Posted on 05/04/2015 1:36:00 PM PDT by jazusamo
As our first African-American president, Barack Obama had the opportunity to personify the final triumph of civil rights, and in the process, become a celebrated and historic figure. Instead, his ironic legacy on race is one of abject failure, as the rioting and looting in Baltimore underscore. The tragic reality is that Obama passed on the opportunity to the “post-racial” president he promised to be when he first ran in 2008.
Instead, he farmed out leadership on racial issues to Al Sharpton, for whom grievance is like oxygen. The prejudgment of George Zimmerman, and related fury, set the stage for Ferguson, which was followed by the murder of New York City police officers Wenjian Liu and Rafael Ramos. Now Baltimore looks like a scene from 1968, with Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake having no problem appearing with Sharpton on Thursday, an implicit endorsement of the violence, or at least, the Obama/Holder version of “civil rights.” What a disaster.
Maybe the problem is that Obama is not really our first African-American president. I do not mean this in a racial sense because his mother was white. I mean it in the sense of his connection to slavery and the racial discrimination that followed. Obama’s father was not American, but Kenyan. Obama was not impacted by the legacy of slavery, except in the form of the many benefits accorded him his entire life through formal and informal forms of affirmative action and race-based forbearance.
Obama is conscious of the disparity between his life experience and that of older blacks and civil rights leaders who experienced, or at least can remember, the cruel reality of racial discrimination. Sharpton provides Obama with a connection to this group, albeit an inauthentic one.
In this respect, Obama is a lot like white liberals who reveal their own racism by deferring to Sharpton as a legitimate voice. Clownish, flamboyant, and always on the hustle, Sharpton is an exaggerated, if real, caricature of African-Americans. Unfortunately, Sharpton’s prominence has been greatly enhanced by the White House.
Now even Obama realizes that things have gone too far, and he is reduced to condemning the “criminals and thugs” of Baltimore. Unfortunately, the genie that he, Sharpton and Holder shook out of the bottle can’t be put back in.
To me, ‘legacy’ implies something halfway worthy of recounting in the years to come. Something with some arguable semblance of right, proper or good.
As far as I’m concerned he’s failed on all three counts, period. I’d more liken his tenure in that office as more of an extended equivalent to “A day which will live in infamy.”
“Baltimore Violence is Obama’s Failed Legacy on Race”
I am not sure that the Marxist’s consider violence to be a failure.
I would beg to differ with the conclusion that he’s been a failure on the race issue.
Good point.
Amen to that.
It depends if you can ultimately unite and strengthen the nation. It works in some instances, such as fascism in Germany, but it’s not guaranteed to actually unite in the long run. America as a whole, may very well be broken.
Link does not work.
That was his intent the whole time.
Thanks, here’s one that works.
http://nlpc.org/stories/2015/05/04/baltimore-violence-obama%E2%80%99s-failed-legacy-race
He’s been a great hand gun salesman!
The Excuse Maker in Chief has failed at more than race relations.
>>The only thing Obama can be credited with regarding race relations is inflaming them.<<
Agreed. It started with “The police behaved stupidly” and went downhill from there. A decent leader could have avoided all of this and used his election to continue to improve race relations in this country. He did the exact opposite.
-PJ
“He’s been a great hand gun salesman!”
Absolutely, and I’ll bet that really ticks him off. LOL!
Which is precisely what he wanted, make no mistake about that.
See Community Organizer.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
