The State Of The Union: President Obama's Mixed Legacy

By Barrington M. Salmon -Contributing Writer- | Last updated: Jan 21, 2016 - 11:11:57 AM

President Barack Obama delivers final State of the Union speech Jan. 12. Photo: MGN Online

WASHINGTON—Even before Millennial activist DeRay McKesson watched Barack Obama give the last State of the Union speech of his presidency, he was philosophical.

“To be disappointed means you expected something different. I’m interested to see what he does going forward,” he told The Final Call in a recent interview. “I anticipated that he would reflect on the triumphs and challenges of his administration and chart a path for the future. I was surprised that so little of the talk was around criminal justice, especially because they’re pushing sentencing reform. He has not talked about protestors positively to show that justice matters. But every speech after, I think it will be sharper and clearer.”

Mr. McKesson, 30, a co-founder of Campaign Zero and We the Protesters, emerged as one of the principal Millennial leaders after helping organize months of protests in Ferguson, Mo., following the murder of unarmed 18-yearold Michael Brown by a White police officer in August 2014.

DeRay McKesson

Since then, he and other activists and groups such as the Black Lives Matter movement have taken aim at police accountability and substantial reform of a criminal justice system that is markedly skewed against Black and Brown people and poor communities.

The Baltimore native wrote an op-ed piece that appeared on Mashable the day before Mr. Obama’s seventh State of the Union where he posed a series of questions. He asked whether the young protestor who he said Mr. Obama “So candidly acknowledged in 2009 is your citizen, too … Will you speak to her reality in your final State of the Union? Will you be bold enough to remind the American people that challenging this government to live up to its commitments is at the core of the American tradition? Will you be nuanced in how you talk about gun control? Will you note that this is an issue of gun access while being clear not to inadvertently increase penalties for gun users in ways that might disproportionately impact communities of color?”

Mr. McKesson also wondered if President Obama would feel free enough to talk about his experiences as a Black man, father and husband in the presidency, and the impact that these experiences have had on his understanding of the world and how the world has treated him.

Mr. McKesson also said he hoped that the president would “be courageous enough to talk about safety beyond law enforcement, to note that the safety of communities is not predicated on the presence of police and help add nuance to conversations about mass incarceration so that the American public understands the issue is not solely a matter of arrests but that it includes issues of sentencing, bail, parole, reentry and rehabilitation.”

If there’s anything he learned, Mr. McKesson said during the Obama years is the reality that “there is no single solution, tactic or person that will lead us to a truly just America.”

“In protest, in traditional politics and in our personal lives, we know that single solutions are myths—neither true nor productive,” he stated in the oped piece. “No one protest, no one policy, no one vote, no one idea and no one president will lead us to end the ills that the work of racial and economic equity addresses. Progress–if we are to have it at all–will be conditioned on the diversity of our strategies and tactics, on our ability to use each opportunity to lay the groundwork for later, successive wins, and in our understanding that hope is both belief and action.”

Alicia Garza

Black Lives Matter co-founder Alicia Garza, like Mr. McKesson, has been on the forefront of this new phase of the struggle for Black civil and human rights and self-determination. She sat in the gallery Jan. 12 as a guest of California Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and echoed Mr. McKesson’s comments the next day.

“The thing that I think was glaringly missing from the conversation last night was really the conversation around not just gun violence broadly, although that is a major issue in our country, but police violence as it relates to Black communities,” she said during a roundtable discussion on the news program Democracy Now. “And as I was sitting there last night, I couldn’t help but think about Samaria Rice, and I couldn’t help but think about all the mothers who have lost their children, not just to gun violence broadly, but to the very people who are supposed to protect and serve us. And so, to be quite frank, I think this message that President Obama came in with eight years ago around hope and change is a message that I think people are still looking for. How are we going to accomplish that?

“… But certainly I think that many people who have been involved in this movement certainly wanted to hear President Obama—possibly the last Black president in our country’s history—really talk about what’s going on in Black communities specifically, really address the question of race, racism and structural racism and structural violence, and then, certainly, to talk about what kinds of proposals are on the table to ensure that Black people can live full lives in this country like everyone else.”

BlackLivesMatter Los Angeles stages a die-in in Compton to stand against the assault rifles that Compton Unified School District has allowed for Compton police officers to carry on school campuses. President Obama’s failure to not more directly address the killing of uarmed Black youth has many observers giving a mixed evaluation of his two terms in office. Photo: Facebook.com/BlackLivesMatter

In comments she made during panel discussions and at a national town hall hosted by the Congressional Black Caucus last September, Ms. Garza said even though she and other activists have been working with congressional leaders on a range of Black issues, she’s skeptical because she isn’t convinced that the current political system can ever treat Black people equitably and fairly, not marginalize them and accede to their demands.

“What we’re fighting for is for Black and Brown people to live in full dignity and full humanity,” said Ms. Garza, special projects director of the National Domestic Workers Alliance during one forum. “We would argue that the criminal justice system is working the way it was designed. Who deserves what, who’s a criminal and who’s not, is embedded in the system. We’re seeking to change a system we didn’t create. It would be disingenuous for us to say that we have deep faith in the system.”

“We want to change business as usual in this country. We want to shift the status quo. Why is it that there are multiple forms of violence against Black people and no one is doing anything? If we believe all lives matter, we’re gonna fight like hell for Black lives.”

President Barack Obama. Photo: MGN Online

Dr. Avis Jones- DeWeever, president of Incite Unlimited, a Washington, D.C.-based boutique consulting firm and host of the nationally syndicated radio show, “Focus Point with Avis Jones-DeWeever,” said despite the promise of change Mr. Obama rode into office with his ability to direct and foster that change was always hindered by his political instincts.

“At the end of the day, Obama is a centrist. That is nothing new,” said Dr. DeWeever, who most recently served as executive director of the National Council of Negro Women. “I think he definitely cares about Black people in general but I do think politically he plays it safe. For example, with the Affordable Care Act, nearly 17 million people have healthcare but it’s not the most expansive version. Many people still can’t get it. He could have been more aggressive.”

“He had control of both houses of Congress but he put in place a Republican version devised in a Republican Think Tank, did a rubber stamp of what (Mitt) Romney had passed in his state. The Left wanted more in terms of how it was structured but he hoped that it would attract the support of those who formed an unholy alliance against him. He chose the centrist path.”

Ms. DeWeever said she gives Obama a “B” grade considering the many and varied accomplishments—including the Affordable Care Act; normalization of relations with Cuba; the bailout of the U.S. auto industry; executive action on the Dream Act; and the critical diplomatic breakthrough with Iran that averted nuclear war.

But as a mother of two Black boys, Ms. DeWeever said the issue of their safety, the need to reign in rogue cops and the necessity of reforming or gutting the criminal justice system is paramount on her mind.

“I didn’t hear a specific mention of issues around the clear crisis that we’re facing as a nation with police brutality, fundamental accountability and the repercussions of causing deaths of Black people,” she said. “I was hoping it would be addressed during the speech, hoping he would at least touch on it. It really is a critically important issue that has led to the creation of an entire movement. Knowing it was the last one (State of the Union) and never having to run again, I thought he’d do it considering that he no longer has to deal with the level of risk associated with address issues of race frontally.”

Sam P.K. Collins. Photo:Twitter.com/SamPKCollins

For Millennial activists Sam P.K. Collins and his girlfriend Tyisha Jones, their political naïveté has morphed into a canny, nuanced maturity.

“Knowing what I know now, I see it as political theatre,” said Mr. Collins, 26, a Georgetown University graduate and founder and host of #AllEyesOnDC in the nation’s capital. “I do think he’s sincere in his attempt to do what he said he was going to do. He came in on a transformational tip and sold us a radical dream. It’s our fault because we believed it. He’s a down the middle president. He didn’t even say ‘Black Lives Matters,’ he said justice matters.”

“The way the system is, for him to do anything else would mean his death. He’s the head of government, but you still have people who are there to maintain the system, preserve the status quo. He’s a cultural icon, can sing, play basketball. I will always respect him as a symbol. He has appeal but is he effective? Nah.”

Mr. Collins said his contemporaries have been having all kinds of discussions, arguments and debates about Mr. Obama, his effectiveness and whether and how he’s adequately and properly moved against pressing concerns like student debt, access to well-paying jobs, White privilege, mass incarceration and police brutality. There are masses of critics and admirers on both sides, he said.

Ms. Jones, 25, said it’s clear as she looks back over the last seven years, with the backlash against Black and Brown people, the poor and others outside of the One Percent, the clearest and best way for African Americans to counter this pervasive and intentional racism and discrimination is for them to create, own and develop their institutions.

“I have distrust of their institutions. We just need our own,” said Ms. Jones, lead advocate for Training and Community Engagement at the D.C. Rape Crisis Center. “It makes no sense to appeal to the logic and morality of the oppressor. We live in a state of constant distrust with aggressive moves against undocumented immigrants and the murders of Black people by police. People aren’t eating, they’re homeless, can’t find jobs, shooting each other. It’s important to understand how the system works and how you’re governed but there’s work on the ground to be done.”

“It’s kind of surreal to think you’re part of a culture where a war is going on against you. There’s dissonance going on. You’re pressured as a Black youth to keep up with everything going on around you. But we have to be moving simultaneously to give youth power and mobilize them.”

First Lady Michelle Obama applauds during State of the Union speech Jan. 12. Photo: MGN Online

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