More Humility, Please!

Americans like to exaggerate, and even their president isn’t immune. Whether it is plausible that freedom movements like the fall of the Iron Curtain, movements in Soweto and Tunisia and the movement in Independence Square in Kiev have Selma as a historical reference remains to be seen, as Obama has said. However, it is undisputed that the Alabama city was the starting point for the U.S. Voting Rights Act, which took legal form for blacks in Washington by electoral decree.

It is also correct that Americans can’t be made to forget the shame of slavery. And just as true is Obama’s assessment that the shadow of racism still remains, like the many fatal shootings of blacks by police in recent times have shown.

The fact that whites and blacks tend to live in separate worlds is also true. Obama is correct in that the situation for blacks is no longer as bad as it was 50 years ago — but it hasn’t been good for them for long. America would do well, in the shadow of its own history, to occasionally show a little humility.