Debates among African-Americans on who has the best ideas for improving the status of Blacks is old news. In 2006, a review of the role of Booker T Washington versus that of WEB DuBois titled "Uncle Tom or New Negro" was edited by Rebecca Carroll. Washington was analyzed by the late Ron Walters, John McWhorter, Julianne Malveaux and others. I suppose because time had passed, the debate was civil.

In the current era, with the economy falling, focus on the Black community focuses on unemployment. High unemployment has a resultant effect of creating male absence from many African-American households. Some blame the welfare state for driving Black males from the home. It should be noted that while some states penalized families with Black males in the home of impoverished families, the Supreme Court ruled against such sanctions in 1968. While the laws were changed the, the idea that if you were the head Black male in an impoverished family and were contributing little to the finances of the family, you were worthless to the government and society in general.

While the welfare state is often blamed for driving males from Black homes, people overlook the impact of mechanization on diminishing the number of physical labor jobs in the economy. It was mechanization, not welfare that made men who had little to offer fiancially leave the home. High unemployment has been a chronic phenomenon in the Black community, it did not suddenly appear under Obama.

Even Blacks who worked hard faced problems. The Black farmers who were discriminated against by the Department of Agriculture had to wait decades to be compensated despite a court ruling in favor of the farmers. Under the Obama administration funding was finally approved. Even then Republicans tried to block the payments, while Black Republicans like Herman Cain, Michael Steele and  Armstrong Williams remain silent.

The debate about who has the best method of dealing with problems in the African-American community is old. The barriers to making progress are nothing new. If there is disappointment and disgust about the plight of the poor and unemployment, it should be shared by all of us because the public makes it loud and clear that they dislike unemployment only when the jobs at risk are their own. Otherwise, the unemployed are lazy.

(Edited to clarify that "Uncle Tom or New Negro" was about Whashington vs DuBois)