Obama rapped on urban problems
President Obama got his start as a community organizer in Roseland, but a few dozen residents gathered there Saturday gave the new commander-in-chief a failing grade for not doing enough to tackle urban problems during his first 100 days in office.
“Some of us who worked with him from the beginning of his carreer through the presidency are not satisfied,” said community activist Mark Allen. “Some of these streets are worse than they were when he walked down these streets.’’
(John J. Kim/Tom Cruze/Sun-Times)
Allen noted that Obama’s “urban policy” on his Web site pledges to support programs such as CeaseFire, an anti-gang violence program in the city which hasn’t gotten any federal stimulus money.
“How can you model yourself after CeaseFire if CeaseFire has no money?” Allen asked.
Allen and others directed their comments to U.S. Sen. Roland Burris, who has had en even rougher start than Obama. But Burris was spared the residents’ criticism during the 90-minute meeting at which they asked him to carry their agenda in Washington.
Allen’s concerns were echoed by former Chicago Housing Authority Director Phil Jackson, now head of the Black Star project, who showed Burris a map of the 34 Chicago Public School students killed in the last nine months — centered around a flag that marks Obama’s home in Kenwood.
More stimulus money needs to be targeted to jobs and internships for youth, Jackson said. “When we had a summer jobs program, we were able to keep 80 children safe and off the streets,” Jackson said. “When it ended, three of them were shot. One of them was killed. We have to rebuild the black family. We need strong institutions in our community.’’
Obama’s stimulus package includes $2 million to hire more police officers and buy new crime-fighting technology.
But Burris told Jackson there was little the government could do to solve the problems of broken African-American families.
“No government, no senator, no alderman, no representative is going to be in your family dealing with those kids that we’re raising,” he said.
And Burris, 71, said he found himself at a loss trying to stop some children from turning to crime, saying “an old gentleman like me trying to deal with 10- and 12-year-olds that will cuss you out in a minute if you look at ’em . . . ”
Jackson interjected: “That’s what we need help on.”
“A dollar bill ain’t going to help that,” Burris replied.
“We need help to put structures into place,” Jackson countered.
Of the money that has been allocated, Sheryl Holman, CEO of Community Assistance Programs, complained that union construction jobs promised under the stimulus package will not help the poor.
“We don’t ever get those jobs,” Holman said, recalling the time she brought 10 young men who had trained to be carpenters to be admitted to the union.
“We got to the door. I had my 10 guys. They said there were too many carpenters on the street now and they could not open up membership at this time, and they closed the door,” Holman said. “After weeks of classroom. After weeks of internship.”
“Were they all black?” Burris asked, interrupting her. She nodded and said, “Yes.”
“Well, there you go,” Burris said.
Allen, who has worked for Rev. Jesse Jackson and U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., said he’d like to see Obama locate the headquarters for his urban affairs office in Roseland. He said he recognized Obama had plenty of other weighty issues to distract him in his first 100 days, but the economic downtown was hurting poor neighborhoods the hardest.
“Everything is ‘middle class this’ and ‘middle class that.’ Nobody has a poor people’s agenda,” Allen lamented. Noting that Obama sought him out after arriving in Chicago to help organize the neighborhood, Allen added, “I feel uniquely qualified to be able to challenge him, as he would if he were still a community organizer.”
Asked after the forum to address Allen’s criticisms of Obama, Burris said: “Those are his comments. I don’t have any comment on that.”
While Obama has gotten praise from some quarters for the far-reaching action he has taken in his first 100 days, Burris has mostly faced tough questions about his lobbying of friends or relatives of indicted former Gov. Rod Blagojevich while Burris sought to get appointed Senator. He also faces questions about what, if anything, he promised Blagojevich in exchange for the appointment and why Burris’ answers to some of those questions have changed over time.
Burris has all but stopped taking questions from the media and does not publish a schedule of public events. He was visibly alarmed to see a reporter arrive at Saturday’s meeting and emphasized that any story should include the fact that his vote was crucial to passing the stimulus bill.
Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), who sat at a table with Burris, praised Burris’ stimulus vote and faulted the media for covering Sen. Richard Durbin’s news conferences to announce stimulus funds for fixing up the CTA Blue Line and other projects.
“It took two senators to vote on the stimulus package out of Illinois, yet only one senator is having press conferences about all the money that’s coming to different programs, different things in the city of Chicago,” Beale said. “We need to stress the fact that there were two votes.”
But Burris has chosen not to schedule any news conferences. He gave a few terse answers to reporters who staked out a fundraiser he held last Sunday.
Burris said Saturday that since arriving in the senate he has spent time learning the rules. He said he personally intervened to try to break the logjam when Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.) put a hold on Obama’s nomination of Tammy Duckworth to be assistant secretary of Veterans Affairs. The chairman of the committee told Burris to be respectful of Burr, he said.
“He didn’t allow me to press the senator that hard,” Burris said. “I went to him. We talked about it. He said, ‘Well, we’ll try to confirm her before we get out of here for our recess.’ There was about a three-week delay.”
Burris said the economic downturn was now showing middle-class America how people in neighborhoods like Roseland live.
“Right now you can see there is no money in circulation because banks won’t give money to businesses,” Burris said. “The hurt has always been in the grass-roots community. They’re experiencing now what we live with almost every day in terms of how you get by with little or nothing and how you do more with less.”