It is not hard to understand why black Americans were happy that a black man was elected president of the United States. It was kind of a final and most grand announcement that racism has finally been purged from America.
But for the highly politicized parts of black America this was certainly not the only message. Because for the highly politicized parts of black America, the point has always been to keep race in American politics.
For black political culture that dominated after the civil rights movement, the point was not just equal treatment under the law, but special treatment under the law. Plus the assumption that more black political power -- defined by more blacks holding office -- would mean that blacks would be better off.
In other words, post-civil rights movement black political culture embraced an agenda exactly the opposite of what the civil rights movement was about. Its agenda was to get laws and policies that were not neutral but racially slanted and to put individuals in power based on their race and not on their character and capability.
So, according to the script of this political culture, election of a black man as president meant more than an end to racism. The conclusion had to be that if the man holding the highest political office in the nation was black, it must follow that blacks would be better off.
Now blacks have a dilemma. We have a black president and blacks are worse off. Not just a little, but a lot worse off.
She finds only two possible conclusions: Either President Obama is a "traitor to his race," or he is incompetent, or in Ms. Parker's words, "Bad policies hurt the weakest the most."
She is hoping that
Maybe blacks will realize that they should blame Barack Obama. Not because he is black, but because he is a liberal. And because he has grown government to the point where the oxygen necessary for freedom and prosperity is being squeezed out of our nation.
Now she has hope for change we could all believe in.
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