W. Kamau Bell, Barack Obama, and black voters

There used to be an old joke that the Jewish vote pivoted on each Jew asking himself this question “Is it good for the Jews?”  Not a very nice stereotype, but probably a true one — and true for any group in America, whether white, WASP, Jewish, Catholic, Asian, Baptist, Hindu, etc.  What’s sad, though, is that the Left is telling blacks that they shouldn’t bother asking that question, probably because honest answer to “Is Obama good for American blacks?” would have to be a resounding “No!”

The Obama years have not treated blacks well.  A year ago, black unemployment was not only double white unemployment, it was also the highest it had been in twenty-seven years.  The only part of “Hope and Change” that blacks got out of this administration turned out to be small change . . . very, very small change.  Things have improved in the past year, but only slightly.  As of today, black unemployment stands at more than 14% — although President Barack “Nothing is my Fault” Obama claims that this failing is all the fault of state and local governments.  It might be time for the President to rummage through the White House attic and dig out Harry Truman’s old desk placard, the one that read “the buck stops here.”

Or maybe not.  W. Kamau Bell, who is Chris Rock’s anointed new voice of black social/political comedy.  Bell began one of his shows by replaying Biden’s now infamous Romney/Ryan will put “y’all back in chains” statement.  Bell made three points, none of which struck me as amusing, but all of which sounded quite honest:  (a) Biden shouldn’t have said  that; (b) Biden needn’t have said that, because blacks will vote for Obama regardless; and (c) it will help the Obama campaign if Biden stops pandering to a demographic that’s already in Obama’s pocket.

Despite the assurance that Obama owns the black body politic, Bell was, apparently, still a little worried.  You see, the problem isn’t that Biden thinks he’s black.  It’s the blacks might be thinking that Obama isn’t black enough.  Bell’s responsibility, therefore, is to promise blacks that Obama is not an Oreo:

I actually appreciate Bell’s honesty. He’s straightforward about the actual Obama campaign theme for 2012, which is “Vote for me because I’m black(ish).” Still, I think it’s terribly said that we’ve gone from having voters ask themselves (selfishly, but truthfully) “Is this candidate going to be good for my social/racial/ethnic/religious group?” to insisting that voters ask themselves only whether the candidate has enough melanin not to be considered white.  Once that question is out there, the candidate not only isn’t good for a given social/racial/ethnic/religious group, he’s not good for America either.