Obama and Black America.

• Author: Low, Richard
• Position: Letters to the Editor - Letter to the editor

I think Kevin Alexander Gray is expecting a little bit too much ("Obama and Black America," August issue). If I remember correctly, it requires a billion dollars for a Presidential candidate to get elected.

However, he is right when he wrote, "It is clear whom Obama is actually beholden to: Wall Street, corporations, the dirty energy industries, the Pentagon, and the power elite." Then, he charged that his foreign policy is not that much different from Bush's: "He continues to keep troops in Iraq. He's escalated the war in Afghanistan. He's fighting clandestine wars in Pakistan and Yemen. And he sent U.S. bombers to pummel Libya."

This may be why Cornel West from Princeton rightly called Obama "a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats." Then, he added, "And now he has become head of the American killing machine and is proud of it."

The money power and the military-industrial complex control the United States. So, in order to stay in power, Obama has to become a mascot and a killing machine. That leaves him little room to do anything to improve the lives of African Americans. Thus, his "seemingly callous indifference to African Americans across the board."

Richard Low

via e-mail

Kevin Alexander Gray's lucid commentary on Barack...