The piece profiles grassroots Obama booster Gerri Hall, a retired black woman in Flint, MI. Note the difference in values that emerges at the outset when the article comments on changes since Hall's youth:
Fifty years later, there is a black man in the White House and Hall is firmly rooted in the middle class, with a nice home in a leafy neighborhood, a pension from her 30-year job at General Motors and enough savings to help her grown son buy a starter place of his own.
"Things have definitely gotten better," she allows, "in terms of tolerance and coexistence and people getting along."
Note that the author speaks in economic terms, whereas Hall refers to social progress. The article reflects market-oriented values, but its subject, social values.Then the article posits that black Americans see themselves reflected in Obama as he battles Republicans: "The sentiment may explain why Obama still enjoys commanding support among African Americans, even though blacks have suffered the worst of the deep recession that soured so many others on the incumbent." And again a few paragraphs later:
The statistics are grim. The poverty rate for African American children has increased under Obama, along with black joblessness. Nationally, black unemployment was 15.5% in November, almost twice the overall rate. For black teenagers it was just under 40%.
Even so, African Americans remain far more upbeat than the rest of the country.The article assumes--or, more likely, plays along with the assumption--that what happens during a President's term is attributable to him. Next, the black unemployment rate is given without any historical context. What was the unemployment rate for blacks under Bush? Under Clinton? What role does Congress play in all this?
Another misdirect comes on the heels of the previous quote. The article text says:
An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll done with theGrio.com, a black-oriented website, found that 49% of African Americans felt the country was on the right track, compared with nearly 3 in 4 overall who felt otherwise. Most African Americans blamed congressional Republicans, rather than Obama, for the country's economic ills.The article treats the tendency to blame congressional Republicans ambiguously; one could read this as a feature exclusive to the black community. What is the overall trend? Could this be a party issue rather than a race issue?
This article dumbs down the whole discussion. The author is owing to black allegiance or camaraderie what's more likely long-term developments of political power relations within areas ranging from economics to social status, and education to faith.
Continuing on the unemployment argument, the article states: "Unemployment is officially 16.5% in Flint, where fortunes soared and, for the last several decades, plummeted with the near collapse of the auto industry." Has the auto industry really collapsed? What role does outsourcing in this industry play in local (and national) unemployment? And what are the politics behind that?
The point isn't that the writer hasn't done his job. It's that readers must evaluate what they read.
I did read one line I liked for its well-writteness: "To this day, Hall has the manner of one accustomed to being in charge: her diction precise, her dress fastidious and her case for Obama outlined in PowerPoint and carefully sorted fact sheets."
