Different Day, Same Shit.

When whites catch a cold in America, blacks catch pneumonia.

The American economy's been under the weather for the past two to three years. At the same time, black Americans faced record levels of unemployment. So the following should be good news for everyone, right?

The U.S. unemployment rate fell last month to its lowest level in more than two and a half years as employers stepped up hiring in response to the slowly improving economy.
The Labor Department said Friday that the unemployment rate dropped to 8.6 percent last month from 9 percent in October. The rate hasn't been that low since March 2009, during the depths of the recession.

That's good news, right? Read on.

However, unemployment ticked up amongst African-Americans up from 15.1 to 15.5 percent and black teen joblessness also went up from 37.8 to 39.6, after three straight months of drops.

But it's not all good news for Americans in general:

Still, 13.3 million Americans remain unemployed. And a key reason the unemployment rate fell so much was because roughly 315,000 people had given up looking for work and were no longer counted as unemployed.

So the real reason behind the lower unemployment numbers was scores of people giving up any hope of finding any sort of employment, or finding alternative forms of employment that wouldn't necessarily be counted in the stats (i.e. freelancing).

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate in black communities remains double of what whites face. When America comes down with pneumonia, black Americans come down with West Nile virus.

I can imagine Newton Leroy Gingrich taking a look at these statistics and coming to the conclusion that this validates blacks as being "lazy" and otherwise unmotivated to do anything that doesn't involve slinging drugs or stealing televisions. You know how Leroy and his people can get.

Unemployment going down in Alabama! Why is this? Illegal Immigrants are leaving and Americans are getting their jobs. Amazing how law and order works. I wish the Democrats could understand this simple concept!

This is the meme conservatives tout when exhorting how well Alabama's immigration law is "working." The above relies on a non-understanding of how unemployment rates are counted and the suggestion that Americans are grabbing onto these jobs for dear life.

From the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

The basic concepts involved in identifying the employed and unemployed are quite simple:

• People with jobs are employed.
• People who are jobless, looking for jobs, and available for work are unemployed.
• People who are neither employed nor unemployed are not in the labor force.

Persons are classified as unemployed if they do not have a job, have actively looked for work in the prior 4 weeks, and are currently available for work. Actively looking for work may consist of any of the following activities:

Contacting:

• An employer directly or having a job interview
• A public or private employment agency
• Friends or relatives
• A school or university employment center
• Sending out resumes or filling out applications
• Placing or answering advertisements
• Checking union or professional registers
• Some other means of active job search

Passive methods of job search do not have the potential to result in a job offer and therefore do not qualify as active job search methods. Examples of passive methods include attending a job training program or course, or merely reading about job openings that are posted in newspapers or on the Internet.

Workers expecting to be recalled from temporary layoff are counted as unemployed, whether or not they have engaged in a specific jobseeking activity. In all other cases, the individual must have been engaged in at least one active job search activity in the 4 weeks preceding the interview and be available for work (except for temporary illness).

A decrease in unemployment rates does not mean that more people have found work. To wit, if a person simply stops any and all efforts to look for a job, they're not counted as a person looking for employment and are therefore not counted in the statistics. Neither is a person who moved to another state seeking employment. As far as those who do become employed, those who became self-employed or found some form of freelance work may not be counted in the stats.

Plenty of illegal immigrants have packed their bags and moved out, leaving the jobs they used to work open and available for the taking by legal American citizens. But those folks aren't picking up those jobs, most of which happen to be laborious, backbreaking farm and production plant jobs, jobs that most Americans are woefully out of condition for and not desperate enough to take.

Conservatives believe that ordinary Americans are falling all over themselves to fill in the jobs left behind by their illegal immigrant counterparts. This may shed some light on why Americans aren't as enthusiastic about the new openings as conservatives believe they are:

On a sunny October afternoon, Juan Castro leans over the back of a pickup truck parked in the middle of a field at Ellen Jenkins’s farm in northern Alabama. He sorts tomatoes rapidly into buckets by color and ripeness. Behind him his crew—his father, his cousin, and some friends—move expertly through the rows of plants that stretch out for acres in all directions, barely looking up as they pull the last tomatoes of the season off the tangled vines and place them in baskets. Since heading into the fields at 7 a.m., they haven’t stopped for more than the few seconds it takes to swig some water. They’ll work until 6 p.m., earning $2 for each 25-pound basket they fill. The men figure they’ll take home around $60 apiece.

Most Americans believe themselves to be far more valuable in regards to labor than $60 for 11 hours of work, or $7.50 to $9.00/hr. They have families to support and unlike illegal immigrants, not enough family members in the home able or willing to commit 95% of their time spent to working minimum-wage jobs. At least when the illegal immigrants go home, they'll live very comfortable lives on the U.S. dollars they brought with them (provided they aren't robbed, harassed or killed by one of the many cartel groups prevalent in most areas of Mexico and other Central American nations). Meanwhile, Americans remain mired in a knee-deep morass of debt, with no way of pulling themselves out anytime soon.

The men lean against the car, smoking cigarettes and trying to figure out how to finish the job before day’s end. “They gotta come up with a better pay system,” says Rayford. “This ain’t no easy work. If you need somebody to do this type of work, you gotta be payin’. If they was paying by the hour, motherf—–s would work overtime, so you’d know what you’re working for.” He starts to pace around the car. “I could just work at McDonald’s (MCD),” he says.

Now there's an idea. Raising the pay would be a worthwhile incentive to most folk who wouldn't touch these jobs with a ten-foot pole. Most employers won't do this because it will eat into their bottom lines. Others aren't able to do it, since they're already operating on bleeding-edge margins:

Rhodes says he understands why Americans aren’t jumping at the chance to slice up catfish for minimum wage. He just doesn’t know what he can do about it. “I’m sorry, but I can’t pay those kids $13 an hour,” he says. Although the Uniontown plant, which processes about 850,000 pounds of fish a week, is the largest in Alabama and sells to big supermarket chains including Food Lion, Harris Teeter, and Sam’s Club (WMT), Rhodes says overseas competitors, which pay employees even lower wages, are squeezing the industry.

Conservatives just don't realize that people won't go for just any job because it happens to be there. A job that entails backbreaking, monotonous work for 12 hours or more per day won't be filled unless it pays a wage that working people can support themselves and their families on. They won't put themselves at risk for developing arthritis, joint pains, back trouble and other health problems unless they know they're getting a working wage that will hopefully compensate them for putting so much wear and tear on their bodies. And a bit of health insurance wouldn't hurt, either. This was why unions came to be in the first place.

I suspect most conservatives already have jobs -- salaried ones that trend towards the six figures. They already got theirs, and they're scratching their heads over why their poorer fellow Americans won't just shut up and take whatever's given to them. They have no concept of how hard most of these agricultural and factory processing jobs are. No concept of standing on one's feet for 12 hours a day, up to six days a week if necessary, for wages that barely support a single person, let alone a family of four.

Individual states are grabbing the issue of illegal immigration by the balls because they feel the federal government isn't doing enough to enforce immigration statues. Perhaps President Obama would do good to find a way to put immigration law back under the purview of the federal government before states like Alabama hurt themselves further.

I watched the GOP economic debate on a Bloomberg stream earlier tonight. If you want to know how I felt about it, look at my Twitter posts, because I'm not about to go into detail about it again. Next time, I'll create a nice little tag to keep everything in one place. Honest.

Poor Herman Cain really thought it was his time to shine. Too bad the GOP establishment (the Powers That Be™) already have their hearts set on Mitt Romney, nevermind if he practices some goofy Utah cult religion. The rest of the nation will just have to learn to live with it, even Alabama.

Redeye didn't like Herman Cain's softshoe routine any more than I did. Neither did Dr. Boyce Watkins. To sum things up, they both see Herman Cain as the perfect "get out of being/seeming racist" card for white conservatives. Herman Cain: The Ultimate Racial Grievance Neutralizer™.

- How come when protesters threaten violence or even broach the mere appearance of becoming violent, it is considered to be a fucking tragedy of epic proportions worthy of martial law and swift crackdowns by law enforcement, but when a conservative mentions running over a few protesters with his car, "well, he didn't mean nothing by it" or "come'on, it's just a joke! Can't you take a little joke?"

In the conservative world, threatening to kill someone because their political ideology is different than yours is regarded as "a harmless joke." But someone who merely considers doing or saying anything that could possibly harm conservatives in any way is fair game for the most brutal state sanctioned punishment available.

- Arch-villain Skeletor, currently in a meat-and-skin-covered form he calls "Rick Scott," wants college kids in the state of Florida to forget about all that nonsense about getting a useless liberal arts degree and instead knuckle down and go for a "STEM" degree: degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

Nothing wrong with expressing his preferences, except he plans to fuck liberal arts majors over by pulling the rug on the funding received by liberal arts and social science sections at Florida's public universities. After all, if you want to chase a useless degree in Anthropology or Philosophy, you might as well do it at a private institution and rack up over a $100k in non-dischargeable student loans.

If this is touted as a "money-saving measure," shouldn't they look at the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on their athletics programs? Of course not. Monetary pursuits that reward a chosen few but placate millions are not to be trifled with.

- Speaking of student loans, people are wondering whether we should forgive a large portion of student loans and mortgages currently held by millions of Americans. Of course, the lending and banking industry would just die if they didn't have all of that debt to hold over America's heads, so expect that idea to be a no-go for the foreseeable future.

Unless, of course, everyone simultaneously defaults on their student loans. *cue evil laughter*

- A young man follows his dreams in Romania, only for his life to be cut short in a barroom brawl over a woman. My heart goes out to Chauncey Hardy's family and friends, who are surely in some deep, deep pain over what happened.

- On the other hand, two heffers were hauled in for hauling off and going ham on one another with a heavy helping of household bleach and ammonia at Wal-Mart. And this is one of the many reasons I prefer shopping at Target. It's a bit more expensive, but at least you don't have two women slinging "American Value"-brand bleach all over each other and 19 other people.

BTW, mixing bleach and ammonia together makes chlorine gas. Chlorine gas is potentially fatal. Just thought you all should know.

- President Obama's "American Jobs Act of 2011" died an ignoble death in the Senate today, 50 to 49. 60 votes were needed, but he couldn't get them from his own damned party. Read as Patricia Murphy at MSNBC's Powerwall orgasms over how this setback is proof positive of Obama's weakness in Washington. Keep this crap up and the various "Villagers" and "emoprogs" will get their secret wish: to have a Republican in the Oval Office for the next 4 to 16 years. That way, they can play perpetual pretend underdog crusaders again while taking GOP "danegeld" because "they have no choice but to." Better to have pocket change to go cruising the cocktail dinner circuit with.

This reminds me of combat vets who cruise the local bars with a batch of shiny medals and a story to spin for each one, to impress the young bunnies and jaded ex-wives. And they get them by deliberately flinging themselves into combat scenarios, whether it actually helps their platoon or not.

- Is this how true Christians are supposed to behave? I'm pretty sure Jesus wouldn't approve -- John 8:7 and Matthew 7:1 is clear proof. Then again, most people who call themselves "Christians" only read bits and pieces of the Old Testament and only the juicy portions that validate their own bigotry and bloodlust:

But who could imagine the hate and rage that would motivate a Pastor to instruct deacons and members of his congregation, Grace Fellowship Church in Fruitland, TN. to physically attack a couple arriving in the church parking lot last Wednesday?

The fact that one of the gay men attacked happened to be the Pastor’s own son, Jerry Pittman, Jr., no doubt contributed to Pittman senior’s noxious edict. According to Pittman Jr., after hearing his Dad yell, “SICK’EM!:”

“My uncle and two other deacons came over to the car per my dad’s request. My uncle smashed me in the door as the other deacon knocked my boyfriend back so he couldn’t help me, punching him in his face and his chest. The other deacon came and hit me through my car window in my back.”

The attackers also verbally assaulted the couple continually with anti-gay verbiage which continued even after a Sheriff’s Deputy arrived on the scene. Bystanders and other congregants made no effort to stop the assault. For that matter, neither did the Deputy Sheriff. Once the barrage of punches ended, the Deputy refused to let the two victims press charges.

Officers of the law may have a sworn duty to protect innocent citizens, but they're not obligated to uphold that promise. Really, it makes them no different than the highwaymen of old or the enforcers found in various dictatorial regimes.

BTW, if the so-called "Christians" were to see Jesus once more, they may try to beat and crucify him again. It's probably why when he promised to come back, he'd only do so when it was time for Judgement. Seems like these folks only respond favorably to the wrath of God, which sucks for the most part. Oh well, Judgement Day's a'comin.

- Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley was finally arraigned on charges stemming from the murder of Aiyana Stanley-Jones in a botched police raid.

Weekley is a 14-year veteran who had been a member of the department’s Special Response Team (SRT) since 2004. He reportedly told his sergeant moments after the shooting, “A woman inside grabbed my gun. It fired. The bullet hit a child.”

But the Stanley-Jones family lawyer Geoffrey Fieger told the Detroit Free Press he was shown a video immediately after the shooting that shows police as the aggressors. The video in question has not been found was reportedly not investigated by police.

“All I know is that the [missing] video is pretty dramatic,” he said. “You can see the gunman shooting into the house from the outside.”

The video that police have “is very different,” he said. “It doesn’t show a thing.”

Chances are his eventual sentence will be light, if he's sentenced at all. Juries have a thing for exonerating officers of the law.

I hate to end this blog post on a bitter note, but it is what it is.

The last time I worked for anyone "for free" was back in college, when I was fulfilling my internship requirements at the university's public relations department. Even then it wasn't necessarily "free" - in exchange for an extra helping hand and a number of professionally-made promotional pieces, I received the necessary credits needed to move on in my undergraduate career. The "Georgia Works" program resembles something of the sort, but there are a few things that made it stand out to me.

The program "works" like this: if you're a currently unemployed individual drawing benefits from the state, you have to undergo "workforce training." To fulfill this requirement, you spend up to eight weeks with a willing employer participating in the program. You get to "show your stuff" to what could be your future bosses and fulfill the "workforce training" bit. The employer gets eight weeks of "free labor" from the state, with no obligation to hire anyone from the program. If they do, they save time and money on training. The "intern" still draws unemployment benefits and receives a $240 stipend for transportation, child care, etc,. It's unclear whether that's $240/week or just $240 for the entire period, period.

The reason it stood out to me was because it smacked of "free labor," in the sense that participating employers enjoy what is essentially "free labor" - they don't have to pay these people because the state is taking care of that for them. No benefits, either, unless you consider Medicaid/Medicare one. And when the period is over, the employer has the luxury of dismissing their "intern" for a fresh face and another eight weeks of "free labor." Granted the "intern" can only work under 24 hours per week, but if there was a way to increase the number of required hours per week, you can bet your bottom dollar they would be increased.

"Georgia Works" seems like a win-win situation, except:

• Job seekers are tied down with a single potential employer for up to eight weeks, when they could be spending their time applying for multiple employers for an increased chance of landing a job.
• Job seekers are still "working" for peanuts -- those unemployment checks are not as glamorous as the hardened Teabagger conservative makes them out to be. Compared to a genuine job with a paycheck and benefits, they're still barely getting by.
• Single-parents are once again burdened the most by the program -- it's the hassle of locating and securing daycare arrangements for their kids that makes this program a bitter pill to swallow, and a $240 stipend doesn't go that far when it comes to child care.

Right now, I'm watching President Obama's speech outlining the $450 billion dollar "American Jobs Act" on YouTube. A lot of people accused Obama of not making good use of the "bully pulpit," but in this video, it looks to me he's putting his foot down. It's good to see the man being on point about the current state of the country and how we can move our economy forward again.

Anyone else notice Mr. Orange Julius looking uncomfortable as hell back there? If the man could excuse himself for a 3-martini lunch and a "message" right then and there, he would have.

Meanwhile, the USPS looks to be in dire straits, with a $5.5 billion dollar payment required this month to essentially pre-fund retirees’ future health care benefits. It's the only major organization with a mandate to do this, and if it didn't have to, the USPS would be in the black right about now.

Chances are this mandate won't be rescinded anytime soon, as the GOP can use the manufactured crisis to push the postal service's privatization. For those who want a sneak peek at what the American postal service might look like under a privatized future, read this article. And for those wondering why couldn't UPS or FedEx simply take over, ask yourself why both companies only bother with large parcels and not "first-class" mail. Under a privatized system controlled by UPS or FedEx, the days of grandma sending greeting cards in the mail or the mailman paying a visit 6 days a week will be long gone, in the name of profitability.

I could blog about how John Boner Beaner Boehner punked the President into moving back his jobs speech a day or so, or how he got snubbed by 5 4 NASCAR drivers after extending invitations to a White House reception.* Or I could spend an entire post wondering if Obama's cool, calm, conciliatory demeanor is sending all the wrong signals. Or perhaps how the resident blowhards are calling on his resignation yet again and how people he thought would be on his side are calling him a "straight bitch."

Nah, that's not interesting to me. At least not right now. Hard to make a blog post about things you're rather dispassionate about. Instead, let's talk about how people are dealing with the current, fucked-up state of the U.S. economy:

On June 25, 2010, Frederick Deare punched out for the last time from his job driving a forklift at the Old London factory in the Bronx. That summer, everyone at the plant was being laid off: the oven operators, the assembly-line packers, the forklift drivers, the sanitation workers. Total jobs lost: 228. Old London, the snack manufacturer that invented the Cheez Doodle, was moving its operations to North Carolina. At 53, Mr. Deare, known as Freddy or Teddy Bear to his co-workers, would have to find a new job...

...he got an interview, and the supervisor he met with sounded optimistic about his chances of being hired. But there was no formal offer. Day after day went by. For three weeks the wait stretched on. This time, however, he got the job. And it was a union job, with benefits. He started on April 11 — 290 days after Old London laid him off.

“You’re speaking to a happy man,” he said after his first day. “I am in my glory. I mean, today was wonderful.” 

There was only one downside: The work paid $10 an hour, 40 percent less than he had made at Old London. After taxes, his paycheck was even less than the unemployment benefits he had been collecting. But he tried not to dwell on this. “I don’t let it bother me that I’m getting less, because of the simple fact I have something, and a lot of people have nothing,” he said. “You have to crawl before you can walk.” Four and a half months later, he is still on the job.

This is the new reality ordinary people are dealing with - being "downsized" or "right-sized" out of a decent-paying job and being left to stare into the economic abyss, and if you do manage to find other employment, it's for a fraction of the money you were paid at your old job for doing twice or three times the work, with no health care benefits. A lot of people with masters degrees and doctorates working service industry gigs. And a lot of people who are "independent contractors" or "temporary workers." Lots and lots of people trying to figure out how to survive in the shadow of record profits and record billionaire net worth.

People are figuring out new ways of surviving:

According to Workamper.com, a workamper is “an adventurous individual who has chosen a wonderful lifestyle that combines ANY kind of part-time or full-time work with RV camping. If you work as an employee, operate a business, or donate your time as a volunteer, AND you sleep in an RV (or on-site housing), you are a Workamper. Workampers generally receive compensation in the form of a free campsite, usually with free utilities (electricity, water, and sewer hookups) and additional wages.”

Calling it a “wonderful lifestyle” seems a bit over the top for some workampers. After communicating with Suzann for more than six months and observing the Ellingsworth’s ups and frequent downs, it’s obvious that workamping is not all fun and games, at least for those who hit the road in need of a job to survive.

Most workamper jobs are of the minimum-wage variety. Workampers generally don’t receive unemployment insurance benefits, severance pay or any warning that a job is about to end. Workampers face many of the same job insecurity issues as the millions of Americans who have been downsized due to job outsourcing, financial mismanagement and slow consumer demand for products and services, except workampers are purposely more nimble and have been conditioned to pack up and move to where the jobs are. “We have to be mobile to land a job,” said Suzann. Those who become jobless and live in traditional stationary homes aren’t usually able to move to another city on a moment’s notice.

Since workamping is a nomadic lifestyle, it’s difficult to collect a headcount. Steve Anderson, president of Workamper.com, said the most recent workamper survey is from KOA, but it is dated: “Nearly 10 years ago the KOA Corporation gave an estimate that 750,000 were living the workamping lifestyle. Their data was questioned then and at best was an estimated guess. Over the years we have seen our membership remain in the 14,000 range with thousands of others in the dreaming stages of workamping. It is very transitional lifestyle, meaning folks begin and end the lifestyle every day.”

After being "downsized," "right-sized" or laid off from a decent-paying job with health benefits, after spending months winging it on unemployment, odd temporary jobs and family charity, and after all of the bills, debt collection notices and nights of feeding your family from the food bank and dollar store, you finally land a stable job. Except that the job pays damn-near minimum wage and there aren't any health benefits tied to it. But you're thankful, nonetheless - you have to be in a climate where jobs are few and far between.

You're scared you might lose your job again, so you do anything and everything your employers want. Unpaid overtime, non-existent vacation time, zero health benefits and increased production schedules and work loads that border on superhuman. But you do it anyway, because it's either this or you take another long, painful look into the abyss.

Most major corporations are quite happy with this arrangement, if the record profits are any indicator. That's what happens when you can wring out twice the productivity from your workforce while no longer having to invest much money in them.


*"Scheduling conflicts?" Usually when the President of the United States invites you over for dinner and a photo op, all of your prior engagements fly out the fucking window. It's the ultimate doctor's excuse -- "Sorry boss, can't come into work today - the President's called me over for a few drinks. *hands boss official embossed White House invite*"


**And yes, I know most people have varying definitions of what "comfort" is, but let's not nit-pick over that for now.

History is a literal "Hitchhiker's Guide to the Universe" guide when it comes to things that any normal human being should see coming, but usually don't until is well too late. People may read about history, but they don't really learn anything from it unless it happens to be something immediately tangible they can get out of it like financial gain, and even then they end up dooming themselves thanks to the inevitable greed that comes over them. In short, people are forever stuck in the remedial classes, repeating history because they slept through it and failed hard when it came time for the test.

The socioeconomic elite, mainly the wealthy individuals and families who spend their time in the pursuit of money and power whenever they're not pursuing leisure, always allow greed to overcome their best judgment and forget (or don't care) how continuous hording of 99% of the monetary and physical resources, combined with continuous extortion of that last 1% from the 98% who are flat broke always results in said people rebelling against the elite in the worst ways possible. Sometimes the elite manage to escape to various boltholes prepared for such a purpose. Sometimes they earn a spot on the guillotine or gallows. At any rate, desperate people who are eating shit sandwiches while seeing the elites live high on the hog will snap and get their piece of the action by all means at their disposal.

Which brings me to this fellow by the name of Robert Rector, a gentleman in the loose sense of the word who believes that America's poor are living to high on the hog themselves to be technically poor. Granted, America's sky-high standard of living allows our poor to have more material things than poor people in other nations. Actually, that's the point Rector tries to make.

The overwhelming majority of the public do not regard a family living in these conditions as poor. For example, a poll conducted in June 2009 asked a nationally representative sample of the public whether they agreed or disagreed with the following statement: “A family in the U.S. that has a decent, un-crowded house or apartment to live in, ample food to eat, access to medical care, a car, cable television, air conditioning and a microwave at home should not be considered poor.”[42] 

A full 80 percent of Republicans and 77 percent of Democrats agreed that a family living in those living conditions should not be considered poor.

One of the most enduring criticisms against President Barack Obama is that he seems rather tone-deaf when it comes to the concerns and suffering of the black community. And it's probably at this point where the president himself would say he's not just the black community's president, but America's president, too. And that would be all well and good from most viewpoints.

But when you happen to be a part of the 16% of black Americans who are currently unemployed, those words ring hollow. Ditto if you happen to be a black victim of discrimination or unwarranted police violence. These days, it seems the concerns of the black community are the furthest thing from the mind of the president. Of course, black Americans don't expect Obama to cater to their every single wish or whim -- that's a great way for whites to become upset and walk away from Obama in droves. What black Americans want is for the president to acknowledge some of their concerns in a concrete manner, something that he hasn't done much of scratch that, concerns that often lack the appearance as being addressed to the visible benefit of the black community.

In politics, black folks usually stand in solidarity with elected black officials, seeing as they were usually the only ones who could be relied on to actually act in the black community's interests, historically speaking. Black Americans stand by Obama because he represents the best and most reliable chance of acting in the interests of the community. When there aren't any major black political figures available, the black community goes for those who represent the best chance of having their interests heard. Hence why blacks side with the Democrats instead of the GOP, and why Bill Clinton was considered "the first black president" during his tenure.

But thanks to the appearance of inaction on Obama's part and mounting frustration with America's current economic state, plenty of black supporters and politicians are thinking about taking their arm from around Obama's shoulders. To wit, Representative Maxine Waters:

U.S. House Rep. Maxine Waters is asking black voters who are struggling with an unemployment rate nearly twice the national average to "unleash" her and other members of the Congressional Black Caucus on President Obama.

The California Democrat, speaking at a raucous town hall in Detroit hosted by the CBC on Tuesday, said she doesn't want to attack the president from his base unless the base gives her the go-ahead.

"If we go after the president too hard, you're going after us," Waters said. "When you tell us it's all right and you unleash us and you're ready to have this conversation, we're ready to have the conversation."

Judging by the reaction of the audience, including someone yelling to Waters, "It's all right," the president will be hearing very soon from the congresswoman and her fellow caucus members.

Since Obama took office, he has resisted pressure from the CBC to create jobs programs specifically targeting blacks, saying that improving the entire economy will help all groups.

Waters said the Congressional Black Caucus "loves" the president, but it is frustrated.

"We're getting tired y'all," she said. "We want to give him every opportunity. But our people are hurting. The unemployment is unconscionable. ... When you let us know it is time to let go, we'll let go."

You're probably wondering why in the world would Rep. Waters and any other black politician would seek permission to criticize and otherwise not support Obama. For starters, Obama still enjoys a relatively large amount of support from the black community, and secondly, her fellow politicians and spokespersons would most likely go on the defensive in support of Obama. Yes, black folks realize the man's a bit tone-deaf and some even wonder if he really understands what it means to be a black person in America, given his half-white heritage and otherwise unconventional upbringing, but they're not about to see their own jump down the man's throat without just cause.

This interview in Time Swampland goes into further detail about what Rep. Waters felt Obama's done so far and what Rep. Waters would like to see Obama doing for the black community. Others may see it as a temper tantrum from someone who not only doesn't get that Obama has to build consensus and work towards the benefit of the entire nation, but also someone who allegedly hasn't done much for her constituents.