Obama, FDR, and Me

Warning: I'm in a bad mood. I've been reading comments on a friend's blog (The Rant by Tom Degan) and I've finally reached my limit. I've tried to not let the debate over Obama's job performance among progressives get personal but I've finally accepted that for me, it is personal. President Obama represents everything that I hoped for when I was growing up a little black girl in the segregated South. I remember hearing the grownups talk about politics. They would ruefully shake their heads and discuss the lack of Negroes in positions of authority. No one even spoke of a black man being president; it was so out of reach. But I secretly thought about being president someday, ignoring that my gender as well as my race made that unlikely.

When I read Tom's blog post, "Time to Get Moving," I thought it was reasonably balanced. I didn't fully agree with his assessment of Obama or his review of FDR's presidency but his post didn't engender my foul mood. I concur that a great many Americans of voting age have a deficit of knowledge when it comes to the history of this country. However, I also think one of our failures is that we idealize historical figures and make them into icons that they never were. The problem is that no one in the immediate present can ever measure up to these past icons which never really existed, at least not as portrayed.

Which brings me to consideration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR), the president that so many progressives have repeatedly compared Obama to and always find Obama lacking.  Roosevelt just told Congress what he would and would not do and shoved his New Deal through, Congress be damned. Only, that isn't factual; the real story is much more complex.

FDR  moved the country forward through a very difficult time. However, he didn't walk on water. No president ever has.

FDR had to deal with the southern Democrats, the Dixiecrats. They and a great deal of the country opposed anything that even vaguely resembled civil rights for black Americans. Roosevelt needed the southern votes to pass his legislation; so he compromised big time on civil rights issues. FDR failed to support proposed federal anti-lynching legislation. Lynching was a family sport that was ever growing in the South during FDR's administration but he refused to get behind efforts by blacks and white civil rights advocates efforts to pass federal anti-lynching legislation. FDR also refused to integrate the armed forces, leaving that to Truman to begin the integration of the armed forces in 1946. Blacks fought for this country but weren't allowed to train on the white military bases nor to interact with their white counterparts. When they came home, it was to return to the same segregation and Jim Crow laws that they faced prior to joining the military. FDR sold out black Americans in order to push through his New Deal.

It was also FDR's administration that interred Japanese Americans in camps during WWII. FDR made nine appointments to the Supreme Court and eight of those nine justices supported the administrations's decision to strip Japanese Americans of property and homes, and place them in confinement in Korematsu v. United States (1944).

Then there were the provisions of the New Deal, great intentions but not always realized.

The Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1933 authorized the Secretary of Agriculture to inflate prices by reducing farm acreage. This meant white farm owners (it was 1933 and blacks were sharecroppers, not farm owners) were paid to let their fields lie fallow, which often resulted in the eviction of sharecroppers and tenant farmers, a significant number of whom were African Americans. In addition, the Department of Agriculture, paid farmers to destroy crops and slaughter livestock while millions of Americans went hungry.

The cornerstone of the New Deal, the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) created the Works Progress Administration (WPA). The NIRA also authorized the National Recovery Administration (NRA), which organized cartels, fixed wages and prices, and, under section 7(a), established the practice of collective bargaining, whereby a union selected by a majority of employees exclusively represented all employees. Sounds like a good idea but many of these compulsory unions closed their doors to black workers. If you weren't a member of the union, you couldn't work in that particular industry. The NIRA was in effect from June 1933 until May 1935 when the Supreme Court found it to be unconstitutional.

My point is that when one starts talking about remembering history, it's important to remember all of it. My point is that every president has had his less than stellar moments because politics has always been about compromise. For every gain, you surrender something. It's a balancing act; you hope that what you get is worth what you give up.

I think that all of the expressed disappointment in Obama is unmerited and I'm particular tired of the dismissal of Obama as fearful of not being liked or being a coward. Have you ever been the first person of your race to enter into a position that has always been held by another race? I have and it is the most difficult step that a person can take. You have to deal with your own people expecting that their interests will take priority, those of the other race who feel that you don't deserve the position, and those of the other race who mythologized you into an archetype of nobility and are disappointed to find out that you are only human and don't walk on water. In the mean time, you actually have to carry out the duties of your job and remain civil and calm while not only you are being attacked, but in Obama's case, his wife is the object of ridicule, compared to various members of the simian family in right wing publications on a fairly regular basis.

The courage that it took for Obama to run for president is phenomenal in a country where assassination is not unheard of and it was less than 50 years ago when lynching of black men and women was public entertainment, documented in photographs of the crowds of men women and children in attendance. (According to the Tuskegee Institute, lynching occurred as late as 1968). When Billie sang about southern trees bearing strange fruit, she wasn't merely being metaphorical.

I'm tired of whites who supported Obama in 2008 acting as if they did him a favor and righteously declaring their indignant disappointment. Enjoy your right to be critical of anyone but don't expect me to like it and I'm exercising my right to say so. The man has worked within the confines of Republicans who have publicly declared that their goal is to ensure that he is not re-elected. That has been their stated goal since his inauguration. Instead of bitching about what he hasn't done or disagreeing with what he has, take a look at what he has accomplished in spite of having a rock equivalent to that of Sisyphus to continually push up the hill.

I cried when Obama won. I cried for the years when the signs over the water fountains said white and colored. I cried for the stores in which I couldn't sit and the lunch counters that my mother grabbed me away from lest someone take offense. I cried for the time my mother entered the wrong door at the clinic because my knee was bleeding profusely and she was confused, and she was met at the door by a white woman who told her to go to the colored entrance. I cried because of the job my mother quit because the KKK threaten to kill me and my brother and sister if she didn't. I cried for my father who went to Korea and had to ride in the back of the bus to go to boot camp. I cried because my mother died two months before Barack Obama became president and she never got to see President Obama. I'm proud of the President and what he has accomplished and I think that he has done a far better job than this country deserves.

[Suggested reading for two differing contemporary historical perspectives on FDR and the New Deal: 
Powell, Jim. FDR's Folly: How Roosevelt and His New Deal Prolonged the Great Depression. New York: Crown Forum (2003).
McMahon, Kevin J. Reconsidering Roosevelt on Race: How the Presidency Paved the Road to Brown. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (2003).
A review, "Bad Deal," of both books by Damien W. Root.]

Can You Handle the Truth?

Just read an op-ed piece in the New York Times by writer Ishmael Reed entitled What Progressives Don't Understand About Obama. It was an amen article, a piece with which I nodded continuously in agreement as I read it and murmured amen under my breath. To appreciate Reed's piece, read it, no summary can do it justice. He takes on the ad nauseum criticism that Present Obama is weak, ineffectual, ball less, and not tough enough to be president. A smart guy, but too nice and too concerned about keeping the peace. Too afraid to give the Republicans the ass whipping that they deserve.

I've been accused of being "nice" as in I don't want people to dislike me. Not true. I'm going to tell you up front that some of you aren't going to understand the truth that this article speaks and you may not like my attitude. See, as a black person I'm so sick and tired of white liberals who have still enjoyed the privilege of being white trying to tell a black man how to navigate in a white world.

You don't get it and you lack the humility to simply accept that you do not. Instead you attack the President as being weak, without balls, a sellout and any other demeaning, emasculating terminology that you can devise. You don't understand what it is to be black and walk in his shoes and you're too damned arrogant to listen to those of us who try and tell you.

By now, you're all upset because I've offended you. Hey, don't you want us to show our anger? Don't you have problems with me being so nice and reasonable all the time?

Don't get hung up on the mistaken notice that I'm taking the position that the president is off limits for criticism. I don't think he's perfect and I certainly have problems with some of his decisions. He and I part company when it comes to the continuation of either of our wars.

Read carefully and understand me, I'm talking about the continued hammering at his character. I'm talking about the insulting and demeaning allegations that he is less than a man, some namby- pamby smart guy who doesn't know how to be tough. What colossal ignorance and arrogance to believe that any black person could achieve what President Obama has achieved and be weak. Until you have walked in our shoes, until you have been marginalized based on the color of your skin in a culture that continues to not only openly express racism but defend its right to do so under cockeyed readings of the 1st amendment, then don't talk to me about how you think that any black person should behave.

Now, I'm going to go back to being nice. It's survival mode because if I dwell on this crap I can't leave my house. Every day that I go out I run into racism in this "colorblind" society of ours. Some days it's just the fools with the confederate flags plastered on their pickup trucks, or the monuments to the confederate dead that litter the South, but it's always something. So I'm tough and I work hard to not lose my cool because I don't have time to waste in being angry and out of control, and neither does the President.

Oh Hell, I'm Talking About Race Again!

"There are two kinds of white people, John Brown's and all the rest of them are clowns." -Malcom X


A Facebook friend posted the above observation from Malcolm on her wall and it generated quite a few comments. Many of them were along these lines: "Malcolm X owed an apology to every white Union Soldier that died in the Civil War." The topic of reparations was brought up and a friend queried, "do I get "reparations" for my ancestor from the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment who was killed by the Confederate Army?"


Then there was the following observation from a white male whom I don't know: "I get frustrated as well with every white person being blamed... slavery was due just as much to black Africans as white Americans... and not all white Americans past or present accepted or believed/supported slavery/racism... my family and self being one of those... don't slap those who are supporting you."

I have some empathy for the frustration and confusion expressed by people regarding Malcolm's words. Most people have never engaged in any honest dialogue about race and race relations in this country. We avoid the topic as much as possible even though the history of race permeates all aspects of American culture. It's why we have a president born of a white mother and a black father who is identified as black. Trust me, I'm happy to claim Obama as black, but he is no more black than he is white, but in these United States of America, the one-drop rule still holds true. Every time I write about race in America, I promise myself it will be the last time. I never keep that promise. I am so weary of trying to explain what seems perfectly clear to me; yet, I cannot simply let the moment pass when maybe there will be a moment of pure communication where someone nods their head in understanding and we make a meaningful connection. So here I go again.

Slavery was an abominaton but it may be argued that it was based on a system of economics; however, after the Civil War, there was the Jim Crow era (link to detailed PBS historical overview of Jim Crow). That takes a lot more explaining. The intense discrimination that followed slavery is the real shame of America. I don't blame every white person as having individual responsibility for slavery but in my opinion, white America benefited as a whole from the institution of slavery. The subsequent spread of Jim Crow, the legalized, systemic oppression of black people based solely on skin color was not supported by every white person either, but again the benefit of such a system accrued to white people, not blacks (examples of Jim Crow laws).The concept is called "white privilege" and until white people understand and acknowledge the very real benefits of white privilege in a society that made discrimination based on race not just a practice but the law of the land, then I don't think that an honest dialogue about race is possible.


One Facebook comment dwelled on the unfairness of affirmative action to white males. He asserted that he has worked hard for all that he has achieved. I don't doubt that he has. So have I. So have most people, regardless of race, but there are obstacles on that "level playing field" for people of color that aren't there for whites.  


Affirmative action does not negate white privilege; it affirms it. (What Is White Privilege?) If not for the legalized discrimination of Jim Crow, there would have been no need for affirmative action. If the playing field had been meaningfully and permanently leveled post Civil War, then the freed slaves would have been able to fully participate in the society and eventually compete with white America. Instead, after a brief period of Reconstruction when blacks were becoming educated (remember, it was a crime punishable by death to teach slaves to read), being elected to public office, developing businesses and integrating themselves into the larger society, white America began to implement laws to take away the newly realized rights of blacks. Not just in the South, the North had its own issues of legalized discrimination as well.


Here's an analogy: imagine that you have worn a chain attached to a heavy weight around your ankles all of your life. Finally someone removes the chain and the weight and tells you can now participate in a 10K race and if you win, you get a prize. All of the other runners have been racing for years and have never worn the weight. Some of them participated in placing the weight around your ankles in the past but some of them did not. You have never run before, your muscles have atrophied, but hell, they are letting you run so it's an allegedly fair race. Affirmative action was the scooter provided to black people after generations of being denied the right to even particpate in the race. Those who didn't actively oppress black people, nonetheless benefitted from being allowed to freely participate in the race without the encumbrances that were imposed on black people. If there had never been the chains of oppression, then affirmative action would have never been a necessity.


In addition, it's a self-serving lie that makes some white folks comfortable to believe that affirmative action has placed unqualified black people ahead of qualified white people in jobs, promotions, and admissions to schools. It is just another variation on racism to assume that black people are less qualified than their white counterparts. As for preference, it's an American thing. When I attended the University of NC at Chapel Hill, I was the first person in my family to do so. My parents didn't have the option; no colored were allowed. Plenty of my classmates were "legacy" admissions. Their parents, grandparents, great grandparents had all attended UNC. I don't hear a lot of concern about that variation of affirmative action.


Some of the comments on FB have accused black people of dwelling in the past. First of all, racism isn't dead. Secondly, although the 1960s brought some end to Jim Crow laws, we were still fighting for equal rights in the 1970s. I went to segregated schools until 1971. It's easy to dismiss the past when it isn't yours. If I or any black person actually dwelled on the past then we would become obsessed not with reparations but retribution.


Slavery was well before my time but I grew up under Jim Crow. I try to be a reasonable person, but legal discrimination is not ancient history; it is my life. Where I could shop, where I could sit down and have a meal, where I could receive medical care, where I could attend school, and where I could live was all dictated based on my skin color. The jobs available to my parents were restricted because there were some jobs that black people were not allowed to do.

Personally, I'm not much interested in reparations, although I respect those who consider reparations to be appropriate. However, I think that the failure of this nation to acknowledge and apologize for the subjugation of a race of people is long overdue and that true healing cannot begin without it. I don't expect that white people should shoulder any guilt for having benefitted from white privilege but I do expect that you acknowledge its existence and that you have benefitted from it. Then we can talk.