President Obama to launch major new effort to help young men of color
Source: Washington Post
President Obama will launch a significant new effort this week to bolster the lives of young men of color, seeking to use the power of the presidency to help a group of Americans whose lives are disproportionately affected by poverty and prison.
Obama on Thursday will announce a new White House initiative called “My Brother’s Keeper,” which will bring foundations and companies together to test a range of strategies across the country to support young male minorities, taking steps to keep them in school and out of the criminal justice system, a White House official said. He will also announce that his administration will launch a more vigorous evaluation of what policies work best and publicize results to school systems and others across the country.
The effort will seek “to make sure that every young man of color who is willing to work hard and lift himself up has an opportunity to get ahead and reach his full potential,” the White House official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement. “The initiative will be focused on implementing strategies that are proven to get results.”
Obama promised to launch a new project focused on young men of color in one line — widely overlooked — during his State of the Union address last month. His focus on a relatively narrow demographic group is unusual for a president who usually stresses how his policies affect large swaths of the American public. It also comes after the first African American president has faced repeated criticism from those who say he is failing to pay enough attention to this group of Americans.
Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-obama-to-launch-major-new-effort-on-young-men-of-color/2014/02/11/cc0f0a98-92cd-11e3-b227-12a45d109e03_story.html
The comments section is going to get ugly with "WHAT ABOUT WHITE MEN" and "ANTI RACIST IS A CODE WORD FOR ANTI WHITE" because so many Americans who pretend modern society is perfectly colorblind and equal opportunity are clueless about systematic racism and privilege.
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You nailed it. 
It got so overlooked because you know.. SFC Cory Remsberg 
("the ACA is biased in favor of women, wahhh"
Prison is predominantly a men's issue in terms of sheer numbers.
Biden immediately went after the dearth of public defender funding cut since Reagan when he took office in 2009. It led to many being over charged to force plea bargains to avoid the cost of a defense and trial.
The heavy sentences handed to POC for like crimes by majority race suspects, charged under a racist but unspoken code (crack versus powdered cocaine example) were addressed thoroughly from the federal position.
We still see too many places where local law enforcement gives a pat on the hand to white defendants while they throw the book at blacks. The rash of reckless acts by gun fanatics, shootings that are accidental or not, are seen in a different light when it is a white person doing it. They are given the benefit of the doubt and blacks aren't.
It is no wonder that Obama is doing this, as it goes after many related issues at once, from the root causes of them.
Higher rate of unemployment among blacks, which leads some to find less than legal ways of making a living. This is a familiar issue, one the RW harps upon to promote white paranoia. Anyone with half a brain knows that people with a lack of legal opportunity to make money will find others.
This also addresses an issue dear to Michelle Obama, gun violence and gangs killing black youth in the process of gang activity in poor areas. There has never been a talk by Obama on gun violence without that softly spoken addendum. But the media and RW refuses to listen, they prefer their bogeyman to exist under lack of opportunity to make a legal living for gun sales. It is so obvious to those who aren't caught up in it. A bogeyman can be reduced to fantasy, with education and jobs for a longer, better life that they haven't known. Possibilities for growth and innovation by those freed from this life are well known, as they work to heal their communities.
Of course, the racists will cry that blacks are being given 'special treatment by the black president.' Yes, white people, be very scared!
If the RW had not blocked stimulus and did everything they could to destroy the economy for all but the top of their voting block, not gone after the poor in outrageous fashions, the process of lifting POC out of poverty would not have been noticeable at all. That is what equal treatment under the law means, people you don't like or don't know get the same benefits.
Obama is correct to make this a clear act and let the cards fall where they may.
But the RW just had to appeal to the baser elements of their voters by telling them they were being 'robbed by the black president to give more to his people' than them. Thus all the whining litany by Rush, etc. about pockets picked by the government when they have been picking everyone's pockets for their sponsors.
As far as the ACA and women, Obama has been labeled the first feminist president. He has done more for women by the equality enshrined in the ACA, which has even been attacked here at DU!
He has defended women's choice far more than any president in recent memory in the face of well-funded, iron clad, insane opposition.
I say it's long past time to talk about this issue directly. PBO has nothing to lose, he's in his last term and as he said in his first term, words to this effect: 'I am in my first term. In my second term, I will have more flexibility.' I look forward to seeing more good from him, despite the total media spin against everything he has and has not even done.
And I enjoyed very much the "the ACA is biased in favor of women, wahhh" comment. That got me
