In response to a New York Times op-ed, Ann Althouse wrote the following:
What’s missing? Why is racial discord the problem of the summer 2016? If anyone has what it takes to unify the country over race it is Barack Obama, who is President right now and who had been President for 7 1/2 years. If it makes any sense to be deciding the current presidential election on this issue, if this longed-for capacity is something that can possibly exist, then Barack Obama would be doing it now and would have been doing it for years.
Before you push us to judge whether Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump would do better in bringing us together in racial harmony, Mr. Healy, please say a few words about why President Obama has failed.
I think there would be more truth in what Ms. Althouse is asserting if the divide were solely a racial one. But it isn’t. It’s a racial and a cultural issue. President Obama, the son of a black Kenyan father and a white American Anglo mother, reared by his maternal grandparents, mostly in Hawaii, the most racially diverse state in the Union notable for an almost complete absence of a black community. President Obama could not be a pontifex for black Americans because he didn’t share their cultural roots. Skin color was not enough.
There is clearly prejudice in America and it’s largely prejudice against black Americans, the descendants of slaves, who do not come from middle class backgrounds and especially those who grew up in the urban black culture. A consideration of prominent black figures illustrates that clearly.
Rihanna is Barbadian. Kanye West had a middle class upbringing and spent a crucial pre-teen year in China. Beyoncé has a middle class family and was reared by both of her parents. Drake is a Canadian with a black American father and a Jewish Canadian mother. Idris Elba was born in the United Kingdom of African parents. Denzel Washington’s family is middle class and he attended a military academy. Nicki Minaj is Trinadian. Lupita Nyong’o was born in Mexico to Kenyan parents. The list is a lengthy one. These are the rule rather than exceptions.
Pew poll from 2007:
“On the matter of racial identity, black respondents were asked to choose which of the following two statements comes closest to
their view, even if neither is exactly right: Blacks today can no longer be thought of as a single race because the black community is
so diverse OR Blacks can still be thought of as a single race because they have so much in common. Nearly four-in-ten African Americans (37%) say that blacks can no longer be thought of as a single race. Just a bare majority of blacks – 53% – say it is still appropriate to think of blacks as single race. ”
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/files/2010/10/Race-2007.pdf
Suppose Obama had come from an urban black background? Would that change anything? I don’t see it. Gang members in Chicago would stop shooting each other, or white cops would stop shooting unarmed men because he had a different background?
I really don’t think racial discord is something government can fix anyway. At best, it can mitigate its effects. At worst, it can amplify it. The use of fines, aimed mostly at minorities, to pay for government, makes it worse. The Drug War has disproportionately hurt minorities. Affirmative action programs have bred resentment for years. Remove those frictions and things probably get better, but I don’t think they go away.
Steve
He would never have been elected president. If that’s what you got out of my post either I’m writing wrong or you’re reading wrong. Maybe both.
The divide in this country isn’t between black and white. It’s between urban, non-middle class blacks, the descendants of American slaves and everybody else. That group (whom the sociologist Charles Moskos dubbed “Afro Americans”) was doomed to disappointment with Obama. It’s that group that needs help not people with dark skin. Affirmative action programs just pass them by because their benefits go disproportionately to African and Caribbean blacks.
Sorry. I was making an amalgam of your thoughts and the Althouse piece. I think you are correct that it is mostly prejudice against urban blacks. I guess the only problem with this is that sometimes it is difficult to know who is who, and it even gets extended to blacks with jobs.
Steve
I don’t see any point in debating about which candidate is a more “unifying force” or any purpose in trying to explain why President Obama supposedly “failed.” This isn’t North Korea where everyone agrees there is perfect harmony.
It’s amazing what op-ed writers think Presidents can do.