One of the greatest achievements of President Barack Obama is how little we talk about him now as the first black president.
Four years ago, candidate Obama was very much seen as the great hope of the Joshua generation of black leaders to complete the civil rights revolution wrought by the Moses generation of Martin Luther King and his contemporaries. Obama himself honored his elders, and sought to carry forward the mantle honorably.
It is a huge measure of his success that now his supporters, like me, point to his solid record of practical achievements in righting the ship of state from the disaster of the previous administration, and making dozens of improvements in how government functions. Likewise, Obama's opponents attack him for many things, but only rarely for his blackness.
To be sure, Barack Obama's election to the presidency brought the racists out of the woodwork of American politics. And some of his most vociferous and poisonous opponents are motivated by racism, which they sometimes foreground in their attacks.
NOTE: I am not saying that all opponents of Pres. Obama are racists. Most of just Republicans, opposing the Democrat, in the most ordinary of ways.
I think that anti-black racism is the original sin of America. I therefore believed four years ago that in electing a black president, American had taken a giant step forward. And in electing a hugely accomplished meritocrat, married to another hugely accomplished meritocrat, who were devoted parents, committed church members, patriotic citizens - in short, just what we usually want our First Family to be - the Obamas made it clear that there were plenty of African-Americans ready and able to take their place in the leading classes of ordinary, bourgeois America.
Barack Obama was elected as, among other things, the first black president, and that mattered a great deal. But he will be re-elected (I believe) as just the president, and that matters more.
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5 comments:
You live in a different reality than me and about half of the country...
Can you elaborate?
Are you saying that in your "half" of America, the president's race is the main issue?
Mr Weston - by all means. LET ME elaborate for you.
You are guilty of running a "Republican Analysis Of The Economic Health Of The Nation By Looking At HIS WEALTH FRIENDS" - except you did this USING BLACK PEOPLE.
Despite what the Schott Foundation Report said regarding the low graduation rates for Black males - which should qualify as a "Civl Rights Violation" - YOU are more interested in using THE OBAMA'S as your index of "Black Community Health and Standing".
Here is what I have learned over time on how to deal with "people like YOU".
YOU seek to DEFINE THE INTERVAL OF INSPECTION.
WHY do you focus upon 2008-2012 as a reference for appraising "Race Relations" and "Black Competencies"?
We Black folks have been INVESTING in this Machine (Progressive Fundamentalist Public Policy) for more than 50 years, handing over the bulk of our "valuables" in support of it.
With so many "distributed progressives" in power in support of Black Community Human Resource Development INSTITUTIONS - as a sociologist - WHY do you focus on ONE BLACK FAMILY - their power coming from the GOVERNMENT AUTHORITY which they occupy?
Why not take a walk INTO the Black community that has millions of OTHER CANDIDATES and tell us of the UPLIFT that this MACHINE that you and they support has successfully implemented.
As a professional sociologist as you are - I have a question for you.
How does one legitimately delineate between the claims of how "400 years of Slavery and Oppression" are now impacting a "20 year old Black male" VERSUS the knowledge that he was born in 1992 - his character and consciousness being shaped from his "day". Depending on the locale where he received his formative "messages" - it is highly likely that he never had direct contact with a "right-wing enemy" in control over the key "Human Resource Development Institution" (his school, his family culture, his community center, etc).
It seems, Mr Weston that you are more interested in assigning "Victory" to Obama and the Progressives - by using the very same myopic via on BLACK SOCIETY that a Republican is inclined to do on distributed economic success.
And you have what to say about your agenda, sir?
One sign of advancement is that I would have suffered personal injury for talking to a "White man" as I have done above. INDEED this nation has CHANGED.
Obama's not black (despite his disowning of his white mother and grandparents). He is of mixed race (mulatto, cafe au lait, etc.). Further, despite the notion that Obama became president despite his supposed blackness, it was this characteristic more than any other that made him attractive to the Democratic Party, which is composed of minority grievance groups and self-loathing white people who claim that the American people are guilty of some collective sin.
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