The following editorial was penned by the Balanta B’urassa History and Genealogy Society in America Vice President Midana. He is also author of the exceptional Balanta novel, 13 Bars of Iron.
A Stolen Legacy? - A Critical examination of Barak Obama Post Presidency, and his enduring impact on the collective Black Consciousness
The legacy of President Barack Obama post-presidency is beginning to become increasingly complex. I believe this complexity will increase with the addition of time and retrospection. An objective review of his prescriptions on foreign and domestic policies, in addition to the positions and policy platforms he presently endorses, will leave many objective observers in a place of leveling harsher criticism towards him than many were willing to level during his presidency. What makes criticizing our brother still so exceedingly difficult is the impact he had and continues to have on the psyche of Black America and the entire world. Brilliant by every objectionable measure, Barack represented the Black genius that does not often get displayed to the rest of the world. Then there is the most impressive aspect of his story, his wife. His equal in every way, and most importantly, Black! Add to that two beautiful daughters, and this was the image that we wanted representing us, the optics, and the substance of it all. That is why Barack and his family were and still are so especially important to us and why we, as Black people are so very protective of them. It is also why it is nearly impossible for us to view him objectively or with the necessary criticality.
Like many, I was critical of people such as Cornel West and Tavis Smiley for their seemingly unfair and mean-spirited attacks that did not seem objective or necessary considering the political climate. It appeared they were simply on some hater shit, even if some of the criticism was legit. Many of their critiques seemed to cross the line; the stakes were too high, we needed him to succeed. I like others continued to justify Obama's moderate right of center politics; his rising tide lifts all boats. I am the President for all of America rhetoric. What did we know... none of us were in his shoes; we rode with it.
For this reason, when I heard Barack was coming out with a memoir detailing his time in the oval office, I could not wait to read it and get his side unfiltered. I had read the book Dreams of my Father, his first memoir, and The Audacity of Hope, a policy book that contained all the necessary pre-presidential run content. I also read Bob Woodward's Obama's Wars, biographies, Rising Star, and The Story. I was impressed at the many testimonies from friends, classmates, and colleagues attesting to his near genius-level intelligence and quick mastery of any academic subject matter put in front of him. His writings, both creative and scholarly, were without a doubt impressive. I was eager to receive the actual first-person recounting of the Obama presidency straight from the horse's mouth. However, after getting about a quarter of the way through the book, those hopes began to subside. It did not matter what lay in the remaining 3/4th of the book. He had set the tone and tenor within the first 200 pages.
While I fully expected the tact and the careful choosing of words, we who have listened to him have come to expect. I did not expect President Obama to be an apologist for white people, white supremacist ideals, and white racism. To be entirely fair, some of this is understandable. As Obama points out repeatedly, he was raised by his white grandparents and white mother. He constantly referrers to being shaped by his midwestern values and roots. However, a particular point of contention was a theme that carried over from his book The Audacity of Hope. In this book, he referred to on more than one occasion his delightful and heart-warming encounters with voters in downstate Illinois as a State Senator and a US Senate candidate. For those not familiar, downstate Illinois typically refers to anything in the state south of the Greater Chicagoland area. More specifically and in the context he uses it, southern Illinois or the more rural areas. He details how many of the people he met were indistinguishable from his very own family members. This retelling of these experiences might have served as just anecdotal for some readers. However, for me, it struck a particular chord. The fact that this seemed to be a reoccurring theme of his, one that spanned his last two publications, may provide us with insight into why his values and worldview may not be firmly in line with most Black Americans. The people who were his staunchest supporters and who hoped he would champion their causes. For the record, I happened to have been born in raised in downstate Southern Illinois, the very place he references multiple times in his memoir and The Audacity of Hope. My experiences and the experiences of others who look like me were quite different from those he recounted.
My parents were both a part of the great southern migration to mid-western and northern industrial cities. My mother's parents came up from the south several years before her birth, and my father came up as an adult shortly after being discharged from the military after serving in Vietnam. My father often shared a particular story regarding his arrival to East Saint Louis; this experience left an indelible impression. When my father got off the bus, bags in tow, he witnessed several white police officers brutally assaulting an elderly black man with their nightsticks. It was mid-winter, and snow was on the ground, much like I imagine it is today in East Saint Louis. My father told of seeing blood staining the white snow as the officers beat the Black man in the head, and with each blow, additional bright red blood continued to color the white snow. I can also recall having discussions with individuals who came of age in the 1940s, 50's 60's, 70's in Southern Illinois; and listening to them recount how segregated life in East Saint Louis was far more racist than life in the Jim Crow South. I can also recall very clearly, as a child and teenager in the '80s 90's my encounters with very racist peers, adults, law enforcement, opposing coaches. I recall being called racial slurs during sporting activities while visiting towns like Shiloh, Lebanon, Freeburg, Red Bud, Mt Vernon, or, as President Obama referenced, downstate Illinois.
I can also recall harassing and illegal encounters by law enforcement, retail clerks, and other random white people, which informed my views on white people and race relations in the country. These were the people who gave Barack Obama so much hope. He found relatable people who had given him faith and who he stated were owed his political loyalties. While in contrast, they were the people who had displayed nothing but racial animus and terroristic behavior towards people who shared my background for decades. I will not even dive into the racial politics that led to my own hometown's economic and environmental conditions, or how the record will show that Barack Obama did mostly nothing to improve the Black citizens' needs in downstate Illinois as a State Senator, US Senator or President.
Throughout his memoir, President Obama consistently attempts to make the point that he was limited in his ability to affect direct and targeted change as a politician. He implored people to absolve him for his failures to accomplish progressive change for America's most disenfranchised citizens, but rather to be appreciative for change that aided everyone. According to him, Black Americans, too, were likely to have experienced some residual benefit. Not a sound argument for closing the racial disparities resulting from America's racist history from such a brilliant legal mind.
The most troubling aspect of the book for me was the title itself, A Promised Land. This title was lifted from the speech Dr. Martin Luther King gave the night before his assassination. Obama parallels himself to King and implies that he believes that the absolute best days for this country lie ahead. With patience, diligence, and collectively, WE as a Nation will one day come to experience this more perfect union. One day, someday in the future, even if that future is distant, we will reach that promised land. However, contrary to Obama's musings, when King stated, "I may not get there with you," it was not because he believed that this promised land lies hundreds of years in the future. That slow incremental progress was the only path to arrive at this fateful destination. It was because Dr. King knew that J Edgar Hoovers FBI was trying their damnedest to blow his head off and that they would likely soon be successful. Before making that speech, Dr. King had spent the past year railing and organizing against the very same Neoliberal forces that President Obama spent his entire presidency defending. This rhetoric and organizing by King, combined with his opposition to the Vietnam War, would set him on a path that eventually inspired the frighteningly foretelling remarks on the night before his murder. It had nothing to do with his belief in non-revolutionary progress as Obama would have you believe. President Obamas's bastardazation and attempted co-opting of Dr. Kings' remarks and his effort to connect them to his own legacy is blasphemous.
It is my sense that based upon the favorable reviews of President Obamas latest memoir and his continued personal high favorability ratings that President Obama's support among Black Americans will continue to remain high for some years to come. However, the complexity referenced early will not begin to manifest until the pride and novelty of his groundbreaking accomplishment begins to subside, and the reality of what remains as a result of what he failed to achieve or advocate for in the interest of Black America has firmly set in.