Ok, the election is over, Barack has won a hard fought second term and he will be our President for 4 more years. Hooray for me, Hooray for America, Hooray for Black people the world over. Once again a Black man has proven that we as a race are capable of reaching for the stars and actually landing on one. The glass ceiling has been shattered and there will be another Black President, the first woman or a Latino that will sit in that seat within the next 20 years because of President Obama’s grateful spirit and stoic demeanor.
He was the perfect man for the job, just as Jackie Robinson was when he became the first Black man to play in a segregated MLB back in 1947. The difference between the two lies with the fact that Barack Obama was absolutely the best Black man for the job and Jackie Robinson had players better than him but their attitudes sucked. So thank you for being able to weather the storm and still stand firm and resolute, I salute you Mr. President, for a job well done! You will go down in history, not just for being the first Black President, but for being one of the best Presidents this country has ever seen. Your record will speak for itself when I and historians decide to write about your Presidency in the near future.
Now that we’ve gotten through the pleasantries, Black people, what are you going to do?
Over the past two years I’ve been inundated by Black Liberals that claimed that they were holding the President accountable by spewing mostly negative information in all directions. Some were Black Activism political heavy weights like Tavis Smiley and Cornell West; others were up and coming political strategist, and some were just plain ole Black people who thought the President should have been talking about “Black” issues all the time as if he was the President of African America, and not the POTUS of all Americans.
It struck me quite strange that some of the politically savvy brothers were spewing this BS until I realized that it was about jockeying for position. These guys were looking to get media attention as the hard hitting Black people that weren’t cow towing to Barack’s every whim. They were the guys who would ask the “tough questions” and get the President on track. But they were actually trying to become the go-to guys for mainstream media and they were making it harder for Obama to get re-elected, and that’s about it. In an egomaniacal dash for media whoredom, oops I mean stardom, hmm, I think those two words are actually synonyms in this day and age, these guys threw their hats in the ring and gave RepubliCon’s what they wanted and needed, a piece of the Black populace speaking out and being disgruntled. It proved to be a way to cast biased, borderline racist BS in the air and say this is what a Black person said also, but guess what, it didn’t work, and he still won!
So now that the election is over and President Obama has done it again, I ask Black Americans to hold his feet to the fire now! We’ve gotten our second term, we’ve allowed some major issues to go unchallenged is an effort to afford Barack four more years to right a sinking ship and to address the issues that Black Americans face today, which ironically are the same issues that we have been facing since the Civil Rights movement. The thing is we have to do it constructively and become activist, not re-activist!
Mr. President we need you and every willing body in Congress; every Governor, Mayor, State Senator and Representative to bring this country back to top of the world in education, justice and liberty by addressing a part of the population that has gone underserved for decades but have stood with the Democratic party through thick and thin.
Make our vote count! We only ask for the basic things that should be afforded us in a nation as great as ours. We have worked harder than any group of people for the longest period of time holding on to hope that one day the racist in America will finally see that we just want to be treated as equals.
We get up every morning, work hard and strive for happiness just as everyone else does but we have routinely been shut out of the American Dream because we are Black on a systematic level and this has to stop. Michelle Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow illustrates this point too poignantly and the movie The House I Live In (I haven’t seen it yet) attempts to do the same. These are issues Black men have been discussing for years and now they are finally getting their day in the sun.
Over the past decade we have seen study after study come up about our failing school system for the poorest and most vulnerable, yet nothing is done about it. This disproportionately affects my people, Black people. We’ve all seen Waiting For Superman and The Lottery which highlight the plight of inner city schools, yet we still are lacking.
We all know that education is the foundation to a better existence; it keeps people on the straight and narrow and out of the prison industrial complex. A college education can help a person earn up to an additional million dollars over their lifetime in the workforce and that’s good for America.
All we ask for is a chance, and we’ve shown throughout history what we are capable of doing when given a chance.
This is the first time in the history of these United States of America that a Black man holds the key to the fate of Black Americans. This is the first time that a Black man can pass laws that will bring education inequality to its knees! You can strike a mighty blow to the prison industrial complex, a system that disproportionately affects African Americans, with the stroke of a pen. We don’t have to march anymore, we have achieved Martin Luther King’s dream, you are that person that was judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin and you can be the just and righteous beacon for the rest of humanity. You can show the world how great we can be.
This is your time President Barack Hussein Obama. This is your legacy!