Is Obama Good For Blacks?

In July 2005, a previous article of mine was published, entitled “Trip Impressions: Thoughts on the Situation of Blacks in America.”

The article described a bleak portrayal of the situation of blacks in this country a few decades after the “civil rights revolution” of the Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy era. Since then, three years have passed and during this time three important things have taken place in the history of the African-American community in the United States: the first, hurricane Katrina, which badly hit the Mississippi and Louisiana coasts; the Jena Six incident, named so for the six black teenagers from the town of Jena, Louisiana; and thirdly, the nomination of Senator Barack Obama as the Democratic Party candidate for the presidency of the United States.

Hurricane Katrina exposed the distressing situation of blacks in America for all to see and showed the depths of the discrimination from which they suffer. But yet Obama’s candidacy symbolizes the opposite: the ability of the black man to achieve all he desires in the land of endless opportunities, the proof that it is possible to overcome discrimination and racism, and lead the black community to the dawn of a new day. However, the truth is that the Jena Six incident overshadows Katrina and Obama in the contest to best represent the reality of the situation of blacks in America today.

Does Katrina Prove the Indifference of the Republicans towards Blacks?

Hurricane Katrina damaged New Orleans in August 2005. Katrina will go down in history not as the fiercest storm, but as the storm that succeeded in overpowering the dams and levees of New Orleans, and thus causing extensive flooding of parts of the city. Residents of the city were instructed to evacuate a few days before and many did just that, but many were left behind, particularly the poor. And as is the case with every large American city, and especially in a large American city in the South, a significant part of the poor are black.

The drama of Hurricane Katrina lasted for about a week and in its wake, there were voices who blamed the white Republican establishment of neglect and discrimination of the black city, which brought upon these heartbreaking results. The artist Kanye West is particularly remembered for bluntly declaring in a special television broadcast to raise funds for the victims that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Bush, for his part, certainly supplied enough embarrassing moments regarding Katrina such as telling Head of FEMA Michael Brown: “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” Brown was fired two days later. There is no need to add that in the last three years, officials in the Democratic Party have used the example of Katrina numerous times in efforts to prove the indifference of the Republicans towards the black community.

The thing is that blacks in America did not wait for Katrina in order to become supporters of the Democratic Party. They have been supporters for quite some time. It was this political inclination that saw the state of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans as a purely Democratic hold and, in fact, Roy Negin, the mayor of New Orleans, was himself African-American. From the viewpoint that his role consisted only of internal affairs, he failed miserably in taking care of the poor citizens and the crumbling neighborhoods of New Orleans, but it was easier for everyone else to point a finger at the federal government and at President Bush. Those things have a direct link to Obama who is running for president as the successor to George Bush and thus begs the question: if Obama had been the president in August 2005 would history had looked different?

Obama’s candidacy has created enormous excitement in the United States and around the world. The thought that a son of a minority group that, for hundreds of years, suffered from systematic discrimination and racism could get to the position of being the leader of the most powerful country in the world is without a doubt a stirring and encouraging thought. Add to that Obama’s personality and style: flowing charisma, an incredible rhetorical talent and you will get a winning recipe of the political dreams of the Democratic voter in America. Two for the price of one! Vote once and get a liberal president and a collective refining of the American conscience without an added payment!

The question I wish to present for discussion in this article is the following: how will Obama’s presidency, if he is chosen to the highest office, affect the situation of blacks in America? In order to answer this question, it is best to first examine what are the main difficulties and challenges facing the black community and what are their roots.

Systematic Racism or a Class and Social Gap?

Up until the 1960s, the main problem facing the black community was systematic discrimination, which took action against the black community and came from various governmental bodies and societies where they lived, particularly in Southern states where most blacks reside: not having the right to vote, inadequate allotment of resources, segregated public bathrooms, police violence and much more. With the civil rights enshrined in the mid-1960s, the gradual removal of systematic discrimination began to erode, especially in states in the Deep South. Today, one can confidently say that there is no place in the United States where a black person will face open discrimination from a governmental body: court of law, police, school, a government office, etc.

What remains after the disappearance of open discrimination are more covert actions although they may not stem from the same roots as the more open and traditional discrimination. People who grew up in the Southern states during the first part of the twentieth-century were educated by and large to believe that a black person was inferior to the white person from birth: even if the black person attends Harvard, he will stay dim, good only for menial work and at the end day, he is a savage beast. This was pure racism, which sees an individual first and foremost as a product of his race and the ethnic group to which he belongs-–a kind of racism that isn’t really too different from the kind of racism that led the Nazis to persecute the Jews.

America has come a long way since those days, regarding people’s beliefs and the way they see things. The physical distance and separation which exists today between blacks and whites, in the Deep South as well as in numerous other places in the U.S., is relying more on cultural gaps between different population groups than ethnic identity. In order to demonstrate this, keep in mind the following example: there are neighborhoods in the U.S. that are populated mostly by whites belonging to middle and upper middle classes. In a neighborhood like this, the mysterious presence of a black man walking in the street would surely cause confusion of some kind among a large number of the white residents who will happen upon this individual-–a belief that is based on a covert presumption, which involves an individual who intends to harm (burglar, pedophile). This reaction might also take place if the man in question were not black, but Hispanic, and especially if his dress and haircut hint in any way that he is connected to a street gang (hip hop-style clothing).

The facts are chilling: one out of every five black men is behind bars in American jails, according to a recent survey. In the 20-34 age group, one out of every nine men spends his days in jail-–more than 10 per cent! Among the Hispanics one out of every thirty-six men is in jail, a high rate as well.

Crime, therefore, in all its elements and repercussions is not just a side effect or a by-product in the black community. For the majority of blacks, it is about a personal experience, either directly or through a family relative: father, brother, son, husband, etc. On the other hand, regarding the whites, the connection of the black male with violence and crime isn’t just a matter of racism or biased opinion. If you will, it is a defense mechanism.

Whoever watched the excellent film “Crash,” which won Best Picture in 2006, remembers the following scene: two young black males walking in a commercial area that includes high-priced stores. One of the men tells his friend in a bitter tone: “Look at those white people who look at us as though we’re criminals. It’s only because we’re blacks walking in an upper scale white neighborhood. It’s like we came to rob someone.” The other man answers: “Actually we did.” And both of them take out their guns and proceed to go to an expensive SUV, eject its passengers, carjack the car and escape.

It turns out the couple who gets robbed is the local district attorney of Los Angeles and his wife. Upon arriving at their house, they call a locksmith to change all the locks in their house. The man who arrives is a young Hispanic man with a shaved head and tattooed arms. The DA’s wife becomes hysterical when she sees this man and screams at her husband: “This is who they sent? Tomorrow night he will bring all of his friends from his gang, they will enter the house and kill us all. Are you out of your mind? Please ask them to send someone else!”

These two scenes effectively show the existing relationship between the main ethic groups that make up America’s population. Although, systematic discrimination against blacks has been eradicated, from a socio-economic perspective they have been left far behind. And in comparison to other segments of the population, they have suffered far more dramatically from poverty, crime, and health problems.

The average life span of a black person is also lower than that of other ethnic groups in the U.S. Generally speaking, there is a tendency for the gap between the rich and the poor to widen, as it has grown around the world, and in America it has lead to a widening of the gap between blacks and whites.

Could a Black President Improve the Situation of the Blacks?

It is understood that it is not possible to disconnect the present socio-economic situation of blacks from the many years that they experienced discrimination. But, from the viewpoint of a presidential candidate, you cannot fix the past-–but the present and the future can certainly, and should be, improved.

President Obama will have numerous opportunities to channel the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr. in his speeches, but from a practical standpoint, it is expected of him to deal with actual problems, like the huge number of black men who make up the prison population in the country.

And this is exactly the issue: among all the issues between the three branches of American government, the president has the least relevant role with regard to dealing with issues in the black community. Who else, besides Obama, who began his career in local Illinois politics, knows this? Even the ultimate authority of the apparent and seeming arm-–budgets and spending-–expresses itself through complicated political maneuverings by the president, House of Representatives and the Senate. It is far easier for the president to go to war, which may cost trillions of dollars, than to allocate a million dollars to a rebuilding project for troubled youth in St. Louis. Between him and the youth of St. Louis, there are numerous obstacles from a federal level, state-wise and locally speaking, as well as who will, no doubt, want to play a role when it comes to the budget and when it comes to the well-being of the city’s citizens, even at a time when Congress itself does not stand between the president and those unfortunate countries that he will choose to attack, as we saw a few years ago.

Will President Obama be able to handle and address the fundamental issues facing the black community in the U.S.? Will he be able to change the reality, which sees seven out of ten children born and raised in a single-parent household (without a present father)?

Any serious action that attempts to treat the economic and social ills of the African-American population must start by addressing this reality.

Many young black women become pregnant at an early age, while still teenagers and many are forced to leave school because of it. Until their mid-twenties, they find themselves taking care of a number of babies and in order to provide a living, they work for very long hours, mainly performing physically demanding jobs that pay minimum wage. The children grow up in poverty without the presence of a father and with a minimal presence of the mother, who spends most of her time working. As they grow up, they become naturally attracted to the street and temptations to make easy money, and the allure of crime and drugs.

It’s about a destructive, vicious circle. Across the U.S., there are numerous black grandmothers under 40 years of age who raise generation after generation in distress. Any attempt to change this reality requires a long-term plan which will examine the root causes and will go deep into the youngest generation of the black community: the education of youth to abstain from sex; a real fight against drugs, and infiltrating inside the soul and the culture of every boy and girl with the following: that to be a mom at 16 is a bad thing, to finish 12 years of schooling is a good thing, etc.

Is this something a president can do? A president can set an example to emulate, to provide inspiration and to carry with him thousands as he inspires the nation in his speeches and deeds, but let us not exaggerate. Any politician who has an eight-year term limit cannot change the cultural life of a given community single-handedly.

Cultural changes, by nature take many years to transpire and are impacted by various factors, and politics is only of them.

The choice of Obama as president will undoubtedly be a dramatic moment in the history of the African-American community, but let’s not forget he is not the only black person who has risen to the top. Along these years, there have been numerous blacks who have been chosen for important roles and thus have presented themselves as models to be emulated: Condoleezza Rice, National Security Adviser and Secretary of State; Deval Patrick, Governor of Massachusetts. Alongside their names, you will see city mayors, CEOs, prominent academics and of course noted musicians and athletes like Tiger Woods. However, reality has shown that despite all this, it has not been enough to change the cultural, societal and economical tracks on which most blacks in America journey.

To be fair, it is believed that Obama is doing his best to deal with his singularity in the presidential race. On Father’s Day, he gave a speech to a black audience in Chicago where he raised the issue of the “invisible father,” which is especially prominent in the black community. As previously stated, almost 70 percent of black children in the U.S. grow up in single-parent households. In his speech, he criticized this phenomena and he added: “It’s easy to give birth to kids. Any fool can conceive children. The real challenge is to raise them and to be a father.” No white politician could give a speech like that in front of a black audience, without being accused of racism or as being prone to racism.

Barack Obama is not the first black person who is trying to reach the highest office in the land, but he is different from his predecessors such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, particularly because he doesn’t use words like “them” and “us.” He has demonstrated throughout his long campaign a message of harmony and unity and only time will tell if he was sincere and acting out of a deep personal belief. This message, without a doubt, helped him to win the support of many white people, but let’s not forget this: in the earlier elections of the Democratic Party (primaries), which has substantial black support, he won ninety per cent among the black voters.

Even when he had a formidable opponent with a record of supporting the black community (Bill Clinton was called the first black president by Toni Morrison), black voters flocked to Obama in such huge numbers that remind one more of voting in Syria than a real democratic process (in terms of the overwhelming disparity). They in fact said: when there is finally a real chance to elect someone who could really be president, we will do everything in our power to make it happen even if the candidate is half-black, his father is from Kenya and not a descendant of slaves, grew up in Hawaii and not in a neighborhood in Atlanta, and he often curries favor with whites.

At the end of the day, the most important questions are: should Obama become president and should he win a second term, will the situation of the blacks at the end of his eight years be different than what was portrayed with the Jena Six? Other than to provide inspiration, will he able to change in a monumental way the relationships between whites and blacks in this country? I will admit: I highly doubt it. Perhaps in a hundred years, things will be viewed differently and historians will highlight 2008 as the year where real change began with the election of the first black president. Or perhaps not.