Why I’m Ready for President Obama to
Leave the White House
By Law Ware | @Law_Ware |with thanks to NewBlackMan (in Exile)
Thursday, 03 March 2016.
Barack Obama must be the most
disrespected president in American history. First there were the questions
about his birth certificate.Birthers,
unaware that Hawaii joined the union in 1959, were in the streets asking to see
the certificate like a disgruntled man on the Maury Show.
Then, during an address to a joint session of
Congress in 2009, Representative Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) shouted ‘You Lie!’ as
President Obama tried to explain the details of the Affordable Care Act. Wilson
was later unapologetic and used his heckling as an opportunity to raise money for
reelection.
When he travelled to Arizona in 2012, Governor Jen
Brewer pointed a finger in
Obama’s face as soon as he arrived at Phoenix-Mesa Gateway Airport. The
only thing she didn’t do was refer to him as ‘boy.’ Gov. Brewer treated
Obama like a ni**er without having to say it.
When he visited Oklahoma in 2015, not long after
the massacre of 9 black men and women in Mother Emmanuel AME Church by a
Confederate Flag waving racist young man, he was met by a few good ol’
boys waving the Stars and Bars.
But, of course, it was all about states’ rights.
I could go on. There is the heckling by a reporter
from the Daily Caller in the Rose Garden. The
chair lecture he received at the hands of Bill O’Reilly.
The former Mayor of New York City saying of Obama,
“I do not believe, and I know this is a horrible thing to say, but I do not
believe that the president loves America…He doesn’t love you. And he doesn’t
love me. He wasn’t brought up the way you were brought up and I was
brought up through love of this country.”
The list is seemingly endless, but as we reach the end of his
presidency, Senate Republicans are setting precedent with the level of
disrespect they’re directing at President Obama.
Now members of the all Republican Senate Judiciary
Committee said they would neither hold confirmation hearings nor vote on the
person President Obama nominates to replace Justice Antonin Scalia.
It is a matter of professional courtesy for
Senators on the Judiciary Committee to meet with nominees named by the
president, but, when asked if he would adhere to that historical precedent,
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said he would not. “I
don’t know the purpose of such a visit. I would not be inclined to take that
myself.” When asked the same, Senator John Cornyn of Texas agreed.
“I don’t see the point of going through the motions if we know what the outcome
is going to be.”
Many on social media have voiced sadness about the
fact that Obama will soon leave the presidency. While I understand the symbolic
power of black folks in general, and black kids in particular, seeing a family
in the White House that looks like them, I’m ready to see this president’s
final year in office come to an end.
When Obama was elected, many thought we were being
ushered into a new era—certainly not a post-racial milieu, but, perhaps, a less
overt one. The fact that a black man could rise so high was shocking. It made
many think that things were getting better. It gave us hope. Now, that hope is
gone.
It is clear that no matter how high you rise, no
matter what office you hold, no matter how hard you work, if you are black,
many will view and treat you like a second-class citizen. No, they won’t use
racial epithets. They will not burn a cross in your yard. They may not spit in
your face. But the undeniable fact is that white supremacy is here to stay, and
no election will cure that ill.
I’m ready for Obama to leave office. I don’t care
how many times he says pop-off. I don’t care
how often he daps up Kevin Durant. I’m not
swayed by the number of black women from the civil rights generation that dance in the White House when
they meet him.
I’m tired of seeing President Obama blatantly
disrespected, and my soul is weary from having to see him grin and bear it. I’m
ready for President Obama to be free from the burden of having to perform for white
supremacy—and I’m ready to be free from the burden of having to watch him do
it.
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Image: White House photo by Pete Souza
Lawrence Ware is an Oklahoma State University
Division of Institutional Diversity Fellow. He teaches in OSU's philosophy
department and is the Diversity Coordinator for its Ethics Center. A frequent
contributor to the publication The Democratic Left and contributing editor of
the progressive publication RS: The Religious Left, he has also been a
commentator on race and politics for the Huffington Post Live, NPR's Talk of
the Nation, and PRI’s Flashpoint. Follow him on Twitter: @law_ware