Focus on high black unemployment, income inequality on black leaders’ post-election wish list

Focus on high black unemployment, income inequality on black leaders’ post-election wish list

WASHINGTON (AP) — When black voters gave President Barack Obama 93 percent support on Election Day in defiance of predictions that they might sit it out this year, black leaders breathed a collective sigh of relief.

That encouraged those leaders to try to leverage more attention from both Obama and Congress. Although they waver over how much to demand from the president — particularly in light of defeated GOP challenger Mitt Romney’s assertion that Obama gave “gifts” to minorities in exchange for their votes — they are delivering postelection wish lists to the president anyway.

“I think the president heard us loud and clear. The collective message was, ‘Let’s build on where we already are,”’ the Rev. Al Sharpton told reporters after a White House meeting last week with a collection of advocates representing largely Democratic constituencies.

Specifically, Sharpton said, that means keeping the brunt of the looming “fiscal cliff” of tax increases and spending cuts off the backs of the middle and working class.

NAACP President Benjamin Jealous aimed that same message at Congress, especially on where tax relief is extended.