African American Group Slams Obama in Protest Outside White House, Dubs President as "White Power in Black Face"

"White power in black face" was the rallying cry of hundreds of African Americans who marched on the White House Saturday to protest policies of the first African American U.S. president and they demanded that he bring the troops home. More than 200 people gathered for the first public demonstration by African Americans against the Obama administration and they slammed the president for continuing what they described as Washington's "imperialist" agenda around the world.  Charles Baron, a New York city councilman and former member of the Black Panthers, a Black Power movement in the mid-1960s and 1970s, attacked the president for turning a cold shoulder to the plight of African-Americans. The notion that President Obama can wave a "magic wand" and fix all the problems in the black community, some self-inflicted, is just insulting on so many levels. They are missing the point that he isn't only the president of black America, but of the entire United States.

"We recognize that Barack Hussein Obama is white power in black face," civil rights activist Omali Yeshitela, chairman of the Black is Back coalition which arranged the protest, shouted into a megaphone as the group marched outside the mansion's gates. "He is a tool of our imperialist enemies and we demand our freedom. And we demand that Obama withdraw all the troops from Afghanistan right now." Did they stop to realize as Gen. Colin Powell stated, "if you break it, you own it" is at play in both Afghanistan and Iraq? We certainly cannot walk away from both countries because it would result in disaster and lead to a regrouping of Al Quaida and the Taliban. Protesters also called for Obama to order troops out of Iraq and to scrap Africom, the controversial year-old United States Africa Command, and demanded "hands off" Venezuela and ends to the Cuba embargo and the Zimbabwe blockade.

"We are glad that Barack Obama broke up the white male monopoly on the White House, but we were not looking for a change in the occupant of the White House from white to black, we were looking for change in foreign policies and domestic policies," Baron told the AFP. "To have a black person exploiting me just like a white person, that's no easier pain." Sorry, but African Americans can't have it both ways. President Obama isn't the cure for what ails the black community. Let us debate him on the issues that confront us as a country -- high unemployment, lost of educational parity with other countries, health care reform, weakening dollar, skyrocketing deficit, high foreclosure rates, among other things. As Michael Jackson said in his "Man in the Mirror" song "I'm starting with the man in the mirror, I am asking him to change his ways, and no message could have ever been clearer, if you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that change."

Photo credit: African American group protesting before White House (AFP)