An April 2011 study conducted by the non-partisan Economic Policy Institute entitled "The State of Working America's Wealth," found that roughly 25% of all American households had zero or negative net worth in 2009. For black households, the figures are, as expected, more bleak. The EPI founds that in 2009 nearly 40% of black households had zero or negative net worth. And finally - and worst of all, in my view - the study concludes with the finding that in 2009 the median net worth of black households reached a devastatingly scant $2,200 (dropping from $10,000 in 2006), while the net worth among white households was $97,900, or 45x that of black households. Stop and think about this figure for a second...$2,200??? Such an illustration, of course, challenges President Obama's soaring rhetorical claims that "there is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America -- there’s the United States of America." (Although this phrase originally appeared in Obama's 2004 keynote address at the Democratic National Convention, he continues to repeat it to this day.) His lack of targeted policies - policies organized under the banner of mitigating opportunity and outcome disparities premised on race, class, and gender (to name a few)- are simply the political instantiation of a deeply distorted ideological vision. And so we're left with essentially two options: Our president is either 1) diluted by his premature vision of post-raciality or 2) willfully ignoring those who are unlikely to contribute financially to his re-election campaign. I ask you to pick your poison...

Read the study here.