Urban poverty has skyrocketed under Obama.  Black unemployment rates are shameful.  Horrible stories of urban violence, such as a shot recently fired into a parochial school bus in Chicago in the Black and Hispanic South Deering neighborhood, seem to dominate local urban news stories.  None of this was mentioned at the Democratic National Convention.  Inside the convention center, the class warfare meme was largely confined to those evil, rich and largely suburban Republicans.     

On Wednesday afternoon, as I was sitting in a chartered bus parked where we could see Bank of America stadium, I chatted with the black driver about the hard time Obama was having trying to attract enough people to fill the stadium.  The driver had little time for those who wanted to come just to see Obama.  His assessment of Obama and his administration? "When they're making over six figures they stop relating to those of us who make only five"

I don't know how typical this man is of his community.  What I do know is the black political class has not done a particularly good job helping working class and welfare class Blacks Americans improve their lives.  Consider the massive cheating scandal in Atlanta, where highly paid black school administrators held that lower income black students were incapable of learning.  Then there is Chicago, where gunplay by gangs in minority communities now makes Dodge City the night after a cattle drive came off trail seem genteel.

We hear nothing about Chicago's gang crime situation from the Obama administration. Indeed when offered the chance to show solidarity with often hard pressed ordinary black South Side Chicagoans a few weeks back, Obama clearly preferred the company of his crony capitalist friends.

All across the nation, black politicians and their friends seem to grow rich playing the race card even as they have shortchanged their brothers and sisters with corrupt, inefficient and ultimately callously indifferent government services.  With prominent support being given gay marriage and abortion on demand these same black politicians are now openly at odds with the one class of institutions that are often still effective at improving lives of the residents of poor urban communities - churches and other faith based organizations.  

It will be most interesting to see if black voters again turn out in record numbers to support Obama.