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Racism in the Obama Age
Pete Souza / The White House
As the NAACP celebrates its 100th anniversary this weekend, blacks report more discrimination in America than they did last year. The Daily Beast’s Reihan Salam on Obama’s challenge.
Barack Obama promised to transform health care and energy and America’s role in the world. But what made tens of millions of Americans loopy with joy is the implicit promise that the young biracial senator would, through the power of his biography and charisma, heal racial divides. Throughout the presidential campaign and the brief but blissful post-inaugural delirium, countless trend pieces vividly described how blacks and whites were—gasp!—chatting amiably. They were giving each other Obama-inspired fist-bumps. Though there was something silly and sad about this enthusiasm—shouldn’t we have been fist-bumping across the color barrier long before?—it was hard not to share in the excitement. Now, however, one senses that the excitement is fading.
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In a recent survey conducted by CNN and Essence, 55 percent of African Americans identified racial discrimination as a serious problem. What’s interesting is that when asked the same question during the 2008 campaign, only 38 percent said racial discrimination was a serious problem. One obvious interpretation is that Obama’s election has rightly raised expectations, which the real world—even an Obamaized world—couldn’t match.
Moreover, African Americans are being hit disproportionately hard by the downturn. By now you’ve no doubt heard about the yawning unemployment gap between men and women, but the gap between whites and blacks is far larger: 8.7 percent vs. 14.7 percent. And that number, of course, doesn’t include workers who’ve been forced to work part-time rather than full-time, or those who’ve simply grown too discouraged to keep actively looking for work. Were you to take a broader view of unemployment, which factored in the staggering number of Americans behind bars, for example, the gap would look bigger and more depressing. It’s worth noting that the black-white unemployment gap started to seriously widen in the early 1980s. A popular theory is that the expanding gap was driven in large part by the decline of blue-collar manufacturing jobs that offered a decent living to non-college-grads. If this recession kills what’s left of Detroit, the gap will likely get worse.
Some of the president’s most trenchant critics work for a small Jersey City-based website called Black Agenda Report, the brainchild of Glen Ford and Bruce Dixon, two passionately left-wing black journalists. But though the editors of Black Agenda Report undoubtedly prefer the president to, say, Eric Cantor, one suspects that they are among the 4 percent who disapprove of his job performance. At the 100 Days mark, Bruce Dixon issued a fascinating report card that tracked Obama’s progress across 18 issue areas he deemed most relevant to African Americans, ranging from health care reform to militarizing the border to policy toward black farmers to (in his words) investigating Bush-era crimes. Out of 100 possible points, Dixon gave the president a rather disappointing 25. Which is to say, Dixon gave Obama—by all accounts a brilliant student—a failing grade.
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Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
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Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
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There's another explanation for the statistics saying 55% (rather than 38%, as previously) of African Americans now feel discrimination is a big problem. They're about perception and expectations. It might be that before, African Americans expected to be discriminated against more often, and if their experiences met with their expectations, they were less likely to identify it was a big problem. After Obama, their expectations on discriminations likely went up, and rightfully so. "We're in a post-racial era, right?" and might be more likely to report any discrimination that did occur as a "big problem." It's hard to tell whether discriminatory incidents have really gone up in number, or whether they were sorely undereported in the past, but it's probably some of both.
It's unfortunate that our polictics are so skewed that many in the population think they president, any president,can wave a magic wand and get things done. I guess it's just goes with the fact that too many weren't paying attention,until this mess reached their front door.
Obama has accomplished much in 6 or so month and he doesn't get enough credit. I was embarrased for Powell. Would he have made the same statement to FDR? The situation the country is in is similar BUT with more than twice the population.
While America's racial inequity still exists, and I make no excuses, getting to a level playing field is still goal for many groups of individuals,
40 years ago a black teenager and I were prohbited from being study partners in high school. We were both threatened. Today almost nobody would care. That's progress.
Everyday we see educated, articulate, involved, smart people of every minority and seldom can you tell the color of a person's skin by the inflection in their voice.
So while there is much to be done , much has been done. That is reason to celebrate and keep the momentum going.
Well put! I couldn't agree more! Poof! Health is fixed! Poof! The economy is fixed! Poof! Global warning legislation done! Poof! Effective diplomacy with Iran complete! Poof! Immigration solved! President Obama waved his magic wand and now is all well! It took time to get into this mess, and it will take time to get out. That is a fact lost to many Americans who now seem poised and ready to turn their backs on our leader.
Obama made extravagant promises during his campaign that he claimed he could pay for by taxing just a few nasty "rich" people. The voters bought into this promise, and his supporters were further egged on by the collapse of the financial market; which allowed them to cast doubts on capitalism as a system. Obama could have, when elected, focused on fixing the economy, but he decided to use the crisis to pursue his change agenda. Now he is caught between jaw dropping deficits and rising interest rates during a time when jobs are disappearring. He has only been in office for six months, but given the radical actions by his Administration, it is most definitely his economy at this point. Maybe he can regroup and start focusing on what he should have been doing in the first place - working with private enterprise to create jobs. His anti-business agenda is just plain stupid in a time of financial crisis.
Funny, I didn't hear him say that, especially since that means he and his wife were in that 'nasty few rich people' category.
Can you point to a source?
You do remember most people though a depression was coming only a few months ago. I don't really hear that word mentioned anymore. Obama's first job was to take that conversation off the table which he did. A depression that's 25% unemployment! Think about that. Also only about 10% of the stimulus money has been used so far. The change agenda you speak of was what he ran his whole campaign on it's not something he decided to pursue out of the blue, he was elected on it. This problem took over a decade to create, you really think it can be fixed in 6 months? This thing is going to go on for years, nothing anyone can do about that. It's global and it's deep. It started before Bush and made worse by him. It's really only a question of does it go on for 3-5 years or more. That's all Obama can do. It's way too soon to discuss if anything he's done is working. Sorry MTV generation.
"In a recent survey conducted by CNN and Essence, 55 percent of African Americans identified racial discrimination as a serious problem."
The survey does not go into specifics of what the respondents identify as rcism. Do they consider the recent Supreme Court ruling in favor of white firefighters who passed a promotion exam racism? Refusing to hire someone or serve someone in a restaurant based on race is racism. Not getting entitlements and not benefitting from government imposed racial quotas anymore is not racism. I think the fact that we have a black President, Here in NY, we have a black governor, etc. the racism victim card being played by some is getting old and tedious.
Or could it be repackaged Marxism? David Horowitz argues that leftists have replaced Karl Marx's rich bourgeoisie with the all powerful "white man." As long as leftists can claim 'institutional racism,' they have their boogieman against whom they rally the proletariat.
I be you couldn't even describe marxism correctly. Its just a hot word being thrown around by people who for the most part don't know what it is.
UPdate!
99% of women now report that sex discrimination is a serious problem.
Tina Brown is the lone dissenter.
The problem is that we now have an enitre generation of blacks that views the norm as them being entitled to preference. Asking them to give that up will be a can of worms that Obama won't dare open. Until someone who has the courage to demand real equality, the country is going to continue to tread water and then slowly sink.
Obama had the chance to bring an end to racial divide. He could have run as the best of both races. Instead, he chose to run as a black candidate ensuring distinctions continue.
I think for many white people the racism and preferential treatment thing is over. Obama makes them look like whiners and beggars. I don't think it should necessarily be that way but it is for many I have heard talking. I think it will be a lot harder for he black caucus to scream discrimination and Rev's Al and Jesse have been quiet.
All you have to do is look at the story of the Black and Hispanic kids getting kicked out of the private pool in Philly to know it's not over by a long shot.
If those kids were kicked out for that reason, they have a legal recourse which it seems is being used. A preference won't stop people from being ignorant, the existing and available law does.
Lets look at racism because most people get it wrong. Racism is not always the redneck with the rebel flag.
In whites and blacks, it SEEMS that they do know when they are racist. I am not talking about the KKK or Black militants members cause those folks up front and truthful in their distain. I am talking about the average guy.
When you have say 4 whites talking among themselves, laughing and joking record the conversation. When you listen to it you will here a happy conversation as expected. However you will also here pop slangs and nuances that are common in all conversation.
If a black guy joins the conversation suddenly those nuances change. The whites begin to "jive" more. Words begin to slur differently, hip hop terminology that hadn't been used in the previous 30 mins start being used. Bad sentence structure at times seem to be strategically produced. Even body language changes.
Why?
Could it be that the whites feel as though the black guy doesn't understand the language they were speaking prior? If so would that not suggest that they feel as though talking somewhat down to the black guy is going to be the only or easiest thing for him to understand. From those particular set of facts could it be derived that the whites feel like they speak one way and blacks speak another less grammatically correct language?
That is a taught reaction that blacks and whites both do not realized they do. Soft and subtle like saying that black girl is pretty, or that white girl has a nice booty. Is the the girl pretty, for a black or does she have a nice booty because you don't see white girls with booties often. ?
In a board meeting the idea of the spanish lady being meet with people trying to figure out why her idea doesn't make sense, while the white girls idea was meet with tell us more and how can we make it happen.
The Asian guy who when ever math or science is at question everyone look at him like you should know. The white guy who can dance but is looked at like he is gonna mess up or watch how funny it is.
Comparing black basketball players to jordan, wilt and magic but white ball players to jerry west, bill laimbeer and larry bird.
Racism is soft and for the average guy/gal it really only becomes hard with alcohol or anger. Sometimes and often i would say black call the race card just because someone doesn't understand, is crassly humorous or is curious.
i.e. I do not think that what IMUS said was racist. It was disrespectful but not racist. When Bill O'Reiley goes on a tirade about rap music and the people that make it or when he suggest lynch the 1st lady to teacher her not to say something, that is racist.
We have social norms that support racism without it being our intent at times. White cops historically have lynched and wrong fully treated black in the south. Often times the officers were part of the kkk.
Now, when we see 2 or more white cops beating a black guy we say racism is at play. MAYBE. Or could it be that the history of how cops treated blacks helping us to that decision? Could it be that the cops knowing the history are becoming overly aggressive with the black suspect because they represent this history by tittle and have seen this so many times that its becomes their default set of values for a given situation?
When we see black officers do that to black people, we always get a comment, somewhere, "that the officers were black so it isn't racism." WRONG i say. Just as history works in the supple racism these black officers can be racist also, in 3 ways.
Historically when blacks wanted to get ahead they had to mimic white culture. This how you had the black man in the suit on the plantation or the black guy who goes to work and speak slightly differently while there. Many examples here but this is already a long post.
So, 1st he is under pressure to act in a way where the white established police force will accept him. Then he is an officer with that whole lynching history thing. BUT Then..... He is a black man that is sick and tired of his own race doing certain things. He feel like slavery was then and now we need to get educated and act more like the establishment. He hate the poor black that talk like babies, and wear orange weave, and sags paints, and wears brads, and uses slang. He is embarrassed by it and he hates black with those attributes.
He is racist more than some of the whites who simply dont respect folks with those attributes. Oh, and he is a cop with that cop history within his tittle. NOT GOOD.
We have to be able to see it to figure it out. We have to stop trying to say that it is without warrant. Our history supports its existence. Racism is soft.
OK, you seem to be confused between the definitions of racism, stereotype, diversity. I suggest you look them up on Google, because your response is calling situations racist when they are not.
Take for example the white guys example that you bandy about. What is the context? Does the black guy in the example follow the same speech patterns that the white guys are starting to co-opt? If you study communication theory, there is a phenomenon where in-group people try to include and out-group person and they subconsciously develop some of the same slang and speech patterns in order to make them feel accepted and in-group. That is just part of how the human brain is wired. You can find that in any situation where groups meet nerds & jocks, hippies & squares, Ivy leaguers & unwashed masses, black people & white people.
If the situation was reversed and it was a majority of black people talking in an office with what you call, jive, slang, & non traditional sentence structure and a single white guy joined a conversation, then if they changed their patterns to mirror the white guy, would that be racism?
Yes.
And racism may just be a bit much for that situation. It could be more than one thing happening at the same time but what i am describing is part of a 6 year documentary, that is aimed to recognize how societal norms and repetitive messaging/imaging create racist tendencies or actions with out a conscience effort. In that we are considering several levels of racism, stereotype and prejudice. We are also considering the culture and traditions of our groups. Our aim is to prove stereotypes to be true. Then show how stereotypes create prejudicial environments which over time breeds racism.
>> That is just part of how the human brain is wired. You can find that in any situation where groups meet nerds & jocks, hippies & squares, Ivy leaguers & unwashed masses, black people & white people. <<
That is true but thats just choosing to see it that singular way. Try to see it another way for a minute and look for supporting input.
I say it is supported by a constant marketing campaign along with incentives to perpetuate it. Remember, that at one time it was a very developed ideal of justice in the US.
Where you find the largest divide in our studies is when you ask whites to admit that the factors of slavery and jim crow is one of the largest reasons for the mis-education and economic conditions. OR When you ask blacks to admit it is the way they think that actually holds them back the most.
Blacks say, " Maybe, BUT............." and whites say the same. ( roughly 1500 answers out of 2500 from each individual group ).
The problem is that whites mostly want blacks to stop pointing a finger at racism and start taking responsibility for TODAY. While blacks just want whites to see that historical actions by our governing systems is a large factor of their condition and they want whites to fix the part of them that doesn't accept that notion.
What is racist or disrespectful is only determined by the person it effects. The offender can not create a better condition between he/she and the offended as long as the offender tries to tell the offended how to feel about it. This is what blacks and whites have to stop doing when speaking in honest terms. The problem has to be recognized but both using the others terms to find middle ground.
Mr. Salam failed to mention illegal immigration's effect on many entry level jobs sought after by less educated blacks and whites. With the economy in a tailspin, legal citizens -- black, brown, and white -- are being forced to compete against
noncitizens who contribute nothing to our tax base. Many less educated blacks are, again, feeling left behind. This is a major reason why in many urban areas you're seeing black on latino crime. It seems our government's answer to better education and more jobs is to simply throw a few pennies more in a monthly welfare check. Many less educated blacks are now beginning to realize they are being used by their politicians as a voting block while other ethnic groups pass them economically.
Do you really think they have finally gotten it? Geez, LOL, sad when you have to fight for entry level anything and your party is not singling you out for more money.
Immigrants are NOT taking sought after entry level jobs. Unless by "entry level job" you mean "Chipotle burrito maker." I don't know if you've ever worked a blue collar job on the level of fast food worker or retail, but they're not hard to get (unless no one is hiring in the first place), and those are the jobs immigrants are taking. If a man can't get a job like that, it has nothing to do with his race - he's just unemployable. Face it.
Why is it that every time we discuss the economic condition of African Americans in this country, we never discuss what the real root of the problem is? Most economic problems in the AA community are due to fatherlessness and the failure of government programs since the 1970s. Blacks were more upwardly mobile in the 1950s than they have been for the past 30 years. Why? It's not racism, folks. It's men abandoning their families en masse, and the crippling effect of misguided government programs - both of which started in the 1970s.
My question is: Is there really more racism today, or is it that we are all more aware of what has always been there in a modest segment of the society?
After all, with the election of a biracial president, we would all certainly be more aware of racism, regardless of whom is expressing it.
mary50 - The backslide starts with the culture of victim-hood that came out of the great society.
Ha! And mainstream media told us it would be gone. Shows you how much they know.
What we know we know nothing.
"and we are not saved..."
Did it occur to anyone that maybe the presence of the black President is just bringing out the worst in racists? That they're so upset that previous efforts to make their behavior shameful are no longer adequate?
It's occurred to me, definitely. It's just so damn hard to put myself in their shoes that it's difficult to figure them out - even though intellectually speaking I know they're as simple as spit.
Obama's election has put racial identification on par with membership in the Chuck E. Cheese Club.
Racial identification makes the identifier look ridiculous. It's why the Republican Party is having such a severe image problem. They've basically become a white nostalgia party and it's simply silly.
Thank you.
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