the root | Last week, in his remarks
commemorating the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington,
President Obama did what many would argue has become a signature move in
his speeches to black audiences: In the midst of a professorial history
recap featuring paragraphs of his characteristic soaring rhetoric, he
slipped in several hundred words about cultural pathology.
Specifically, he primarily blamed African Americans for the way
"progress stalled" after the civil rights activism that was being
celebrated. "The anguish of assassinations set off self-defeating riots.
Legitimate grievances against police brutality tipped into
excuse-making for criminal behavior," he said. He chastised those who he
said acted "as if we had no agency in our own liberation, as if poverty
was an excuse for not raising your child, and the bigotry of others was
reason to give up on yourself."
Some called it "tough love." Not surprisingly, people like conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly ate it up.
But from the point of view of plenty of black observers -- people
whose full-time professional focus is on race, politics and history --
the commentary amounted to unhelpful and ahistorical victim blaming:
inappropriate at best and a cynical version of Bill Cosby-level armchair
sociology at worst. And they weren't alone. Mother Jones' Lauren
Williams reported on the immediate post-speech reactions of listeners on
Twitter, who were, to put it mildly, ticked off.
It's worth noting that we've been here before. The response to this
chunk of the president's speech was not unlike the reception to his commencement address at Morehouse College,
in which he made the perplexing choice to lecture men graduating from a
top HBCU about making excuses. (Is it that any remarks to African
Americans, no matter how successful they may be, demand a
personal-responsibility theme?) Even the first lady has followed this pattern, conjuring an unfounded myth at Bowie State's graduation
when she referred to "the slander that says a black child with a book
is trying to act white," and lamenting that "too many of our young
people" aim to be "a baller or a rapper."
But guess what? As the dust settles around the latest iteration of
this now pretty predictable commentary, I'm almost looking forward to
when the president does it again.
To be clear, it's not because I agree with him. Not at all. In fact,
as I listened last week from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, I was
full of dread at the idea of hearing a distorted and painfully
oversimplified message.
