By Mosby Sharp-tone

Every four years Democrats make the rounds to court African-American and other minority voters, which is fine. Hillary has been spotted lately in precincts with large minority populations doing just that. Blacks voters as a whole overwhelmingly vote for Democrats. But do the Democrats’ promises to Blacks and other minorities ever materialize? My sincere hope is that all voters reflect on the past eight years of the Obama administration and ask themselves two important questions: Am I better off now than I was before Obama took office? Obama says it is necessary to elect Hillary Clinton to continue his policies. Who will help or hurt my situation more, Clinton or Trump?

The first question is more easily answered than the second question. Since I am not a minority, I cannot answer for anyone who is, but on the first question there are statistics and the statistics that I think are the most telling are the ones gathered on poverty, employment and crime. These statistics contain strong evidence that minorities have suffered under President Obama and his policies.

For instance, in some urban areas (generally controlled by Democrats), violent crime is skyrocketing. According to WLS-TV in Chicago:

“The newest crime numbers from the Chicago Police Department are staggering.”

“Police said Tuesday there were 78 murders, 353 shootings and 427 shooting victims last month (October 2016). That means there have been 605 murders, 3,003 shootings and 3,633 shooting victims so far this year. In October 2015, 31 people were killed.”

Most of the victims are black men. The violent crime spike in Chicago has taken place on  Mayor Rahm Emmanuel’s watch. Emmanuel is, of course, a Democrat and a man who has been closely associated with President Obama.

Again WLS-TV: “In August – the only month to record more homicide victims than October – more than 90 people were killed in Chicago, marking the highest number of murders in a single month in the city since August 1996, according to police records. Chicago has not seen more than 600 homicides in a year since 2003 and not more than 700 homicides since 1998, records show.”

Lets look at the labor participation rate for Whites, Blacks and Asians. These statistics are from the U. S. Bureau of Labor and are seasonally adjusted. In 2006 the number of White people over age 16 that were unemployed was 62.3 million. In 2015 that number had increased to 73.7 million, a jump of about 18%. The number of Black people over the age of 16 that were unemployed in 2006 was 9.7 million. In 2015 that number had increased to 12.2 million a jump of nearly 25%. For Asians over 16, those unemployed had jumped from 3.5 million in 2006 to 5.4 million in 2015, a whopping increase of about 54%.

According to statistics provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation the poverty rate in 2015 for Whites was 9%. For Hispanics the poverty rate in 2015 was 21% and for Blacks it was 24%. It doesn’t look like Obama’s policies have lifted up minorities very much despite the hope and change that was promised.

The fact is that President Obama’s bad economic policies have hurt Blacks and other minorities far more than Whites. If Blacks and other minorities like what Obama’s policies have done for them, then I guess they’ll be voting for Hillary Clinton.

Author’s note to the reader:

I hope the reader will forgive me for this imperfectly written blog post. I could spend days trying to improve it, but by then the election will be over and so I offer it up as is. Some will say I have cherry-picked data. For those who are doubtful of my conclusion that Democrat policies have been bad for minorities, I encourage them to do their own research and back up it up with real data, not just opinion. And putting racial divisions aside for a moment, I encourage people to find out how many Americans are on food stamps now and if that is a measure of success for the Obama administration. When it comes right down to it we are all Americans. The liberal/progressive economic policies of Obama have hurt us all. According table #24 of the Census Bureau, the overall poverty rate for all Americans during Bill Clinton’s presidency (1994-2001) was 12.86%. During the Bush years (2002-2009) the poverty rate for all Americans was only slightly better at 12.77%, but under President Obama on average 14.67% of all Americans have lived in poverty from 2010-2015. No wonder many Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction – they are the ones who are paying attention and are not falling for the spin coming from the Democrat Party and the Obama Administration.