A Promise Land Denied: A Critique Of Obama’s Presidency
“Through them, I resolved the lingering questions of my racial identity. For it turned out there was no single way to be Black; just trying to be a good man was enough.” ― Barack Obama, A Promised Land Tweet President Obama Failed Black America. President Obama failed black America. I do not enjoy writing these words, but this is my overwhelming impression after reading A Promise Land. It was not his policies that failed us, but his failure to confront the ugliness that his ambition, ability and assent to national prominence summoned. America had been asleep. As Coates describes, we were all trapped in the Dream. Yes, the four officers who beat Rodney King were acquitted, but so was OJ. President Bush botched the response to Katerina, but he failed to protect the Towers. James Byrd was lynched, but so was Matthew Shepard. We were all asleep in the Dream. Barack charged into our lives. He gave the speech of a generation at the DNCC in 2004. It appeared that he was going to be the next Oprah, Secretary Powell, or Michael Jordan. A person’s whose immense talent and professional capabilities allowed them to be accepted as white. When he exclaimed, “Well, I say to them tonight, there is not a liberal America and a conservative America — there is the United States of America. There is not a black America and a white America and Latino America and Asian America — there’s the United States of America.” That was… Read More »A Promise Land Denied: A Critique Of Obama’s Presidency