While President Obama has been a unifying force in the
black community during his first term in office, his presidency has also
fueleddeep divisions among
many African Americans. The president’s first-term policies sparked
heated debates among a host of well-known black intellectuals and
political observers who argue that the president has ignored the issues
of his most loyal base.
These tensions will likely remain throughout Obama’s second term unless he quickly reverses course.
Critics, such as Cornel West and Tavis Smiley, will likely continue
to press Obama to address the needs of black America, while others will
struggle to determine how to best capitalize on Obama’s second term and
get him to push forward a “black agenda.”
But what should this “payback” look like? Unlike other interest
groups, such as gays and Hispanics, who responded positively to symbolic
gestures from the president, African Americans appear as if they cannot
come to an agreement on what a priority list should be. The community
seems to lack a unifying issue that Obama could address. And we seem to
also lack a clear strategy for implementing what those
community-friendly policies might be.
No comments:
Post a Comment