I guess critics as ideologically diverse as leftist professor Cornel West to myself are in Mr. McWhorter's bullseye. The moderate-liberal commentator and Obama supporter opines: "Health care reform, the Race to the Top education initiative, the auto
industry bailout, getting rid of 'Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,' pushing a jobs
bill, not to mention Michelle Obama’s Food Initiative for Urban Communities — never mind. None of it has been 'black' enough. These people never quite get past that someone moved their cheese."
Drawing from "Who Moved My Cheese?", he continues his commentary: "One human, Hem, fumes, 'Who moved my cheese?' and seems most
comfortable doing just that. The other one, Haw, sees cheese crumbs here
and there [due to mice], gradually alters his expectations and approaches, and
follows them to a new cheese source. Anybody concerned with black progress who has watched Obama since 2008 and sees a man unconcerned with his own people is Hem. To Hem, nothing has 'really' happened if a policy will have a positive
impact on black people among many others, such as the Affordable Care
Act or Race to the Top. To Hem, the only 'really' pro-black policy is an
explicitly labeled, full-frontal attack on Black Problems. Or maybe, if
not that blatant, Poverty or Inequality writ large. Hem is waiting, in other words, for a Great Society redo. He isn’t
interested in evidence that those approaches weren’t able to lift a
people out of poverty. He thinks there just should have been more money
spent, and for longer. After all, it was all just starting to work,
wasn’t it?"
Booker Rising response: Not a single policy on Dr. McWhorter's list primarily benefits black folks (and I'd dispute whether some of the items are even beneficial). It is this glaring difference that we black critics, left and right, are pointing out. Despite receiving 96 percent black support in 2008, Obama hasn't gone to bat for black folks anywhere like he has for groups who gave him significantly less support: gays (eliminating the ban on gays in the military, coming out in support for gay marriage) or Hispanics (pushing through de facto amnesty for illegal immigrants). Those are policies which primarily benefit those groups. Has Obama come out for ending the War on Drugs, which has devastated countless black communities and jailed millions for non-violent acts of drug possession? No. Now, that's a pro-black policy comparable to how he has risked all sorts of political capital for gays and Hispanics. Black folks deserve the same respect from him.
John McWhorter To Obama's Black Critics: "Y'all Need To Stop Saying That Obama Hasn't Done Anything For Black Folks"
