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For the last couple of weeks, I haven't even able to watch all of these 'Final' moments of POTUS. To your point, this didn't start with Obama as he continued so many policies of the previous admins and kept things at the status quo, which continued to hurt so many Americans. So, I did appreciate the WPost article talking about the Clinton admin.

I still have not heard the President's farewell speech, but I have heard clips and I watched an Interview on TV last night. In each instance, I've heard Obama state that the country is better off as a result of his presidency. In fact, in the interview I watched last night, Obama said this was "objectively" true in any way you want to measure it. As an entrepreneur; educator; and someone who has been involved in a wide variety of industries including, defense, financial services, publishing, and technology the notion that the country is better off now, than it was 8 years ago, does not ring true. While it is true, based upon the data I have access to, that the Nation's GDP has increased, during this same period of "growth," income has remained stagnant and wealth inequality as increased. If we measure the success of the economy based upon the increase in wealth of the extremely wealthy, then Obama is right. However. if we look at the prospects of most Americans, the picture is bleaker. I see education costing more and more, so much more that a decent one is out of reach of many—especially for those you can't, or refuse, to take on oppressive debt. At the same time, the prospects of a decent, well-paying job, as a result of this expensive education is no longer guaranteed. I see opportunities for running independent businesses, swiftly evaporating as super massive and ultra wealthy corporations are allowed to operate as virtual monopolies, utilizing the capital markets, tax loopholes, and politicians in a way that would be considered criminal is an individual engaged in this behavior. We have witnessed the death of journalism; and the rise of fake and biased news spewed by people armed with misinformation and biased opinions on platforms whose sole motivation is revenue. Trump's dysfunction became much more newsworthy than the coverage of legitimate candidates. If the country is doing better, why have the American people decided to radically change direction and go with Donald Trump? I submit for the very same reasons we chose Obama over Clinton in the primaries and again over Romney in the general. We were full of "hope" for a "change." Of course, wealth inequality did not start with Obama, but not only did he not reverse it, it grew under his watch and people are feeling the pain. Bernie Saunders spoke directly to this pain, while Obama attempted to convince us everything was going great. This is why Bernie's message resonated so strongly with many people, while Hillary just promised more of what Obama delivered--the rich getting richer. When Hillary modified her message to be more Saunder's like, she came across as a typical poll-monitoring politician, more commonly known as a liar, the chants of "lock her up" made perfect sense to many. Now that Trump is practically in office, the media will continue to cover his silly tweets and fail to directly challenge his lies. Our country is broken. God help us.

I pulled the stat from a NY Times article from a few weeks back. I did not see anything that really explained this, just a recognition that a LOT more work needs to be done if women are ever going to achieve full parity wth men, and how the work of Susan B. Anthony is being undone. Barack is arguably the smartest man to have served as president. His personal life is essentially flawless and scandal free. His education and academic record are impeccable. He is a relatively handsome, physically fit, family man. His wife is brilliant in her own right. We can debate whether Obama's political experience was adequate, but he was a state senator. This stands in STARK contrast to Donald Trump. Black folks aways knew we have to be twice as good to get half as much in America. It is interesting double standard play out for white women. In fact, one could argue Hillary was a superior candidate in 2016 than Obama was in 2008. Sure Hillary had a lot of baggage that Obama never had time to accumulate, but Trump has loads of baggage, much more than Hillary, but the media made it seem as if it Trump's baggage was equivalent to Hillary's while completely ignoring the vastly superior level of experience Hillary holds over Trump. We often talk about Black folks being like crabs in a barrel, but white women are even worse. Many Black people came out to vote for Obama simply because he was Black--I was one of those voters. White women simply would not, come out in mass, and support a woman simply because she was a woman. I mean it is not like we are talking about a Sarah Palin... One could argue that white women were operating on a higher principle--ignoring gender and simply voting for the best candidate. But that defies logic given the fact Trump was the opposing candidate they selected over Hillary. The really crazy thing is that all the Black women voted for Hillary (well 94% of them did). I think the reason has more to do with the democratic party's lock on the Black voter than Black women allegiance to other women. The republicans could have put Angela Davis on the ticket and Black women would have still voted democratic.

Can you identify all the writers? Click this link for the answers: https://aalbc.com/fun/who'sthe.htm This collage was used on AALBC.com’s first homepage in 1997. I'm finding all types of things as I plow through migrating all of the website's content to the new format. When I started the website upgrade, in late 2016 I thought I would be finished in the spring of 2016. It will be a great feat if I get it done by the spring of this year But in reality I've done a LOT more than I originally planned so it is all good.