Politics of Hate

1. FEBRUARY 2011 l www.ebony.com 101
The date: November 3, 2010.
The place: the East Room of
the White House. President
Obama had hastily called a
news conference a day after his
party lost six seats in the Sen-
ate and more than 60 seats in
the House of Representatives.
By his own admission, the Democrats re-
ceived a good-old fashion “shellacking” during
the midterm elections. He said that it “con-
firmed what I’ve heard from folks all across
America: People are frustrated—they’re deeply
frustrated—with the pace of our economic re-
covery and the opportunities that they hope
for their children and their grandchildren ...
I ran for this office to tackle these challenges
and give voice to the concerns of everyday
people. Over the last two years, we’ve made
progress. But, clearly, too many Americans
haven’t felt that progress yet, and they told
us that [on Election Day]. And as president,
I take responsibility for that.”
The president is right. The polls do sug-
gest that, during the first two years of his ad-
ministration, he failed to communicate effec-
tively with the American people, particularly
on such all-important pocketbook issues as
jobs and taxes. Republicans controlled that
message—and, as a result, now control the
Congress. In the process, many conservatives
have become so emboldened that they are
saying and doing things reminiscent of turn-
of-the-20th-century politics.
In a speech before the U.S. Senate on
March 23, 1900, Sen. Benjamin “Pitchfork”
Tillman of South Carolina defended the
lynching of Blacks, who, he said, were serving
in public office in an attempt to “put White
necks under Black heels to get revenge.”
A century and a decade later, racist under-
tones from groups including the Birthers, the
Tea Party and numerous red-faced U.S. con-
gressmen, indicate to many that some Whites
still have a palpable fear of losing power. Mob
lynchings have been replaced by character as-
sassinations. The Tea Party has vocally op-
posed the president at every turn, and kept
quiet when it could have squashed rumors
with facts and denounced hate with some
semblance of respect. Its message and actions
have made it clear that they want him to fail,
by any means necessary.
Is this what postracial America looks like?
Of course, students of Black history never
really bought into the notion of a color-
blind society, anyway. Prejudgments based
on race are too ingrained into the country’s
psyche to be uprooted overnight, and racial
hatred is a brash, reassuring emotion that, if
spun the right way and seasoned with fear,
always trumps facts.
So how does a president—and a race—
fight hate and win?
We examine this topic now because, frank-
ly, figuring out how to handle the haters will
go far in determining Obama’s ultimate ef-
fectiveness as president, and whether he gets
elected to a second term.
Make no mistake: the Obama hate ma-
chine will not be easy to dismantle. It will
take complex applied political theory by the
White House, and political activism by every
Black household in America, to stand up to
the hate, disrespect and falsehoods in a way
that the president can’t. As former Congres-
sional Black Caucus Chair Barbara Lee once
said: “A good leader needs the support of
the troops.”
The election of Barack Obama was an event.
Thechangethathepromisedtobringisamove-
ment. And movements have a way of bringing
out the worst in those who fear change. It
happened to Pitchfork Tillman, who, before he
lefttheSenatefloor,blurtedoutonemorething
for good measure: “I would to God the last one
ofthemwasinAfricaandthatnoneofthemhad
ever been brought to our shores.”
By the grace of God, we’re still here—with
a Black man in the White House. How we
handle the next two years will go a long way
in determining our success.
—KEVIN CHAPPELLCORBIS
DESIGNED BY: RODNEY PARKER

2. 102 www.ebony.com l FEBRUARY 2011 FEBRUARY 2011 l www.ebony.com 103
15 Acts of TOTAL
Disrespect Shown to
President Obama
he contention that the duly-elected
president of the United States is
overreaching and trampling on state’s rights;
a call from elected officials to reassess the
14th Amendment, which guarantees citizen-
ship to all born on U.S. soil; accusations that
the president is unfair, racist and will help
Blacks at the expense of Whites; the flying of
the Confederate flag; the use by elected offi-
cials of racist code couched as political strat-
egy to exploit racial fears and paranoia and to
organize a vehement and potentially violent
opposition. All the above could describe tac-
tics used against President Abraham Lincoln
150 years ago by Southern states first intent
on preserving slavery and, when that failed,
committed to thwarting Reconstruction.
But no such luck. Instead, these tactics are
being used in the 21st century. Welcome to
the New Confederacy. Other than the pe-
riod of Reconstruction, it is difficult, if not
impossible, to identify a time in American
history when a White-supremacist agenda
influenced American politics as virulently
and effectively as today.
The 2008 election of America’s first Black
president simultaneously affirmed for mil-
lions of Americans the possibility of tran-
scending our racist history and moving for-
ward in new ways, and for millions of others,
opened a Pandora’s box from which their
deepest racism and racial fears were released.
Paramount among these fears are antiquated
notions of the privileges accorded Whiteness
and the loss of the uneven playing field.
Begun in 1865, the purpose of Recon-
struction was to facilitate the transition from
slavery, to protect the rights of former slaves
and build a free South, and to transition
Confederate states and their citizens back
into the Union. Confederate attacks on Re-
construction were constant. Initiatives were
destroyed by intimidation and violence di-
rected toward federal forces, freed slaves and
their allies. State legislatures, local elected
officials and former slave owners, often aided
by the Ku Klux Klan and other violent orga-
nizations, terrorized, brutalized and killed
both agents and recipients of Reconstruc-
tion efforts. Slavery had ended, but much
remained the same as the defeated South
held on to state legislatures, elected offices,
land and other political and economic insti-
tutions. Under attack from its inception, Re-
construction officially ended in 1877, when
President Rutherford B. Hayes, in a deal with
Southern Democrats to ensure his presidency,
removed the last of the federal troops from the
South. Jim Crow came soon after.
One hundred and fifty years after their
spiritual brethren seceded from the Union
in late 1860 and early 1861, the language
and iconography of this New Confederacy
is chillingly similar. On November 8, 1860,
two days after Lincoln was elected, South
Carolina’s Charleston Mer-
cury newspaper editorialized,
“The tea has been thrown
overboard. The revolution
of 1860 has been initiated.”
Today, those opposing the
Obama administration have ap-
propriated the name and sym-
bolism of the Boston Tea Par-
ty in an attempt to conflate
their reactionary resistance
to the colonists’ struggle
against oppression by the
British. Just days before President Obama
was inaugurated, right-wing radio talk-show
host and former OxyContin addict Rush
Limbaugh proudly announced, “I hope he
fails.” Shades of South Carolina and six other
states seceding before Abraham Lincoln took
the oath of office.
The resistance initiated during the presi-
dential campaign has gained strength since
Obama’s election. It leaves no room for the
bipartisan dialogue and cooperation the
president calls for, but instead attempts to
block, distort and ridicule administration
initiatives in language that is condescend-
ing, contemptuous and, often, simply racist.
The smokescreen of states’ rights and smaller
government that the Confederacy used to
deny the centrality of slavery as the cause of
the Civil War is echoed in the New Confed-
eracy’s insistence that it is an overreaching
federal government, and not Barack Obama,
that they are loathe to support. Just as their
predecessors were obsessed with preserving
slavery and White supremacy, so this New
Confederacy is fixated on the destruction of
Barack Obama to the detriment of all else. A
week before Republicans and Tea Party can-
didates won control of the House in the 2010
midterm elections, Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) made their
priority clear. Not unemployment. Or job
creation. Or the housing crisis. Or educa-
tion. Or infrastructure. Or two ongoing
wars. None of the issues that concern Amer-
icans across political party, age, race, gender
and geography made the cut. “The single
most important thing we want to achieve is
for President Obama to be a one-term presi-
dent,” McConnell told National Journal.
It can be argued that the 148 years since
the Emancipation Proclamation have seen
consistent attacks on the rights of Black citi-
zens, both legal and extralegal, to diminish
or erase the rights fought for and won during
the Civil War, Reconstruction and the Civil
Rights Movement. What is new is that the
election of a Black president seems to have
opened a national vein of racist paranoia and
activism. Conservatives, from Sarah Palin to
GOP leadership to Tea Party demonstrators,
are milking this vein like extras on HBO’s
vampire saga, True Blood. The subtextual
theme of the Republican/Tea Party analysis
seems to be this: Good, hardworking White
people are at risk of having their country sto-
len from them and being victimized by the
Black president who wants to create a welfare
state to benefit you-know-
who at their expense.
is to destabilize, circumvent and ultimately
destroy the duly-elected legitimate govern-
ment. Unlike the Confederacy of Lincoln’s
time, today’s New Confederates are absent a
militia and cannot secede. Instead, they seek
to cripple the president from within by creat-
ing a legislative stalemate and from without
by staged demonstrations, accusations of in-
competence and conspiracy, and the encour-
agement of a group of frustrated, angry and
impotent Americans who, loathe to change
and despairing of solutions, are looking for
someone to blame. Underneath it all is the
White-privileged fear of having to compete
on a level playing field for the highest office
in the land; of following the leadership of a
Black man who is clearly the educational and
intellectual superior of most Americans. For
those who want a good ol’ boy president with
whom they’d feel comfortable having a beer,
Obama’s intellectual Blackness is terrifying.
Whatever else Barack Obama has in com-
mon with Abraham Lincoln, the president
he so greatly admires, both took office at a
pivotal time in America’s history in which
race played a central role. As such, history
will show them both as recipients of an un-
precedented level of outrage, contempt and
vitriol from their opponents. For the forces
of the New Confederacy, in this Second Re-
construction as in the first, the presidency,
the state of the union and its preservation
are far less important than maintaining their
personal power, privilege and the racial sta-
tus quo.
Jill Nelson is a New York Times best-selling
author and essayist based in New York City.
Facts do not disrupt this convenient analy-
sis. It is enough to obfuscate.
With this Second Reconstruction come
attempts to co-opt history. In the past year,
twoRepublicansenators,LindseyGrahamof
South Carolina and the aforementioned Mc-
Connell, have suggested that a reassessment
of the 14th Amendment, which guarantees
citizenship to anyone born in the United
States and was passed in 1866 to prevent
Southern states from denying citizenship to
freed slaves, is in order. Tea Party-backed
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky asserts that
the public accommodations section of the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 interferes with pri-
vate businesses’ First Amendment right to
discriminate. Huh? Where’s that in the Con-
stitution? Then there’s Virginia Governor
Bob McDonnell’s 2010 designation of April
as Confederate History Month to promote
tourism and celebrate the contributions of
Confederate soldiers. The proclamation
made no mention of slavery in connection
with the Civil War. McDonnell also requires
nonviolent felons who seek restoration of
their right to vote write him a letter about
the circumstances of the crime, their family
life and their post-incarceration contribution
to society. Shades of the discriminatory “lit-
eracy tests” required of Blacks attempting to
register to vote in the Jim Crow South, tests
banned, incidentally by the Voting Rights
Act of 1965. (Only Virginia and Kentucky
still require action by the governor to restore
voting rights.)
The campaign to ensure the failure of
Barack Obama and his administration is
a broad one, led by members of the Re-
publican Party; those who identify with
the Tea Party movement; a group of
wealthy, largely anonymous
funders; and a powerful, lu-
crative and entrenched right-
wing media. Their agenda,
like that of their forbearers,
BY KEVIN CHAPPELL
January 16, 2009:
Conservative radio talk
show host Rush Lim-
baugh: “I hope Obama
fails. Somebody’s gotta
say it.”
May 20, 2009:
On ESPN’s Jim Rome
Show, comedian Jay
Mohr says being married
to Michelle Obama “has
to be like being married to
Elton Brand. She is a big
dude.”
May 25, 2009:
Nevada’s Republican
governor Jim Gibbons
turns down an invitation
from the White House to
briefly greet President
Obama at the airport in
Las Vegas. Citing com-
ments by Obama saying
July 28, 2009:
Fox News Commentator
Glenn Beck calls Presi-
dent Obama “a racist,”
saying that he is a person
with “a deep-seated
hatred for White people
or the White culture . ..
I’m not saying he doesn’t
like White people. He has
a problem. This guy is, I
believe, a racist.”
that companies that
received bailouts should
not be wasting money on
Vegas vacations, Gibbons
says: “I am not interested
in a handshake and a hello
from President Obama,
I am interested in an
apology.”
1 2 3 4
BY JILL NELSON
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3. FEBRUARY 2011 l www.ebony.com 105
Since the election of America’s first Black
president, “Tea Party” Republicans have
shouted racial epithets at civil rights legend
Congressman John Lewis during the health
care debate; hurled homophobic insults at
Rep. Barney Frank, the first openly gay
member of the Congress; and attempted to
spread fear among my constituents during
my midterm campaign because I am Muslim.
I fought back against their hate and won.
President Obama also has had to endure
“accusations” that he is a Muslim (and the
pernicious implication that being a Muslim
is bad) and charges that he is not American-
born. His image has been defaced with a
Hitler moustache. Yes, the towering achieve-
ment of electing an African-American to the
presidency of the United States, a nation that
formerly held Africans in slavery, has evoked
deep fears in sections of the populace. Pan-
dering politicians, and certain wealthy indi-
viduals, have whipped these fears into a fren-
zy of hatred. We have a full-blown backlash,
and it has come with the threat of violence.
The health-care debate, for example, fea-
tured signs proclaiming, “We came unarmed.
This time.” and calls from U.S. Senate can-
didates for “Second Amendment (gun) rem-
edies” to solve America’s problems.
The chasm between fact and fiction in the
It has been well documented how African-
American communities are disproportion-
ately impacted during recessionary times.
When America catches a cold, Black America
catches the flu. This recession is no different.
Until now, however, minorities and low-in-
come borrowers have never been blamed for
actually creating the downturn. And never
has an American president, who came aboard
well after the start of an economic downturn,
been blamed for its impact.
But as we enter 2011, these two errant—if
not dangerous—streams of thought have tak-
en hold. Despite the overwhelming evidence
to the contrary, conservative pundits and ac-
tivists continue to overtly and covertly push
the notion that minority and low-income
borrowers caused the subprime mortgage
crisis that led to the recession,
and that spending under
the Obama adminis-
How Obama, minorities
and low-income Americans
are scapegoats for the
economic downturn
BY VALERIE WILSON
With the right strategy,
truth can trump hate
BY CONGRESSMAN KEITH ELLISON
current political climate is disturbing. This di-
vide is the product of an intentional and con-
certed propaganda campaign to misinform
and distract voters with a constant barrage of
doomsday scenarios. The agenda is simple: To
benefit a tiny minority of wealthy individu-
als. Here’s a good example of what I mean: A
Bloomberg National poll conducted days be-
fore the 2010 midterm elections found that,
by a two-to-one margin, likely voters thought
taxes had gone up, the economy had shrunk
and the billions lent to banks as part of the
Troubled Asset Relief Program (a program
largely credited with saving the entire U.S.
financial system) would never be recovered.
The facts, of course, are exactly the op-
posite. The Obama administration and the
Democratic Congress cut taxes for middle-
class Americans, oversaw an economy that
has grown for the past four quarters and will
likely turn a profit on the dollars invested in
rescuing the American financial system.
When you’re struggling to put food on
the table and keep from losing the home
that your family lives in, it gets hard to think
about much else. Sadly, during tough times,
it becomes easy to look around for someone
to blame. Although general unease and
uncertainty are pervasive, and
people do not recognize legit-
imate signs of progress, more
blame is directed at commu-
nities that suf-
fer disproportionally. The unemployment
rate has hovered around 10 percent on aver-
age for the nation for the past two years, but
the Latino and African-American commu-
nities had jobless rates of nearly twice that
and for longer periods of time.
America’s political history is fraught with
examples of one group or another being tar-
geted and used as a scapegoat for partisan
political purposes; think of the controversy
surrounding John F. Kennedy’s Catholicism
when he ran for president. But our history
also tells us that we do not achieve equality by
mudslinging, fearmongering or demonizing
our fellow citizens.
In the wake of the midterm election re-
sults, it can be hard to remember that we
must organize, strategize and continue to
fight for what is right.
We must remember that the politics of
hope and generosity are still within our reach
and will ultimately lead to a better future for
all Americans.
Martin Luther King Jr. said that, while
long, the arc of the moral universe bends to-
ward justice. We must also remember that the
arc does not bend on its own. We are the
force that bends the arc, and this is the source
of our purpose and our strength.
Keith Ellison is a three-term congressman repre-
senting Minnesota’s 5th District. He is one of two
Muslims in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Not since the backlash to the Civil
Rights Movement has America seen a
more virulent wave of fear and intolerance
after a progressive paradigmatic shift.
tration has slowed the recovery by creating
out-of-control deficits while generating little
benefit to taxpayers. Neither could be further
from the truth.
According to Home Mortgage Disclosure
Act data, although minorities and low-in-
come borrowers received a disproportionate
share of subprime loans—Black borrowers
were more than twice as likely to receive sub-
prime loans than White borrowers—the vast
majority of subprime loans went to White and
upper-income borrowers. In 2006, non-His-
panic Whites had more subprime rate loans
than all minorities combined. Furthermore,
some 60 percent of subprime rate loans were
originated in largely White census tracts, and
the number of 90-day-plus delinquency rates
of lower-income neighborhoods accounted
for only about one-fifth of all households—a
number much too small to be a major con-
tributor to the national foreclosure crisis.
Enter President Obama. Despite the fact
that he and his administration have taken a
lot of heat over the bank bailout known as
Troubled Asset Relief Program, this program
was actually created by his predecessor. Presi-
dent George W. Bush
had alreadycommitted
nearly $300 billion to the bailout before Presi-
dent Obama ever took office. Either way, it is
well documented that the money prevented
a total economic collapse, and, according to
Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, 90 per-
cent of it will be returned to taxpayers.
Although the midterms have been cast as
a referendum on deficit spending, it is mis-
guided to point to the $787 billion stimulus
as the cause. While it did add to the deficit,
the recent sustained growth in federal deficit
spending can be more accurately attributed
to the unfunded Bush administration tax cuts
of 2001 and 2003, the Bush-era spending in-
creases tied to the wars in Iraq and Afghani-
stan, as well as the expansion of entitlements
such as the Medicare prescription drug pro-
gram and the significant loss of federal rev-
enues tied to the current recession.
It has been estimated that only 7.6 percent
of the increase in the deficit can be attributed
to the president’s stimulus package. And it
can be argued that a single-digit increase in
the deficit was a small price to pay for the esti-
mated 2.7 million to 3.7 million jobs created
by the stimulus package. In fact, a number of
notable economists have suggested that the
size of the stimulus was not large enough.
But in making the case that irresponsible
minority or low-income homebuyers cre-
ated the subprime crisis or that the policies of
President Obama are responsible for the na-
tion’s record deficits and slow recovery, why
let the facts get in the way? There’s no doubt
that the metrics by which his critics would
have us to measure the success of the Obama
administration seem to be a perpetually mov-
ing target. But in the end, only two questions
need to be answered: Where did he start, and
where did he finish?
Valerie Wilson is an economist and the vice-
president of research at the National Urban
League Policy Institute.
August 26, 2009:
The White House an-
nounces that President
Obama will give a back-
to-school speech to the
nation’s students. The
announcement spurred
protests from angry par-
ents and school admin-
September 9, 2009:
South Carolina Repub-
lican Congressman Joe
Wilson shouts “You lie!”
as President Obama
gave a speech on health
care during a joint ses-
sion of Congress.
March 17, 2010:
Fox News anchor Bret
Baier interrupts Presi-
dent Obama 23 times
during a 20-minute Oval
Office interview.
April 15, 2010:
Signs at Tea Party rally
in Washington, D.C.,
depict President Obama
dressed as The Joker,
Hitler, a witch doctor
and even a monkey.
June 22, 2010:
Rolling Stone magazine
publishes an article
in which Gen.Stanley
McChrystal, the top com-
mander in Afghanistan,
described President
Obama as unprepared on
issues related to the war.
July 12, 2010:
Members of a North
Iowa Tea Party erect a
billboard depicting
President Barack Obama
underneath the words
“Democratic Socialism;”
Adolf Hitler appears un-
der “National Socialism”;
and Vladimir Lenin under
“Marxist Socialism.”
istrators, many of whom
pressured local school
boards across the country
to not air the televised
speech. Conservatives
said the speech was the
White House attempting
to “indoctrinate” children.
5 6 7 8 9 10
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4. In the late ’80s, there was a great ad cam-
paign that revolutionized the marketing
world. It was for Honda, and it was simply,
“The Honda sells itself.” The auto giant was
producing cars of such self-evident quality,
the only thing that made sense was to buy
them. With products that good, you didn’t
need a lot of persuasion to convince people.
And indeed, the Honda became one of the
best-selling brands in America.
Unfortunately, there is no Honda in poli-
tics. When it comes to persuading an always-
skeptical American public, a politician has to
tirelessly inform and sell a message. A mes-
sage is more than a list of facts. Real mes-
saging is laying out priorities and policies, a
forward-thinking view of the world. It’s mak-
ing a case for your perspective, your vision,
and where it makes sense to go.
For the past two years, Democrats have
failed to build a populist economic narra-
tive that looked like the work they were do-
ing. Let’s face it: No sane economist without
a partisan ax to grind is going to argue against
the need for the government to stimulate the
economy to avoid a deeper economic slide.
In fact, most argue that without the stimulus
package passed by Democrats, the country
would have fallen into another Great De-
pression.
Although it made common
economic sense, it didn’t sell it-
self and most people didn’t—and still don’t—
understand what was in the stimulus package.
Democrats failed to sell and create a unifying
narrative while the GOP was singularly fo-
cused only on defining what Democrats were
doing as growing government and raising
taxes. And let’s be clear: Republicans are very
good salesmen. Indeed, it has been a stun-
ning turnaround. In 2008, Americans felt
Democrats understood their economic pain
more than Republicans, and Democrats won
voters most concerned with the economy by
better than 10 points on the way to the im-
probable election of a Black president. In this
past midterm election however, according to
exit polls, Democrats lost voters most con-
cerned with the economy by 11 points,
which explains the loss of the House of
Representatives.
My smarter friends in the academic social
science world say that people tend to under-
stand and follow things better in the form of
a story. Good messages usually tell a story
or lay out a vision. They tells us where we
are, set the scene and define the antagonist.
Something like this: “It’s a dark and stormy
night, and greedy powerful corporate spe-
cial-interest barbarians are at the gates with
higher health-care costs, pink slips and fore-
closure notices. The middle class is on the
brink of falling.”
It draws a picture of the protagonist (those
leaders who aren’t in bed with the greedy
and powerful special interests but instead are
fighting hard to disarm them, make them
play fair and by the rules, and leveling the
playing field to em-
power work-
ing people to
fend off gouging and exploitation) and lays
out a vision for a resolution (economic popu-
lism—power to the people so that they can
defend themselves from greedy corporations,
oil giants and HMOs, and build better lives for
themselves and their families by their own ini-
tiatives and hard work. The underlying theme
is, government can’t solve all your problems,
but it does have a role in protecting its citizens
and promoting the common good).
A good example of this was Bill Clinton’s
policy in the ’90s of “building a bridge to the
21st century.” Can’t you still see it? Can’t you
still feel it?
During the past two years, Democrats did
not drive a viable economic narrative that res-
onated and spoke to the populist economic
anxiety of moderate independent voters, who
aren’t so much angry as flat-out scared that
they are losing economically to others. Some-
where along the way, as President Obama was
trying to steer the ship of state away from the
rocks of economic depression, the messaging
fell overboard. It wasn’t about character or
toughness. His actions kept the country out
of a Great Depression and he did what every
president since Harry Truman had wanted
despite the enormous political obstacles: He
reformed health care. He has stood with his
convictions instead of political calculations,
and that’s the very definition of toughness
and leadership. As we look to 2012, however,
we will need more salesmanship to pull out
Election Day victories.
Cornell Belcher is one of the country’s top poll-
sters and president of the Washington, D.C.-
based Brilliant Corners Research and Strategies.
In his initial term as president, Barack
Obama has had to contend with an opposi-
tion Republican Party that was almost trai-
torous in its ambitious antics to thwart his
programs and policies, actions detrimental
not only to him but to the country. To wish
failure upon a presidency is to want the na-
tion to suffer, for the two are inseparable.
Without question, a trusting Obama left
himself wide open to much of the thunder on
the right. He depended too much on the Re-
publicans’ word that they would be the truly
loyal opposition in the traditional sense, and
when they weren’t, he was much too slow to
adjust his strategy.
They are entirely within their rights as the
opposition to prefer their own policies over
those of the administration. But the nastiness
and viciousness of Republicans are way out
of bounds and dangerous in today’s fragile
democracy.
To be sure, Obama unnecessarily brought
a lot of it on himself. From day one, he went
out of his way to include Republicans in the
governing process. Softening some of his own
positions, the president angered and alien-
ated important segments of his supporters
by backing off a stronger health-reform bill,
dragging his feet on shutting down the prison
at Guantanamo, poor timing on the repeal of
“don’t ask, don’t tell” and preventing inves-
tigations into possible war crimes committed
during the Bush administration. These were
huge miscalculations.
Many of his actions were seen as indeci-
sive, which was quite a blow to a man known
for his way with words. Suddenly, Obama
seemed to lose the power of his voice, allow-
ing the Republicans to take away his message
and to define him and his policies.
He thereby allowed Republicans, soundly
defeated in the 2008 elections, to regain their
confidence, feeling they could kick the presi-
dent around at will, that he would cave easily
on just about any issue.
To save the nation from another depres-
sion was not a mistake. The economy had
to be rescued; big bank bailouts and help to
other financial institutions and preventing
the total collapse of the automobile industry
were necessary. But the other side of the crisis
was ignored: addressing the growing jobless
problem and providing assistance to Ameri-
cans losing their homes. The president and
his team of economic advisors, mostly from
Ivy League backgrounds, proved they were
not tuned in to the suffering of poorer Amer-
icans, whose numbers were being joined by
more White middle-class and working people
not used to that kind of treatment. Voters
punished the Democrats severely in the 2010
midterm elections.
Looking ahead to 2012, Obama must
be as effective a president as he was a cam-
paigner. Enough with the idea that he’d
settle for being a one-termer. His most loyal
support group, African-Americans, doesn’t
want to hear such talk. My sincere belief is
there will not be another Black president for
the rest of the century, or at least for most of
it, if Obama fails.
He will need a staff that is sharper, quicker
and more on target than in the past, to not
only solve problems but, most importantly,
to anticipate them.
PerhapsObamawillhavetoadoptthe“Give
’em hell, Harry,” take-no-prisoners stance of
1948 Harry Truman. Clearly, much has got to
change and soon.
Paul Delaney is a veteran reporter and a for-
mer editor at the New York Times.
Communication—not
brute strength—is the key
to Obama’s success
BY CORNELL BELCHER
BY PAUL DELANEY
The president’s got to get
tough with the GOP
The
Takeaway
Support the messenger,
own the message
BY RINKU SEN
America’s tumble into an atmosphere
of hate reflects a desperate backlash
against enormous progress that
culminated in the election of the first
African-American president.
Our job now is to continue that
legacy by gaining control of the race
debate in this new climate.
Although President Obama is the
touchstone for racist talk, don’t think
for one minute that it doesn’t affect
you. If he is personally attacked based
on falsehoods, if his office is disrespected
based on the color of his skin, it affects all
people of color.
While that type of racism is intentional
and blatant, it distracts from the kinds of
discrimination that aren’t visible to the
naked eye. The essential strategy of the
Glenn Becks and Pat Buchanans of the
world is to frame racism as individual
bias with no relationship to the rules
or institutions that shape access to op-
portunity. If you are distracted by the
street-level rule breakers, you are likely to
forget about the need to improve institu-
tions such as our public schools, hospitals
and police departments.
Our challenge, then, is to confront
bias and decode subtler messages: Gov-
ernment is too big; socialism is rampant;
American culture is being overrun. Subtle
racism is still racism. We cannot be afraid
to call it like we see it, nor be afraid to
insert our collective voices directly into
policy debate.
We can’t reshape a debate in which we
don’t take part. We have the intelligence.
We have the moral high ground. And
we have far more resources than we can
imagine. Now it’s time for us to own
the conversation—to decide who gets to
talk, what language they use, and what’s
important for the nation to discuss.
Rinku Sen is president and executive
director of the Applied Research Center
and author of Stir It Up: Lessons in
Community Organizing.
September 29, 2010:
Maine’s Republican
gubernatorial candidate,
Paul LePage, tells a group
of fishermen at a GOP
forum that he won’t be
afraid to tell Obama to “go
to hell.” In November, Le-
Page is voted into office.
October 13, 2010:
Obama opponents
in Colorado erect a
billboard depicting the
president as an Islamist
suicide bomber, a gay
man and a Mexican
bandit under a “Vote
DemocRAT” slogan.
October 25, 2010:
Rhode Island’s Demo-
cratic gubernatorial
candidate, Frank Caprio,
tells a local radio station
that President Obama
“can take his endorse-
ment and really shove
it” after the president
October 26, 2010:
Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell con-
fesses: “The single most
important thing we want
to achieve is for President
Obama to be a one-term
president.”
November 18, 2010:
GOP leadership says
that they are too busy
to accept Obama’s
invitation to a bipartisan
meeting due to “sched-
uling conflicts.” The
meeting doesn’t happen
until December 1.
failed to endorse Caprio
during a swing through
the state.
11 12 13 14 15
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