Black unemployment hits record low; Trump is apparently a very ineffective racist

I recall that during the campaign, Donald Trump visited a predominantly black church in Detroit, having been invited by the pastor to speak there. For this, liberal black activists excoriated him - claiming that going to speak at this black church made Trump a racist. How's that? Because by speaking to them but not necessarily agreeing with their political agenda, Trump was just using them as a political prop. Got that? Don't ever engage with anyone you might not agree with. That's a terrible thing to do. And if those people are black, then you're a racist.

Maybe Trump really is an incompetent president, because if his goal was to do harm to black people, he's blowing it:

Years of steady hiring and economic growth have delivered a cumulative benefit for at least one group that hasn't always shared in America's prosperity. The unemployment rate for African-Americans fell to 6.8 percent in December, the lowest level since the government began tracking such data in 1972. The reasons range from a greater number of black Americans with college degrees to a growing need for employers in a tight job market to widen the pool of people they hire from.

Now the black unemployment rate is of course higher than for the population as a whole. It's been that way for a very long time and when the day comes that this stops being true, that will be a wonderful development - provided, of course, it's caused by the black rate going down and not the overall rate rising to meet it. But what we can say from these numbers is what left-wing activists so often miss, but which should be obvious to people with basic common sense: The primary need of the black community is the same as the need of everyone else - a growing economy that offers more opportunity for people who need it. When you're part of a demographic that's already struggling, the worst thing that can happen to you is economic stagnation or contraction. The best thing that can happen is widespread prosperity, because that's going to create more opportunities for the people in your demographic group to improve their individual situations.

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Trump's pretty bad at being a racist

Having said that, every individual black person who needs a job or some other improvement in circumstances has to make good decisions, maintain good habits and be relentless in pursuing the opportunities society offers. The improving economy appears to be improving the chances of those who do this actually finding the opportunities they're looking for. Those who don't do these things are likely to continue to struggle, regardless of who is president. And that's true regardless of the color of your skin. If you drink or use other drugs, get in trouble with the police, fail to show up and do your best when people expect you to - you're going to have problems in your life. Barack Obama did not provide such people with a way to succeed despite their bad habits. Donald Trump is not taking any such thing away from them. But Trump is overseeing an economy that's growing faster than anything we saw under Obama. You can dispute how much presidents have to do with economic growth, but the fact remains that greater overall prosperity is the best thing society can do to help the black community. It's good to see so many in that community taking advantage of the broader prosperity we're enjoying in the first year of the Trump presidency. He's pretty bad at being a racist.