You can only pass legislation by getting the vote of the 60th most liberal senator. Right now that's Rand Paul. And even in the first two years of Obama's presidency that meant that you'd have to get that 60th vote from Joe Lieberman or Susan Collins -- people who aren't at all committed to Black American causes.

And a lot of these complaints against Obama on black issues are about the symbolic stuff he did or didn't do, or stuff in his speeches he did or didn't say. I agree with some of the criticisms, but I think that stuff is trivial compared to the concrete ways that actual progressive legislation would help black people in this country. But again, that legislation has to go through the the 60th most liberal senator.