President Obama met Thursday with two groups that have complained that they deserve more of his attention: White House reporters and African American leaders.

"President Barack Obama held an off-the-record meeting with top White House reporters on Thursday afternoon, POLITICO has learned," Dylan Byers reported Friday for Politico.

"The meeting, with reporters from major print and television outlets, comes days after the White House Correspondents Association complained publicly about their lack of access to the president during a golf outing in Palm Beach, Fla., and one day after Obama met with local television reporters.

". . . WHCA president and Fox News White House correspondent Ed Henry did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding the meeting. . . ."

The White House identified participants in the meeting with African Americans as Melanie Campbell, president, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation; Ralph Everett, president and CEO, Joint Center for Economic and Political Studies; Wade Henderson, president, Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights; Ben Jealous, president, NAACP; Avis Jones-DeWeever, executive director, National Council of Negro Women; Sharon J. Lettman-Hicks, executive director and CEO, National Black Justice Coalition; Al Sharpton, founder and president of National Action Network; the Rev. Derrick Harkins, pastor, 19th Street Baptist Church in Washington; and Judith Browne Dianis, co-director, Advancement Project.

Everett said in a statement, "The meeting was a positive, constructive exchange of views. The President fully understands the concerns of the African American community and has set forth a sensible plan to continue America's economic recovery. We look forward to working with him to strengthen the economy for the middle class and continue to build more ladders of opportunity for those trying to get there."

Read more at The Maynard Institute - Richard Prince's Journal-isms.

The Voting Rights Act that goes on trial at the Supreme Court on Wednesday has helped boost African Americans' presence in Southern legislatures. But in a twist of irony, it also has contributed to their loss of political clout.

Since its passage in 1965, the law's Section 5 has forced states with a history of racial discrimination to clear changes in voting procedures with the federal government. The Justice Department, in turn, has insisted that drawing district lines is one of those procedures – one that should give blacks and other minorities ample opportunity to elect their preferred candidates.

That has led to the creation of so-called majority-minority election districts dominated by blacks or Hispanics, nearly all of them Democrats. Achieving that goal, however, has required the simultaneous creation of more heavily white, Republican districts in surrounding areas.

Although the Voting Rights Act has played a major role in the South's racial transformation, it also has played a supporting role in its political transformation. In 1965, every state legislature was Democratic. In 2013, they are all Republican.

"African Americans are totally and completely shut out of any political influence, with a few exceptions, in the Southern states," says David Bositis, senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

Read more at USA Today.

Joint Center President and CEO Ralph B. Everett joined a meeting of prominent African American leaders at the White House yesterday to continue a discussion with President Barack Obama on his plans to strengthen the middle class and provide opportunities for those living in poverty, particularly African Americans and people of color.

Topics covered included an increase in job training and investment in disadvantaged neighborhoods, preventing voter suppression, and President Obama’s plan for universal pre-kindergarten to narrow the educational achievement gap. There was also a strong focus on the potential sequester, a set of automatic federal budget cuts that would end thousands of jobs and cut social services.

“The meeting was a positive, constructive exchange of views,” said Everett. “The President fully understands the concerns of the African American community and has set forth a sensible plan to continue America’s economic recovery. We look forward to working with him to strengthen the economy for the middle class and continue to build more ladders of opportunity for those trying to get there.”
 

View the entire press release and the White House's official readout of the event by clicking the icon below.

One month after the re-election of President Barack Obama, more than 40 Black leaders convened this week to begin crafting what appears to be a strategy by which to hold politicians accountable to a suffering Black community that has given overwhelming political allegiance to President Obama and the Democratic Party.

“We just concluded a historic four-hour discussion about the state of the nation, the state of Black America, the challenges and problems we face, as well as the excitement we feel about our ability to impact the challenges of now and the future,” National Urban League President/CEO Marc Morial began the afternoon press conference Dec. 3. “We embrace our historic role as the conscience of the nation and we are united in our mission to support and protect the well-being of the African-American community, low income and working class Americans across the nation.”

Immediately, Morial read a joint statement from the group, focusing on what politicians and economists are calling the “fiscal cliff”, a year-end convergence of tax hikes that could throw already economically destitute people into a tail spin.

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The meeting, led by Morial at a Washington, D.C. hotel, was convened by him, Melanie Campbell, president/CEO, the National Coalition of Black Civic Participation; the Rev. Al Sharpton, president/CEO, the National Action Network; and Ben Jealous, president/CEO of the NAACP. A string of other stalwart Black organizations were also represented, including the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies; the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; the National Congress of Black Women; the Black Women’s Roundtable; the Hip Hop Caucus; and the Institute of the Black World – 21st Century.

Read more at Politic365.

When Timothy M. Kaine took his message of bipartisanship to the crowd gathered at the Virginia NAACP’s annual convention, the crowd nodded in agreement as the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate criticized an obstructionist Congress working against the country’s first black president.

“Watching people decide they would like to proclaim [that] their success would be making the president not successful, I just decided to get in and run,” Kaine told the audience last month. “I do know how to work together with all kinds of people.”

Kaine spoke to the crowd for nearly half an hour in his opponent’s absence, although both candidates were invited.

The following day, GOP candidate George Allen showed up at the convention in Fredericksburg, working the crowd at a sit-down dinner.

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“Reaching out to African Americans, especially in the days when African Americans were having a hard time here . . . that was like a moral imperative for him,” said David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. “He’s one of the politicians in Virginia who African Americans just really, genuinely like.”



Read more at The Washington Post.

Major cuts to Medicaid would have a disproportionately harsh effect on African-Americans and Latinos, according to a new report released recently by a coalition of major health, civil rights and consumer groups.

The report, "Medicaid: A Lifeline for Blacks and Latinos with Serious Health Care Needs," reveals that making cuts to Medicaid fails to reduce costs, instead it shifts the burden to states, families, hospitals and the uninsured. In fact, in some cases, the report notes, cutting assistance for treatment can actually increase costs over the long run.

"As policymakers consider sharp cutbacks in the Medicaid program, this report brings an important potential consequence of their actions to the table – that cutting Medicaid will likely hit hardest at communities of color and, in particular, those who depend on the program to manage and treat their chronic illnesses," said Ralph B. Everett, president and CEO of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

This article was previously available at The Washington Informer.

African Americans and white Americans differ in the type and magnitude of their asset holdings. Perhaps as a result of these differences, the two groups also have differing perspectives on and responses to the 2008-2009 economic downturn. Similarities of perspective exist between the groups as well. For example, both African Americans and whites report similar levels of confidence in the nation’s financial institutions and sector.

These findings are from a survey of 850 African Americans and 850 members of the general U.S. population (including 721 white Americans) that was conducted for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies by Research America between May 21 and June 9, 2009. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies National Opinion Poll about Social Security, Retirement Savings and the Economic Downturn found many striking differences between African Americans and whites on these topics.

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African Americans are more likely than whites to expect that Social Security will be their major source of income during retirement. Th is was true in both 1998 (35 percent of African Americans versus 17 percent of whites) and 2009 (37 percent of African Americans versus 27 percent of whites). African Americans also are more likely than whites to support the Social Security system as currently structured and to believe that the system should continue to provide the same type and level of benefits. A range of views, however, is held by African Americans and whites on selected proposals for reforming the Social Security system to ensure its solvency.

These findings are from a survey of 850 African Americans and 850 members of the general U.S. population (including 721 white Americans) that was conducted for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies by Research America between May 21 and June 9, 2009. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies National Opinion Poll about Social Security, Retirement Savings and the Economic Downturn found many striking differences between African Americans and whites on these topics.

This publication is available for download by clicking the icon below.

Herman Cain's assertion that blacks' overwhelming support of the Democratic Party was evidence of their having been "brainwashed" was the latest salvo in an intra-racial war of words over the state of black politics.

From President Barack Obama's recent run-ins with BET News and the Congressional Black Caucus, to attendees at a caucus conference questioning the racial consciousness of Cain and Republican Rep. Allen West because of their association with the tea party, many observers on both sides of the political aisle are trying to figure out what to make of all of the infighting.

Is there such a thing as a uniform black political agenda? Are conservatism and black cultural pride incompatible? Do blacks really behave as political lemmings, and could they benefit from embracing the Republican agenda?

Read more at the Indianapolis Recorder.

For today’s working adults, retirement is more likely to be based on the safety-net level of benefits from Social Security, supplemented with personal savings and investment.

The catch is, however, that too many African-Americans are saving too little for retirement.  The fact that 70 percent of African-American workers had saved less than $25,000 for retirement, according to a 2007 survey by the Employment Benefit Research Institute, suggests there will be little "gold" in our golden years.
 

Read more at The Florida Courier, The Washington Informer, and The Madison Times.