In a BET News interview on Monday, President Obama addressed criticism from African-American leaders that he is not doing enough to alleviate unemployment within the black community. Asked what he would tell a black teenager who saw only “blight” around him, Obama replied, "[F]irst of all, that's not what people are saying. What people are saying all across the country is, we're hurtin' and we've been hurtin' for a long time."

From the BET interview with Emmett Miller (around 7-minute mark):

MILLER: African-American leaders have been critical of late. And it's true, you've said you're the president for all people, not just for one group. If I'm a 16-year-old kid on the South Side of Chicago, OK, my dad's gone. My mom's working 10 hours a day for peanuts. All I see around me is blight. There are no “Help Wanted” signs. And you won't even say, look, I'm gonna help you, a young African-American. How do I feel?

OBAMA: Emmett, that's not -- first of all, that's not what people are saying. What people are saying all across the country is, we're hurtin' and we've been hurtin' for a long time. And the question is, how can we make sure that the economy is working for every single person. And the truth of the matter is, the vast majority of African-Americans understand that. They understand that when the economy goes well, then everybody does well.

Now there are certain communities that have been struggling even when the economy does well, which is why for example, the Neighborhood Stabilization Program is gonna be targeting communities that are having the toughest time.

Discussing the interview on Fox News' The Five on Tuesday, all co-host Eric Bolling heard was Obama “blaming” former President Bush:

BOLLING: Instead of saying, look, we're working on it, we're trying to create jobs, he went ahead -- if you listen to that carefully -- and blamed Dana's ex-boss. He said blame Bush, saying it's been bad for a really long time and the 16-year-old kid realizes it. Well, I don't think so, Leslie. I think this is his economy now.

But as radio host Leslie Marshall and co-host (and former Bush press secretary) Dana Perino pointed out, Obama's comments had little to do with Bush. Marshall stated of Bolling's comments: “That's not about President Bush. That's the reality. Whether ... it's a good economy or a bad economy, whether unemployment is high or low -- it's terrible but it's true -- the African-Americans have always had a disproportionate percentage” of unemployed workers.

Indeed, while conservatives would like to believe otherwise, Obama did in fact inherit the recession from Bush. But the larger point Obama was making was not about the Bush-era economy, but about the historically high unemployment within the black community, as he intimated later in the interview. Obama stated that “there are certain communities that have been struggling even when the economy does well.”

In a September 2 article, CNNMoney reported that “Black unemployment has been roughly double that of whites since the government started tracking the figures in 1972.” The article continued: “Black unemployment has now remained above 10% for four straight years, and the given current economic sluggishness, some experts say it's safe to predict the rate will remain above 10% for four more years.”

CNNMoney included this graph, which illustrated its point about the disparity in white and black unemployment:

The U.S. Census Bureau has also stated that the “unemployment rate for Blacks continues to be higher than for Whites,” writing:

In 1994, a higher proportion of Whites (67 percent) than Blacks (63 percent) 16 years old and over were in the civilian labor force. However, Blacks were more likely than Whites to be unemployed.

The civilian unemployment rate for Blacks was more than twice that of Whites in both 1994 and 1980 (11 versus 5 percent and 14 versus 6 percent, respectively). The unemployment rate for Blacks grew from 14 percent in 1980 to a high of 20 percent in 1983 (just after the end of the 1981-82 recession). It then dropped to 11 percent in 1989, increased to 13 percent in 1993, and then dropped to 11 percent in 1994.

The unemployment rate for Whites also fluctuated from a high of 9 percent in 1982 to a low of 4 percent in 1989. In 1994, 5 percent of all White civilians in the labor force were unemployed.