 percent — to keep Obama in the White House, according to CNN exit interviews, but that margin was not as easy to come by as most people might think.
Obviously, black voters were far more willing to give the Obama administration credit for digging the nation out from the Bush era’s failed policies. After all, unemployment has been in the double digits in the African-American community no matter who was in the White House.
Read Mary Mitchell's entire piece at the Chicago Sun-Times.
The Root aims to foster and advance conversations about issues relevant to the black Diaspora by presenting a variety of opinions from all perspectives, whether or not those opinions are shared by our editorial staff.
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