Obama Races Away from the Issue of Race

When Barack Obama accepted his party's presidential nomination in Denver on Aug. 28, 2008 – the 45th anniversary of the March on Washington where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his "I Have a Dream Speech" – excitement filled the air.

Amid that jubilance, however, it struck me as odd that Obama failed to mention Dr. King by name.

".. And it is that promise that, 45 years ago today, brought Americans from every corner of this land to stand together on a Mall in Washington, before Lincoln's Memorial, and hear a young preacher from Georgia speak of his dream," Obama said at the time.

Seconds later, he would add:  "'We cannot walk alone,' the preacher cried. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back."

When Obama was inaugurated for the second time on Jan. 21, 2013, the day we officially celebrated as the King federal holiday, I knew – or thought I knew – that President Obama would not make that same omission again.

I listened carefully as he said:  "We the people declare today that the most evident of truth that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth."

Why couldn't President Obama utter Dr. King's name on the day he used the slain civil rights leader's Bible to be sworn in?  On King's birthday, why couldn't he be called more than just a preacher?

Even though Beyoncé lip-synced the National Anthem on Inauguration Day, she hasn't been accused of faking it when she sings another song – "Say My Name."

If you ain't running a game

Say my name, say my name

The problem is larger than the failure to say Dr. King's name. The problem, according to Michael Eric Dyson, is that, "This President runs from race like a Black man runs from a cop."


When candidate Obama was forced to address the issue of race in the wake of controversial remarks by Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor, he said in Philadelphia: "But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now."

However, that's exactly what he has been doing.

Frederick C. Harris, director of the Institute for Research in African-American Studies at Columbia University,  noted, "… as president, Mr. Obama has had little to say on concerns specific to blacks. His State of the Union address in 2011 was the first by any president since 1948 to not mention poverty or the poor. The political scientist Daniel Q. Gillion found that Mr. Obama, in his first two years in office, talked about race less than any Democratic president had since 1961. From racial profiling to mass incarceration to affirmative action, his comments have been sparse and halting."

Sure, he had a beer summit at the White House with Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and the White police officer who arrested him in his own home. Obama said the officer had "acted stupidly," but later softened his criticism. The president also said, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon [Martin]."

Of course, the issue is not whether Obama has a son who looks like Trayvon Martin. What is he going to do about people who are treated like Trayvon?

To discuss race less than Lyndon Johnson, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, all White southerners who grew up under segregation, should be embarrassing to President Obama. It should be even more of an embarrassment that Obama hasn't taken leadership on the issue as Bill Clinton did when he launched his "One America Initiative" on race. Putting aside the merits of the initiative, it demonstrated Clinton was willing to confront the issue of race.

As my friend Courtland Milloy wrote in the Washington Post, it's time to stop making excuses for Obama.

He said, "Obama should not be allowed to get away with thinking that when it comes to making his mark on the issue of race, all he had to do was become the first black president."

Unfortunately, some of the most vocal Black leaders have either been co-opted by the White House or fear a backlash from adoring Black voters.

The usually outspoken Rep. Maxine Waters [D-Calif.] told a crowd in Detroit, "If we go after the president too hard, you're going after us."

And former Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Emanuel Cleaver, II of Missouri admitted, "With 14 percent [black] unemployment if we had a white president we'd be marching around the White House."

If we don't get some true leadership on this issue, perhaps it will be time to march around the White House, Congress and the headquarters of some of our civil rights organizations.

 

George E. Curry, former editor-in-chief of Emerge magazine, is editor-in-chief of the National Newspaper Publishers Association News Service