Despite President Obama’s efforts to distance himself, many blacks still back him

The Democratic National Convention is in full swing in Charlotte, NC. Among the jubilant Obama devotees wearing ‘Vote Black’ buttons while chanting “four more years,” are a smattering of Obama detractors who are still looking for that Hope & Change that Obama promised the nation four years ago.

Some DNC attendees are cautiously optimistic that the Democrats will provide answers for the double digit unemployment in the black community and the triple digit deficit. They hope that Obama will say more to uplift black people than what he has already said to distance himself from blacks.

“I’m not the president of black America. I’m the president of the United States of America,” Obama said in a recent interview with an internationally known black journalist.

“I think I’ll vomit,” said Cornel West, the religion and African-American studies scholar and activist, who was once an Obama supporter. “It’s nothing but a ploy.”

But others see President Obama’s strategy of ignoring the issues that affect the black community as necessary for the common good of all people — not just the group of people who blindly elected him because he was black.

“Some people are hoping that you will do something that would allow them to publicly say that you came to office just to take care of one group of people,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), the chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus. “Being the first, you have to walk between the rain drops.”

Douglas Wilder, the former Virginia governor, said Obama “can’t afford to recognize any single entity just because they ask, ‘What about us?’”

Obama is “president of the entire country and… has a larger view,” said Broderick Johnson, a senior adviser to the Obama campaign who does outreach to the black community and religious leaders.

Some believe that Obama’s fears of being categorized as a ‘black’ president will be eased if he wins a second term. Obama will be free to be a president for black people, instead of just a president for the gays, Muslims and Hispanics.

Watch former President Bill Clinton’s speech at the DNC below.