Are Black People Better Off Without Obama?

By Walter L. Hilliard III

For the last two years President Obama has avoided addressing Black America’s problems, including discussing the issue of race.  He has even given the Congressional Black Caucus the cold shoulder and, basically, lectured them that there will be no special treatment for Blacks, sounding like an affirmative action racist.  “A rising tide lifts all boats,” he told them.

So what Obama is really saying is, “You Blackies have a Black president you can brag about, and that’s enough.  Yaw lovesta brag anyway, right . . . ahhh, yaw no I’m right.  Ha, ha.”

Just because he passed a toothless healthcare bill, weak financial reform, and a lot of other d-rated legislation doesn’t mean we should be happy.  People put him in office, especially the White folks who voted for him, to make radical changes, even overlooking his race because they were suffering so bad.

Yes, Bush tore the country up so bad that White folks were even willing to vote for a Black man.  And we cannot ignore the fact that Obama and the Republicans made it easy for Wall Street to rob us over the years and throw us into two wars.

But now Obama, like the coward he is, is moving towards the conservative right, trying to befriend the bullies that kick him in the A- – every chance they get.  In fact, voters showed they were disappointed in Obama for not going far enough and taking his radical change case to the people by not voting for Democrats in the 2010 midterm elections.  They were deeply disappointed.

Everything that Obama does – or any D.C. politician – is special treatment for special interest groups, except when it comes to his own people, Black people, who put him over the top with voting support at a 93 percent clip.

But when it comes time for his reelection, mark my words, Obama will want to be Black again and give us some attention.  He’ll stop by a couple Black churches, wink at a few Black women and we’ll love him again.

And not only has Obama ignored Black unemployment that is double (triple when it comes to Black men) that of Whites, among other plights we face, he has also been silent on the Black-on-Black crime in our inner cities, including the slaughter of Black children in his own town, Chicago, where he cut his political teeth on the backs of Black folks.  This is the most appalling of all his neglectful behavior.  He spoke up and out about the shootings in Arizona, but him and the media say nothing about Black kids dying all across Black America every single day.

However, I must share that I have not been that surprised or disappointed by Obama’s behavior because I expected him to behave this way ever since I saw his lips moving on my television screen.  He struck me as a weak-minded politician who would do or say whatever was politically expedient, particularly in the eyes of his also elite, Black-issue neglecting Democratic Party.

President Obama is so infested with the “Care too much about what White folks think” disease, the worst affliction a Black person can have, that he rarely even mentions race, much less put it on his agenda.  He knows White America does not want to talk about race, and he cannot stand anyone being upset with him – except Black people.  He did speak up for his elitist Black  buddy, Henry Louis Gates, but quickly apologized when mainstream America jumped all over him.  Yes, Obama can relate to a rich, Ivy League Black man, but not to Black folks in general.  He even held a backyard Beer Summit with Gates and the cop he criticized for harassing Gates at his own house.  That’s what Obama’s good at:  The Superficial.  Like professor and social activist Michael Eric Dyson says:  “Obama runs from race like a Black man runs from the cops.”

As so revealed by a recent online poll I came across, 44 percent of Blacks believe Obama shouldn’t be talking about race (he could get fired); while 40 percent say he should use his political clout and talk about race; and 16 percent say they’re not sure.

No wonder America doesn’t talk about race – most Black people, the biggest victims of racism, don’t even think Obama should discuss the issue.  We have to be the most confused, self-loathing people on the planet.  How are we ever going to alleviate discrimination when we won’t even hold the most powerful man or Black man in the world accountable to even talk about race?  You know, there’s two kinds of Black people: the ones who demand Obama talk about race; and those who act like N#*%*#S, the apologist, the ones responsible for Black people never sticking together or getting anywhere when it comes to dealing with racism.  The funny thing is they have no problem arguing with Black folks who demand justice, but they’re too scared to argue with Whit folks about racism.  How ridiculous is that?

Nonetheless, the real question is can we, Black people, ever improve our dreadful condition if we cannot even realize how bamboozled we are, to the point that even the most high-profile Black man, President Obama, can use and abuse us at will?  Are we so lost that nothing can save us?  And why should we be saved when we cannot even come together to be angry and save ourselves?  Why should mainstream or White America and its politicians pay us any attention?

Black people are simply too comfortable with being second class citizens.  It’s like we’re experiencing a perpetual, apathetic Chicken Fried Racism hangover.

Like I’ve touched on, Black folks scary, docile behavior is usually caused by our always being afraid of something — usually White folks or what they think.

But a long time ago, when I was just a little boy, my mamma taught me to do the right thing, to be a man, to be proud to be Black, to stand up for myself, and don’t let anyone mistreat me.

Well, President Obama is using Black people because we’re allowing him to.   How many times have you heard Black people say:  “Ima get mine; you betta get yours.”  All we care about is ourselves as individuals.  So many Black people are materialistic, always chasing the trappings of success; thus, they are blinded by President Obama’s charm or “celebrity” because he “got his” and he is the “Escalade of Black men” (and yaw know how much we like Escalades) in their eyes.  And just like the pimp pulling up in his caddy in the Hood back in the day, or his Escalade today, knowing we’re blinded by the bling, Obama knows Black people can be pimped for a vote or anything else he wants.

Additionally, let it be known that Black women, the heart of the Black family unit, seem to be Obama’s biggest supporters.  And many of these women say they’re looking for an “Obama Man” — or a Black man with Obama’s personal and professional characteristics.  However, Black women and families don’t really need no damn “Obama Man”; they need a real man who will speak up and “speak truth to power.”  The fact that you have so many middle- and upper middle class Black women positively associating with the type of so called marriageable Black man Obama also speaks to the superficial, wannabe classcism that infects most in the Black community.

The materialistic impulses of these Black women identifies with Obama’s power, financial status, and assimilationist passivity; the kind of passivity that many Black women try to teach their sons to keep them out of danger’s way when they should be trying to facilitate a relationship between their son and his father or another strong, available Black male role model.