The Reticent President

Does America have the guts to patch the half-healed wound of racism, to let in fresh air to treat the trauma, to take on new pain, and thus enable real improvement? Is the first black president of the country, Barack Obama, capable of this? I’m afraid the answer is no.

Obama – Trapped in His Position

Since the private security guard George Zimmerman, who shot the black youth Trayvon Martin in Florida, was acquitted, the president has said that the history of slavery and racial segregation doesn’t simply disappear. After the shots that killed Michael Brown were fired by police officer Darren Wilson, Obama very generally stressed that black demonstrators and white policemen must respect the rule of law. Even after police officer Daniel Pantaleo, who in mid-July put 43-year-old asthmatic Eric Garner in a headlock from which he died, the process remains unfinished. Obama said there is “a gap between our professed ideals and how laws are applied on a day-to-day basis.” This comment is different.

The rift of which Obama speaks has never disappeared. The great American wound, poorly plastered by the abolition of slavery, gaped larger and bled more even with the Civil Rights Act of 1965. Every doctor wants to know whether bacteria have accumulated, whether the tissue is inflamed. Large parts of the American public would rather be content with past achievements of equality than start again from the beginning.

African-Americans Bitterly Disappointed by Their President

And Obama is not the right man for a new, important discussion due to his skin color. He must be the president of all Americans. Blacks, a minority in the country, are bitterly disappointed by their man in the White House. In their view, he should accomplish what Abraham Lincoln started 150 years ago and what Martin Luther King set out to continue 50 years ago: societal and social equality between blacks and whites. But Obama has had to deal with an economic crisis, health insurance reform, the pressure of migrants from Central America, the Islamic State, Putin and Assad. And much more.

Demonstrators Could Trigger a Long Overdue Process

A war against inequality? The president must take part of state power, of which he is the leader, to identify racism and fight it. As president, Obama needs to say something similar to what civil rights activist and pastor Al Sharpton said at the funeral of Michael Brown in Ferguson: Namely, that parts of the black population must stop fighting each other, must stop continuing to sink into a quagmire of drugs, and must stop only being moderately interested in their own education. In all points, the president would enter into forbidden territory.

The Band-Aid remains stuck to the half-healed wound of racism, even when further healing is postponed. The president won’t tear it off. That could possibly deal with the demonstrators that have now taken to the streets in many American cities.