FW: Harry Belafonte on Barack Obama -

[Assensoh, Akwasi B.]

Sharing a frank statement from a Civil Rights icon, Harry Belafonte!

---

Sent: Wednesday, July 31, 2013 5:21 PM
Subject: Harry Belafonte on Barack Obama -

Lifted from Belafonte's My Song, A Memoir (Random House)

"For all his smoothness and intellect, Barack Obama seems to lack a fundamental empathy with the dispossessed, be they white or black.  Frankly, I would have thought the first black president would work especially hard to alleviate the plight of inner-city black Americans. I appreciate the passing of the the stimulus package. I understand that a national health insurance bill helps us all. But why, I have kept wondering, hasn't he used his power to bring more humanity to a justice system that imprisons one out of every three black males in America, giving us the largest prison population in the world? I would like for him to say more forcefully that racial problems exist.... For the poor of America, a very bad time is about to get worse. Our black president seems to be holding his tongue because he is, after all, pragmatic. But here's something I know, after more than half a century in the movement: The poor will not just curl up and die, much as the new political majority wishes they would. When your belly is empty, you do whatever it is you need to do to stop those hunger pains. You march, or you steal, or you pick up a gun."

 

Harry Belafonte, My Song, A Memoir, Random House , 2011, ph. 751-752.