Does the Obama presidency reveal anything about the persistence of racial inequality and injustice in America? Focus particularly on the challenges posed by police brutality and criminal justice reform in the second term. “Showdown for Nonviolence” (1968) or any late-stage King would be a starting point.
America is a country that has been founded and established on the backs of others. From the exploitation of the Native Americans whom we inappropriately labeled Indians, to the inhumane treatment of our people, African Americans. There have been many leaders to stand up against the mistreatment and injustices that America has tainted on certain groups of people. In our time one of the most publicized leaders that we have as a testament of this is the late great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. MLK was one of if not the greatest Civil Rights leaders that helped lay a framework and pivot the progression of people, not just blacks but other disadvantaged groups,forward in the United States and around the world.
The underlining’s of the basis of Kings philosophy, injustice and racial inequalities, still exist today as we have mass uprising’s as we embark on the end of a historical presidency with our first black President Barack Obama. Looking at the upheaval today due to recent police brutality incidents, gun violence shootings, and other issues that are plaguing our nationit is clear to see that not much has changed from the Civil Rights Era until now. There is still a racial divide that presents itself clearly when looking at the many challenges that our President faces today whether its from trying to pass legislation, to politicians speaking out against him in a derogative way.
In 1961, Martin Luther King published an article entitled “The President Has The Power: Equality Now”. In the article King presented a tale of the upcoming president (then Kennedy), being the first in history to have the opportunity to modify their approach to civil rights. He stated that a new thinking which would condemn the “vicious and inhumane opposition” on the topic of civil rights needed to be discussed. The central theme of the whole article is that the federal government has the ability and the tools to make a difference which at the time they didn’t. The federal government in his words should work towards the “development of a rigorous program to wipe out… discrimination”.
The first area King presented was creating legislative programs which could be passed by majority in both housing agreeing with each other. Both parties will agree with each other because having resolute leadership from a resolute leader, the President, will persuade Congress. The second area was moral persuasion where King felt if the President conducted himself in a manner that showed he would not tolerate racial discrimination; the American people would follow him because after all he is their leader. The last area is executive orders in which King stated that the president could use to give segregation it’s death blow by limiting federal agencies and departments from any discriminatory employment practices. Also, by passing orders that will target the issues of housing, health/hospitalization, and etc.
One major factor that I believe King did not account for in his article of Presidential power is, what would happen if we had a black president. Our first black president, Barack Obama, who we know had good intentions, we know is against racial discrimination, and is morally sound, has failed in almost every area King listed because of strict opposition from Republicans. In 2010, Republican senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, stated himself that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one term president”.
Going back to the areas King listed, let’s input President Obama and see the outcomes of each:
1)The legislative area would consist of Obama persuading Congress. This has failed although coming into his presidency a major objective Obama wanted to achieve was eliminating the bipartisan divide in Congress. Ultimately, Obama has ended up with ones of the most deadlocked Congress ever.
2)In terms of creating executive orders in Kings terms, Obamacare has been shot down consistently, police reform has been labeled as a war on cops, but surprisingly criminal justice which Obama has stated has a long racial history is somewhat being met by Republicans.
3)The last area, moral persuasion, is another failure with just last week Obama tearing up about gun violence and gun reform and still being targeted with great resistance from Republicans.
Chris Mathews, a white political commentator, spoke about Republican disdain against Obama’s reforms and he stated “its hatred, it’s not politics”. He said that there is a lot of revolutionary anger that is free floating and has a lot to do with America having its first black President.
Even now Republican Presidential candidates are showing their persistence in continuing the racial divide of our country. Certain candidates like Jeb Bush stated that “Democrats lure black people to support them with the promise of free stuff”. Mitt Romney stated “47% of Americans support Democrats because they re dependent upon the government”. The biggest racist of them all Donald Trump stated multiple racial slurs towards many different bodies of people including Latino’s, African Americans, and even Muslim’s. He’s stated things such as “Latino’s are bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapist!”, towards Muslim’s he’s stated that he wanted to number and keep a database of them similar to that of Adolf Hitler. In response to having another black President succeeding Barack Obama he stated that “Sadly because Obama has done such a poor job, you won’t see another black President for generations”. You also have other candidates stating that they want to “give states back their right”, and “
make America great again”.
While the last to quotes may not seem so racial at first, their origins when used in previous elections were all done during a time when the Southern Strategy was being put into affect. The southern strategy was a strategy used by Republican party members to gain political support in the south by using racism against African Americans to appeal to southern white males. The term states rights was a huge driving force of the southern strategy ironically used by Ronald Raegan and Richard Nixon who many of the candidates are often referring to when speaking of politics. This election seems like a ploy to return America to the times of the Civil War where they were trying to implement this. Lee Atwater who coined the term the “southern strategy”, stated that:
- You start out in 1954 by saying, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." By 1968 you can't say "nigger" — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff likeforced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, "We want to cut this," is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than "Nigger, nigger."
In conclusion racial inequalities will always be relevant but has showed throughout the presidency of Barack Obama. I feel that while Obama may have not been the greatest President that we have had thus far, he could have made a much greater impact had he not been met with such strict Republican opposition. This opposition still spews the continuing persistence of racial inequalities and injustices that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and others fought so hard to end.