While on the campaign trail more than a year ago, then-presidential candidate Obama said, “This country is ready for a transformative politics of the sort that John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Franklin Roosevelt represented.”
Socially, President Obama is beginning to rise to the examples raised in this campaign prose. By pushing some key pieces of legislation in his first year in office, Obama is beginning to move in a positive transformative direction.
After 12 years of languishing in Congress, the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act was signed into law President Obama last Wednesday. By signing this bill, the president expands the federal definition of hate crimes to include those motivated by gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disability. It also allows federal authorities to pursue hate crimes cases when local authorities are either unable or unwilling to do so. This law was named after Matthew Shepard, a gay man murdered in Wyoming in 1998 and James Byrd, an African-American man dragged to his death by a pickup truck in Texas that same year.
Despite challenges by some conservative Christian groups, this law will not define sermons that speak out against homosexuality as “hate speech” nor will it criminalize preaching the Gospel. The First Amendment is still alive and well.
But America became a better country when President Obama said, “We’ve passed inclusive hate crimes legislation to help protect our citizens from violence based on what they look like, who they love, how they pray or who they are.”
According to the Department of Justice, more than 77,000 hate crime incidents were reported by the FBI between 1998 and 2007. According to Attorney General Eric Holder this amounts to “nearly one hate crime for every hour of every day over the span of a decade.”
Crimes against African-Americans remain the prototypical hate crime. In 2007 alone, of the 7,624 hate crime incidents reported, 34 percent (2,659) were perpetrated against African-Americans. African-Americans still find themselves victims of lynching, cross burnings, church vandalism and incidents such as that experienced by James Byrd, who was tied to a truck and dragged down a road for three miles to his death.
President Obama is living up to other campaign pledges, as well. Presidential candidate Obama said that the “war on drugs is an utter failure” and called for “shifting the paradigm, shifting the model, so that we focus more on a public health approach.”
As president, Obama has asked Congress to address the issue of the 100:1 disparity in penalties for the use of powder/crack cocaine in federal cases and has pledged his commitment to signing legislation that accomplishes that end. As a result of his support, Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) has introduced the Fair Sentencing Act of 2009. Under current law it takes 500 grams of powder cocaine to earn a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence, but only five grams of crack to earn the same sentence.
This sentencing disparity has a disproportionate impact on the rate of incarceration of African-Americans and the duration of their sentences. It has nothing to do with an individual’s actual culpability and more to do with the color of their skin. Studies have shown that crack cocaine is more prevalent in urban settings than powder cocaine.
“The sentencing disparity between crack and powder cocaine has contributed to the imprisonment of African-Americans at six times the rate of whites and to the United States’ position as the world’s leader in incarcerations,” Senator Durbin said. “Congress has talked about addressing this injustice for long enough; it’s time for us to act.”
There are those in the LGBT community who feel that President Obama is taking too long to address their issues. There are those in the African-American community who express similar sentiments. It is important to remember that the Matthew Shepard/ James Byrd Hate Crimes Bill languished in Congress for 12 years. The disparities in crack cocaine and powder cocaine sentencing have been law since 1988. President Obama was able to bring about “a transformative politics” on these issues within the first year of his administration.
These are just two clear examples of the progress that is being made by the Obama administration on a social agenda. That progress is often overlooked as the public’s focus is on the war in Afghanistan, health care insurance reform and the economy.
This is not “lip service” being paid to liberal constituencies. This is tangible and effective legislation that is being implemented as part of a social policy agenda that helps to insure that all Americans receive equal treatment under the law. Perfect, no; positive, yes. It’s up to all Americans to insure the Obama administration continues to move in a positive direction. That’s how democracy works.