The latest back and forth between President Barack Obama and California Rep. Maxine Waters, who has emerged a his principal foil within the Congressional Black Caucus, illustrates the unique and intractable position Obama finds himself in. As the nation’s first black president, he is called upon to address black America in an especially personal way, but when he does so, he almost always takes heat for it.
For Obama, this is nothing new.
His seminal speech on race in the aftermath of the Rev. Jermiah Wright Youtube eruptions drew howls of outrage from black critics like Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, who felt Obama threw his former pastor under the bus to appease white America.
After Obama delivered a stern, Bill Cosby-esque Father’s Day speech to a black church in Chicago during the presidential campaign, Rev. Jesse Jackson accused him of talking down to black people, and expressed a desire to do something untoward to Obama’s nether regions.
WATCH MAXINE WATERS’ REACTION TO OBAMA’S SPEECH HERE:
Like Cosby, Obama has drawn fire for scolding black parents, demanding they turn off the TV and help their kids with schoolwork — and for chastising black youth — telling them to “pull up their pants” and focus on getting an education.
If Bill Clinton had his “Sista Souljah moment” — breaking with a vocal black opinionista to demonstrate to political independents (and the media) that he could operate at arms length from the Democratic base, Obama is seen by some as having a “Sista Souljah presidency,” repeatedly stiff-arming black America to show he isn’t partial to those who share his racial background.
Waters has been especially pointed in her criticism of what she sees as the president’s more deferential treatment of other constituencies: Hispanics, through attention to immigration reform and the appointment of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court; rural communities in Iowa who have been the beneficiaries of targeted spending on biofuels programs, and gays, who have witnessed tectonic changes in their status in the military and in the partner benefits they’re entitled to if they work for the federal government.
Regarding the president’s recent speech before the CBC’s Phoenix Awards gathering, Waters called it “curious” that the president would call on black lawmakers to “quit complaining” … put on their marching shoes, and get behind his fight for the American Jobs Act, which the White House says will benefit unemployed black Americans too.
Waters pointedly said she’s not sure who the president was talking to on Saturday. “We’re not complaining,” she said. Later during an appearance on MSNBC, she tersely said the president “got a little bit off the teleprompter” and “a little beside himself” with his remarks to the Black Caucus.
But the CBC, and Rep. Waters, have been complaining loudly. Since the earliest days of the administration, there have been grumblings from the CBC about a lack of access to the White House and a lack of White House focus on the specific concerns of black communities.
The White House would argue that for every Sonia Sotomayor, there is an Eric Holder, the first black attorney general, or a Valerie Jarrett, who holds power and proximity that no African-American has had to a sitting president.
They insist that programs like Race to the Top do target African-Americans almost inherently, because frankly, when it comes to education, the needs and disparities are that much greater. And with 16.7 percent unemployment (and triple that in some communities for black men) the administration hopes no one will fight harder for the American Jobs Act than the CBC and the people they represent.
theGRIO VIDEO: Obama to ‘address black America’ on BET
The reality is that this president is in something of a no-win situation when it comes to race. If he fixates on black Americans, he becomes the “black president” rather than the American president. If he ignores black Americans, he risks appearing too timid to approach the racial third rail.
But when addressing the deepest afflictions of black America, it cannot be avoided or denied that high dropout rates, low graduation rates, and elevated incarceration rates are part of the mix. The causes of these issues are complex, and go to societal ills that go beyond, but aren’t separable from, personal responsibility.
Could any president address all of that adequately? Probably not. But shouldn’t every president — black or white — bear the same responsibility to try?
The fact is, no black person occupying the Oval office was going to have an easy time navigating the thorny issue of race. Obama has had to row through choppier waters, in part because he came to Washington without the deeper relationships with black lawmakers and the civil rights establishment that would have created a greater comfort level (but which might have limited his electoral prospects with the general electorate.)
Generationally, Obama represents a different mode of dealing with race — one that author Toure calls “post-black,” but which has to do with embracing blackness, while insisting on individuality.
His style sometimes clashes with black leaders who are more comfortable with “the direct, confrontational method of dealing with race”:http://www.thegrio.com/politics/maxine-waters-steps-into-the-spotlight.php; though in that regard, people of Waters’ generation clearly prefer that the confrontation not be focused so often within the black family.
And the president was probably expressing a measure of frustration at the difficulty of leading a party — the Democrats — whose most conspicuous characteristic is its members refusal to salute smartly and march behind their leaders.
But if Obama and black leaders are to succeed in their stated mutual goal of improving the employment picture (and securing the president’s re-election by ensuring the kind of robust African turnout in 2012 that he received in 2008), a little marching together is what they’re going to have to do.
