The President’s recent decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan has hit a bitter spot with progressives. African-Americans in particular have shown disgust for the decision and have correctly pointed out that if a Republican continued on with the war in this manner, the left would be taking to the streets with protest. Black media has been spitting fire on the subject for the last few weeks…in the debate along with the Afghan policy Obama’s lack of African-American policy is also a hot topic.

Just before the holiday season, activist and humanitarian DANNY GLOVER (http://twitter.com/mrdannyglover) had this to say about The Presidents recent war policy. “I think the Obama administration has followed the same playbook, to a large extent, almost verbatim, as the Bush administration. I don’t see anything different. On the domestic side, look here: What’s so clear is that this country from the outset is projecting the interests of wealth and property. Look at the bailout of Wall Street. Why not the bailout of Main Street?”

Before Obama whisked off for Holiday in Hawaii April Ryan interviewed him about Glover’s comments. Check the interview after the jump.

APRIL RYAN: Speaking of the African American community, this seems to be a shift in black leadership, as it relates to supporting you. You have the CBC that’s upset with you about targeting on the jobs front — African Americans, 15.6 percent unemployment rate, expected to go to 20 percent; mainstream America 10 percent. Then you have black actors who supported you — Danny Glover, who’s saying that you’ve not changed, your administration is the same as George W. Bush. What are your thoughts about the fact that black leadership is grumbling, and the fact that people are concerned with you being the first African American President, and they thought that there would be a little bit more compassion for black issues?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, April, I think you just engaged in a big generalization in terms of how you asked that question. If you want me to line up all the black actors, for example, who support me, and put them on one side of the room, and a couple who are grumbling on the other, I’m happy to have that. I think if you look at the polling ( even though the Obama White House has notoriously said it doesn’t pay attention to polls), in terms of the attitudes of the African American community, there’s overwhelming support for what we’ve tried to do. And, so, is there grumbling? Of course there’s grumbling, because we just went through the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. And everybody is concerned about unemployment, everybody’s concerned about businesses not hiring, everybody’s concerned about their home values declining. And in each of these areas, African Americans have been disproportionately affected. We were some of the folks who were most affected by predatory lending.

Obama continues on in the interview to expound on his domestic and foreign policies as they pertain to the African-American community and the nation on as a whole. Very interesting POV. I do believe he has now made himself entirely clear. Don’t come knocking on his door…..More later
For the full interview transcript —–> Very Interesting!!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/april-d-ryan/interview-with-president_b_400142.html

Here is the original post by Ebony Joy at:
SPEAKING TRUTH TO POWER…..Danny Glover on Obama…then….

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