“Too many of our kids are dropping out of schools,” Mr. Obama told a mostly black audience in the ballroom of the Sheraton New York Hotel in Manhattan. “That’s not a white, black or brown problem. That’s everybody’s problem.”
In a lightning-fast visit to New York before returning to Washington for more budget talks, Mr. Obama delivered a sober assessment of what he has done since taking office to help black Americans, and what more needs to be done. He praised the health care overhaul and the auto-industry bailout, and castigated critics who he said had developed “amnesia” about the shape the country was in when he took office.
