Obama targets problems in black community

WASHINGTON, May 3 (UPI) -- Presidential candidate Barack Obama is publicly criticizing his own community as he seeks votes from African-Americans.

The Democratic senator from Illinois laments many of his generation don't vote and rappers use unacceptable language, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

As he campaigns to become the nation's first black president, Obama also laments an "anti-intellectualism" in the black community, including black children telling peers who do well in school that they are "acting white," the Post reported.

Obama maintains he is giving broader exposure to the problems African-Americans share with each other in private.

"There's an old saying that if America has a cold, we have pneumonia," he told the Post.