On Monday evening, at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, the very church where Martin Luther King, Jr. himself was a pastor, protestors interrupted U.S Attorney General Eric Holder’s speech. “No justice, no peace,” “we have nothing to lose but our chains.”
Such chants mark the extreme frustration of America’s black community after the failure to indict white police officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed 18-year-old black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on Aug. 9. Eric Holder, the first African-American to head the U.S. Department of Justice, did not attempt to reprimand the hecklers. On the contrary, he instead welcomed such a level of involvement and concern. It is in this way that “change will ultimately come,” he added, answering to the prediction that Ferguson could indeed become the new “Selma” in its endless struggle for civil rights.
For Barack Obama, it’s time to face the truth. Accused by its members of not doing enough for the African-American community, America’s very first black president is now faced with the sudden revival of the racism debate, following the riots in Ferguson and other recent events. This just goes to show the distinct lack of trust between U.S. local police and black citizens.
Barack Obama has not wasted any time in piecing together a solution. On Monday, he called a mass conference at the White House, inviting 50-odd people, all directly involved in the issue: mayors, police force representatives, and young civil rights activists. He worked on creating a task force charged with improving police policies. This new task force is under orders to release its recommendations in 90 days’ time. Obama has ordered that from now on, all U.S. agents are to wear cameras in order to track their behavior. In this way, he is finally responding to the requests of a large number of black citizens, fed up with what they call unjustified police harassment. Obama also envisages investing $263 million in police training. Eric Holder has promised new federal standards against racial profiling.
But is this enough? In the West Florissant Avenue McDonalds, one of Ferguson’s so-called hot spots, Eric Harriel, a 55-year-old black citizen, confides in our news team: “The Congressional Black Caucus demands nothing of the president. They have in no way put any pressure on him. It’s under Barack Obama’s leadership that Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown were killed. No, Obama is not Martin Luther King or Malcom X.” For some people, the Democratic president has betrayed the black community. These very same people evoke the famous cliché that Bill Clinton, the first “black president,” would have had a better understanding of the country’s second minority. Yet, taking into account social considerations, Barack Obama has in fact established a good number of policies that have gone much further in overcoming the problems of the African-American minority.
If America has not yet marched forth into a post-racial era, a naïve hope held by numerous onlookers, this is the result of a broken promise. And yet, in March 2008, during his famous speech on race in Philadelphia, Barack Obama warned, “I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle.” Certain black citizens, however, disapprove of Obama’s decision to re-use certain sections of a Bill Cosby speech. Cosby, now a highly controversial figure, urged the black community during his television show to assume some responsibility of its own.
The measures taken so far by the White House aren’t necessarily spectacular, but they do reveal a certain degree of presidential involvement, which has already been made somewhat evident following the launch of the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, a program looking to help young Latino and African-American teenagers improve their drastically poor school performance. However, many factors explain why Obama is being so careful. Historians don’t remember ever having seen a president be the target of so much criticism. Yes, Barack Obama remained reluctant to visit Ferguson in August, but that was simply because he preferred to send his “conscience,” Eric Holder, in order to avoid adding fuel to the fire in an already tense situation.
In the end, America’s racism debate comes back to the president’s own internal struggles during his Hawaiian upbringing. His father was African, his mother white and Kansas-born, yet Obama was mainly raised by his grandparents. In his book “Dreams from My Father,” Obama discusses the difficulties of being black, even if he himself made the choice to assume an African-American identity, helped to this decision by his mother, an avid supporter of Martin Luther King, Jr. He’s now more at ease with his identity and has begun to take action. For some, it’s just not enough; for others, who accuse him of playing the “race card,” it’s already too much.
I am a citizen of the United States and a registered Democrat in the beautiful state of Rhode Island. In my heart I am more of a democratic Socialist-but most socialist parties here have sunk into demoralized confusion or a bizarre personality cult. Like Christ, I hope that they too can rise from the dead .
I never voted for President Obama because I thought way back in 2006 that this charismatic American politician was being puffed up by our shadowy power elite. Obama has proved himself to be a Neo-Democrat out of touch with the great tradition of New Deal Liberalism. Franklin D. Roosevelt did not fear scaring our privileged class.
You cannot separate the problem of RACE from the problem of CLASS in America. I read in the above text : ” No Obama is not Martin Luther King or Malcolm X “. I do think that Malcolm X is more relevant to black rage in the streets of America this past week than the ideals of Obama or Martin Luther King .
In the last year of his life ( 1965 ) Malcolm X was thinking in much bigger terms than RACE. So white radicals on the left became very interested in his new message : ” Show me a capitalist “, Malcolm said , ” and I’ll show you a bloodsucker “.
You have to begin with a bold sentiment like that in order to achieve even MODERATE social progress here in capitalist America.
Oddly enough, President Obama is still more representative of the great majority of Americans than our Republican Congress .
Will these young Tea Party Republicans soon be serving up the crackpot reactionary Ayn Rand to the Other America ? Just what we need: ” The Virtue of Selfishness ” with a COMPASSIONATE CONSERVATIVE facelift .
Interesting times in the United States of America. Thinking about the Great French Revolution of 1789. The song from the play Les Miserables : ” Do you hear the people sing….. ? ”
( http://radicalrons.blogspot.com/ )