How Barack Obama Failed Black Americans
December 22, 2016 11:28 AM   Subscribe

"My Brother’s Keeper is a program premised on the view that young black men constitute a social problem." - Sandy Darity on how the country’s first black president never pursued policies bold enough to close the racial wealth gap.
posted by AceRock (24 comments total) 7 users marked this as a favorite
 
Given the obstructionist Congress, and the fact that, for some mysterious reason, a significant proportion of Republicans regarded Obama not just as the other side but as not actually a legitimate president, to the point of shutting down the government, could he have possibly done more to tackle inequality? (Not counting wish-fulfilment fantasies about him facing down far-right coups, prevailing against great odds and using his well-earned temporary dictatorial powers with exemplary wisdom or something.)
posted by acb at 11:50 AM on December 22, 2016 [16 favorites]


Ta-Nehisi Coates has an article in the Atlantic that covers some of these points and was the subject of a recent FPP. The Atlantic has also been publishing the interviews with President Obama that formed the basis of the article and they go into some detail on My Brother's Keeper and what else he could have done to help black Americans. I've read two of the interviews so far and they have been great. I'll likely read the third one this evening.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:07 PM on December 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


From the article:
The Obama administration never gave serious consideration to aggressive transformative universal policies like a public-sector employment guarantee for all Americans, a federally financed trust fund for all newborn infants with amounts dictated by a child’s parents’ wealth position, or the provision of gifted-quality education for all children.
Pretty sure that Obama thought all these things and more and correctly realized that there was no way in hell they were going to happen and tried to the incremental approach.

I have my issues with his administration, but these pie in the sky wishes aren't it. The $@ Senate decided to completely block his middle of the road Supreme Court nomination. Just flat out refused to ever consider it and blatantly said they wouldn't within hours of Scalia's death. With such low numbers of Democrats in congress (which Obama is partially to blame for), a huge transformative thingamabob just wasn't going to happen and he would have been stymied by Congress if he had tried it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 12:10 PM on December 22, 2016 [32 favorites]




Ta-Nehisi Coates has an article in the Atlantic

Yup, this FPP is part of that series: Coates's interview and responses from others. The interview and the responses are all definitely worth reading.
posted by AceRock at 12:27 PM on December 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


With such low numbers of Democrats in congress (which Obama is partially to blame for), a huge transformative thingamabob just wasn't going to happen and he would have been stymied by Congress if he had tried it.

And how many times did the Republican-lead House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act despite knowing that it either wouldn't clear the Senate or wouldn't survive a veto from the President? They didn't do it all those times it because they thought it would pass. They did it to rally support, get the rank-and-file on the record, and keep the issue in the news--and look where we are now.

Small, incremental changes can't happen unless you keep pushing the big ideas. You can't build a movement on small steps like "creating marketplaces so the private insurance industry can more effectively distribute risk and reduce costs". You build movements on "free healthcare for all".
posted by RonButNotStupid at 12:27 PM on December 22, 2016 [20 favorites]


Now that it no longer matters, the backlash begins? I can't wait for December, 2020.
posted by tommasz at 12:39 PM on December 22, 2016


I can't wait for December, 2020.

Bigger Republican majorities in both houses, and an emboldened President Trump? Why are you looking forward to that?
posted by (Arsenio) Hall and (Warren) Oates at 12:42 PM on December 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


With such low numbers of Democrats in congress (which Obama is partially to blame for), a huge transformative thingamabob

Those particular things wouldn't happen without something like 80\% Democrats in both houses, or unless the Revolution has already happened. One might as well blame Obama for not making everyone autotrophic.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:54 PM on December 22, 2016 [3 favorites]


Lincoln thought slavery wasn't very nice and the reaction was the bloodiest war in history.

Yeah, people went to war to defend slavery. Slavery.

Those people never really went away. They still have that fucking flag as their bumper sticker. And that's who Obama has to work with to get anything done to promote equality.
posted by adept256 at 1:37 PM on December 22, 2016 [6 favorites]


This is like the opposite of "Only Nixon could go to China". If Obama had tried to help this particular subset of the population explicitly, it would give his opponents a weapon to use against him.

That said, by this logic the best person to help poor african americans would be, er ... Donald Trump.
posted by devious truculent and unreliable at 1:42 PM on December 22, 2016


And how many times did the Republican-lead House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act despite knowing that it either wouldn't clear the Senate or wouldn't survive a veto from the President? They didn't do it all those times it because they thought it would pass. They did it to rally support, get the rank-and-file on the record, and keep the issue in the news--and look where we are now.

Yes, but all they had to do was say no, and keep saying no. Exactly how many times do you think the House could have put up a public-sector employment guarantee that would be lucky to clear committee?

No, I am no Obama-worshipper, and think Coates's points about his rhetoric have been powerful, but that he didn't wave his magic wand and turn us into Sweden, that's not what he did wrong. He had a very brief window to get anything done--his first two years--and just barely got the ACA through. That was going to have to be enough on the bold social initiative front, at least until voters decided that they liked a functioning government more than the dividends of whiteness.
posted by praemunire at 1:44 PM on December 22, 2016 [6 favorites]


Given the obstructionist Congress, and the fact that, for some mysterious reason, a significant proportion of Republicans regarded Obama not just as the other side but as not actually a legitimate president, to the point of shutting down the government, could he have possibly done more to tackle inequality? (Not counting wish-fulfilment fantasies about him facing down far-right coups, prevailing against great odds and using his well-earned temporary dictatorial powers with exemplary wisdom or something.)

That's part of why people are frustrated though - if your most incremental moves are being treated as radical by your opponents what do you have to lose? The American Right isn't exactly shy about pushing the Overton window these days - why is the mainstream Left? Obama got a few things done domestically that I'm glad of, and sometimes you do have to play a different game to do that, but I think there are a lot of people looking for, you know, change [they] can believe in - or at least a vision of change - and I ultimately don't think he delivered on that.
posted by atoxyl at 2:53 PM on December 22, 2016 [5 favorites]


Yeah, the more I think about Obama's legacy, the less I am inclined to think that "he didn't do enough about X" is going to be the lasting view of it. Given the factors arrayed against him and the extraordinary obstruction and efforts to de-legitimize him, I'd say the fact that he made it through 8 years (knock wood) without being assassinated already puts him on the scoreboard and then Obamacare gives him the win.

I mean, seriously, tens of millions of people have access to health insurance now - thousands of lives are being saved as a result. A good argument can be made that he spent what political capital he had on that and had little left for the rest of his two terms.

On preview: what praemunire said.
posted by darkstar at 2:56 PM on December 22, 2016


I mean, seriously, tens of millions of people have access to health insurance now - thousands of lives are being saved as a result.

Yeah unless it immediately gets undone!

I currently don't think it will be completely though, because I am hopeful that for all the things that aren't great about ACA it has succeeded in having a positive effect on enough people that going back to what we had before is probably a deeply unpopular idea in practice. We will see!
posted by atoxyl at 3:04 PM on December 22, 2016 [2 favorites]


I believe Obama failed on all kinds of things and was still the best and most successful president the united states has had in my lifetime.

I wonder if I will ever get to say that again about another president?
posted by srboisvert at 3:52 PM on December 22, 2016 [4 favorites]


People saying he should've been pushing big ideas--keep in mind that Congressional minorities don't just mean your bill doesn't pass, it means it potentially never even makes it out of committee. You never have a chance to even vote on your big ideas because Republican-led committees won't even let them on the floor. One of the reasons the Democrats had that big ol' sit-in was because they didn't really have any other options available to them. That was their attempt to be brave, and where did it get them?
posted by Anonymous at 4:57 PM on December 22, 2016


Obama's hands were tied on most things, but he did have a few own goals mixed in there. One example is the HAMP program, which not only failed to help the people it was supposed to, but has also worsened the problem by making the banks' bad assets seem healthier than they are, and in some cases serving as a government-run predatory lending program. This is one prominent and spectacular failure that can't be blamed on Congress.

I would also count his record high number of deportations as a failure, though Congress deserves some of that blame as well.
posted by tonycpsu at 5:04 PM on December 22, 2016 [1 favorite]


People saying he should've been pushing big ideas--keep in mind that Congressional minorities don't just mean your bill doesn't pass, it means it potentially never even makes it out of committee.

Democrats did control the House when Obama took office.

The problem with Democrats is they only act when they have consensus and the necessary votes to pass whatever weaksauce, half-assed, Joe (Lieberman|Machin)-will-vote-for-it legislation they can all get behind without offending Wall Street and Industry too much.

Republicans act to create consensus. As soon as some conservative think tank proposes bonkers legislation it's immediately put out there for a vote so detractors can be instantly primaried or threatened with being primaried so they'll toe the line the next time around.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 6:27 PM on December 22, 2016 [5 favorites]


>Democrats did control the House when Obama took office.

The House is majoritarian and whatever Pelosi et al. signed off on would pass.

The Senate of 2009- 2010 was the tricky bit. At the end of the slow crawl of PPACA through the Senate, final tweaks to it had to be passed via reconciliation (51 votes, no filibuster) since the Dem's supermajority was lost when Kennedy's permanent replacement was seated.

It's also a mistake to confuse "Democratic" with "Liberal". Not all Dems in the Senate (or House for that matter) were particularly progressive, largely reflecting the fucked-in-the-head flyover state electorate they were representing.
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:00 PM on December 22, 2016


As soon as some conservative think tank proposes bonkers legislation

There's campaign funding for kowtowing to the wealthy and their varied interests, to have their great machines fighting for you vs. against you.

What is a progressive voter's vote worth these days, away from the coastal and urban enclaves of sanity?

Not enough, apparently.

Where are our machines?

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by Heywood Mogroot III at 9:04 PM on December 22, 2016


Democratic members of Congress tried to detach themselves from Obamacare during mid-terms and lost horribly. Not to mention how gutless and broken the ACA ended up being; the cowards couldn't/wouldn't ram home single payer despite controlling the legislature. How is he supposed to get anything done with those kinds of allies? It had broad public support, and could have been the greatest social achievement in modern history.
posted by Brocktoon at 11:28 PM on December 22, 2016


Obama didn't have a super-majority for very long and when he did, that damn Joe Liberman was part of it and he probably is the person to blame for killing any chance of the Public Option on the Senate side. I believe the Democratic House was pretty much fully behind the public option or something very close to it.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:19 AM on December 23, 2016 [2 favorites]


HAMP was indeed a failure. Though many of the deportations were actually people turned around at the border (they changed what counted as a deportation).

Overall, he was one of the best presidents we've ever had. Top five, certainly. And he's truly a great man. Not perfect! But neither were FDR or Lincoln. Not perfect presidents either.
posted by persona au gratin at 12:07 AM on December 24, 2016


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