CHAPTER 4

RACIAL JUSTICE UNDER

PRESIDENT OBAMA: A MISUSE OF

THE BULLY PULPIT

Bertin M. Louis, Jr. and Wornie L. Reed

ABSTRACT

Purpose � Many African Americans cheered the election of PresidentObama in 2008 with the hope he would cause an easing of the pain ofeconomic and political barriers to collective black progress in America.This chapter assesses the role of President Obama in addressing theseissues.

Approach � The Presidential Bully Pulpit is presented as a frameworkfor addressing racial inequities. Properly used it can bring keen attentionto issues a president deems important for consideration by the Americanpublic. Socio-historical texts and secondary data are used.

Findings � Data are presented to show how racial discrimination con-tinues to affect African Americans during the age of Obama. Theseinclude housing discrimination, employment discrimination, and racialprofiling. This chapter shows Mr. Obama has not used the office of thepresidency as a bully pulpit for addressing these racial inequities. Rather

Race in the Age of Obama: Part 2

Research in Race and Ethnic Relations, Volume 19, 77�99

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he has tended to use the bully pulpit to chastise blacks, especially blackmales.

Also discussed are some promising developments challenging racism thathave emerged from his administration, primarily from the Department ofJustice, and how President Obama could use the bully pulpit moreproductively.

Originality � This chapter presents a contradiction in the actions ofPresident Obama. While he seldom uses the bully pulpit to push his ownlegislative agendas or to push toward solutions to relieve racial inequitiesin society, he does use the bully pulpit to criticize black males.

Keywords: Racial justice; racism; bully pulpit; Obama; black males;racial profiling

INTRODUCTION

Barack Obama’s victory in the 2008 presidential election was an importantand transformative event in American history. As the then President-Electaddressed an exuberant election night crowd in Grant Park, Chicago, tele-vision cameras caught the multitude of expressions etched across the facesof black, brown, red, yellow, and white Americans all huddled together. Itseemed for a moment that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream of AfricanAmericans being judged “not by the color of their skin” but by the “con-tent of their character” came to fruition.

What made Mr. Obama’s victory so important is that it occurred againsta historical backdrop of racial segregation, skewed justice with regard toblack citizens and the overall denial of full freedom to people of Africandescent in the United States. Therefore, Barack Obama’s election as thefirst black President of the United States symbolized a triumph over a dis-abling legacy, defiance against the American racial state and the progressof a largely white electorate in terms of racial attitudes about blacks. Sincethat historic night in 2008, President Obama was reelected in 2012 with thehelp of racially diverse voters, including African Americans. Many blacks,in particular, elected President Obama with the hope that he would easethe pain of economic and political barriers to collective black progress inAmerica.

78 BERTIN M. LOUIS, JR. AND WORNIE L. REED

But since the initial euphoria over the election of the first black presidentof the United States, a deeply disturbing pattern has emerged in theObama presidency that bears scrutiny. When it comes to addressing issuesof racial justice, Mr. Obama has not used the office of the presidency as apulpit for calling attention to the need to address racial inequities, some-thing that would benefit black Americans greatly. President Obama has lar-gely avoided discussing race, racism, and its adverse effects on thecollective condition of African Americans. Instead, he has used the pulpitof the president to chastise blacks; an important part of the electorate thatcampaigned for his presidency and stood on long lines to vote for him,most recently during the 2012 presidential elections.

This chapter will discuss how racism continues to adversely affect blacksduring the age of Obama, some of the promising developments challengingracism that have emerged from his administration, how President Obamacould use the bully pulpit, and offer some concluding remarks. But first wediscuss the concept of the bully pulpit.

THE BULLY PULPIT

A bully pulpit describes a prominent public position that provides its occu-pant with an outstanding opportunity to expound their views. PresidentTheodore Roosevelt, who realized its potential for shaping public opinion,first used the term. During the time of the presidency of “Teddy” Rooseveltover 100 years ago, the word “bully” was an adjective meaning “wonder-ful” or “superb.” Current use of the word tends toward negative connota-tions, except when used in surviving terms from that time period like “bullyfor you,” synonymous with “good for you.” Teddy Roosevelt coined theterm bully pulpit to mean a terrific platform from which to advocate anagenda (Goodwin, 2013).

Presidents are sometimes evaluated on how often or how well they usethe presidential bully pulpit. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was con-sidered to have used it often and well, especially when some of his firesidechats are included. A more recent master was considered to be PresidentRonald Reagan; President Lyndon Johnson was considered quite effectiveat using the presidential pulpit to move the country to accept the definitionof racial problems that remained after the passage of the Civil Rights Billof 1964 (Mervin, 1995; Muir, 1992, 1995).

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From his bully pulpit, “Roosevelt would focus the charge of a nationalmovement to apply an ethical framework, through government action, tothe untrammeled growth of modern America” (Goodwin, 2013, p. xii).Calling his domestic policies a “square deal” for the average citizen, he pro-ceeded to use his bully pulpit to push his conviction that the governmenthad the right to regulate big business. This led him to pursue curbing thepower of large corporations, including the largest railroad and StandardOil. He also supported organized labor. After encountering resistance inthe Congress to his attempts to enhance the powers of the InterstateCommerce Commission to regulate the railroads he won by taking his casedirectly to the public, making a direct appeal in a speaking tour across thecountry.

Roosevelt was also the nation’s first conservationist President and usedthe bully pulpit to protect America’s woodlands. Century magazine sug-gested that Roosevelt’s decision to highlight issues of conservation, irriga-tion, and preservation would have an “educational effect upon the people,”fostering a new determination to protect “the western wonderlands,”expand national parks, and institute a sustainable, scientific approach tomanaging the nation’s wilderness areas. Any action to safeguard forestlands was usually delayed until the end of a president’s term, the journalistnoted, but Roosevelt would not hesitate “to throw the full force of hisinfluence” behind legislation that would halt “the ruinous waste of thegreat national forests” (Goodwin, p. 353).

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s book, Bully Pulpit, is as much about the ill useof the bully pulpit by Teddy Roosevelt’s chosen successor as President,William H. Taft, as it is about the great use of the pulpit by Roosevelthimself. Although Taft had intentions of codifying and expanding uponRoosevelt’s progressive legacy, he failed as a public leader, and in the pro-cess exemplified the importance of the bully pulpit in presidential leader-ship. “Taft’s temperament � his aversion to dissension and preference forpersonal persuasion � would ultimately lead him to work within the systemrather than mobilize external pressure from his bully pulpit” (Goodwin,2013, p. 588). Of course, his conciliatory approach did not work very wellas he was at the mercy of powerful political figures like Speaker of theHouse, Joseph Cannon. Taft confessed that from his first days in office hewas “derelict” in this use of the bully pulpit (Goodwin, 2013).

Our concern here is with President Obama’s use of the bully pulpit. Inhis failure to use the bully pulpit to push his own legislative agenda, hebrings to mind President Taft, who admitted that a problem of his presi-dency was his failure to fully use the bully pulpit. Most notable was his

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failure to push the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), when he first pro-posed the legislation, leaving the stage to his opposition to define it pub-licly. This failure to educate the public about an agenda item has repeateditself many times over the years of the Obama Presidency. On the otherhand, the 44th President of the United States has been effective in using thebully pulpit to critique blacks. During his time in office, he has tended tocondemn black men with black pathology rhetoric.

President Obama’s black pathology rhetoric often takes the form ofchastising and reprimanding black fathers. In two speeches on Chicago’sSouth Side, one in 2008 before his election and one in 2013, he criticizedblack parenting and was particularly harsh on absent fathers, virtuallyignoring such issues as the mass incarceration of black males as a resultof the disproportionate prosecution, arrests, and convictions of blackmen, especially for illicit drugs (Dunn & Reed, 2011; Sentencing Project,2013). For example, blacks are between 12 and 13 percent of the popula-tion in the United States; however, for drug offenses they are approxi-mately 35 percent of persons arrested, over 50 percent of personsconvicted, and nearly two-thirds of all persons incarcerated. The massincarceration of black males seriously limits an increasing proportion ofblack males in their pursuit of jobs and families (Dunn & Reed, 2011;Western, 2006).

As journalist Clay (2013) argued, it is one thing to promote fatherhoodand community in the context of overcoming and pushing for riddance ofsystemic ills; however, it is irresponsible to sell the merits of fathers as pana-cea. While we agree that black men should be good citizens and carry outtheir responsibilities, especially to their children, they should have theopportunity to do so without the barriers of institutional racism. We arealso troubled by President Obama’s use of the bully pulpit to criticize blacksin the face of present-day racial realities that he is aware of (institutionalracism, mass incarceration, racial profiling, police violence against blacks).

As Wise (2013) suggested, from President Obama’s speeches we are toldby example that only black people need lectures about personal responsibil-ity. The implicit suggestion is that blacks must be the only ones who makeexcuses when things don’t go their way. They are the only ones who needto be reminded to do their best, because white graduates � like the major-ity of the graduates at Ohio State University where he also spoke at com-mencement in 2013 � apparently do not need to be reminded of suchthings. Thus, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that this president has oneway of addressing the social ills that affect black Americans and anotherway of addressing everyone else. According to TaNehisi Coates, President

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Obama may be the president of “all America,” but he is also the scold of“black America” (Coates, 2013).

RACISM: RAW BIGOTRY AND INSTITUTIONAL

RACISM

In his criticisms of blacks, President Obama fails to mention the centralityof racism and its injurious and disproportionate effects on collective blackwellbeing. In order to understand racism and how it adversely affects blacksin the United States, we must recognize that it comes in many forms withsome forms being more injurious to blacks than others. The most commonform of racism that all Americans are familiar with is raw bigotry, which iswhen an individual is hostile to other racial groups. This individual form ofracism is common and familiar to President Obama. He has been the targetof raw bigotry ever since he stepped onto the presidential campaign trailand throughout his entire presidency. Two young white men, believers in“white power,” were arrested in Tennessee in October 2008 for plotting toassassinate then-Senator Obama and kill black children at a school(Lichtblau, 2008, October 28). Evoking the language of the Americaneugenics movement of the late 19th century and early 20th century,American rock musician Ted Nugent referred to the biracial President ofthe United States, as a “subhuman mongrel” (Davidson, 2014, February24). In May 2014, a New Hampshire police chief used the N-word to referto President Obama (Associated Press, 2014, February 24). While the use ofdenigrating slurs and plots by bigots to assassinate the President of theUnited States are deplorable and morally reprehensible, media focus on actssuch as these as being representative of what racism constitutes obfuscatesinstitutional racism � the main form of racism that maintains trenchantinequalities which shape and determine the life chances of disadvantagedracial and ethnic groups like black people. We can understand racism as astructure that ranks racial and ethnic groups in a hierarchy of advantage. Inthe United States, “whites” are currently the most advantaged race(Rothenberg, 2007). Institutional racism is racism that is inherent in, andmanifested in, the operation of major institutions in society. It encompassesthe established laws, customs, and practices that systematically reflect andproduce the racial inequities of U.S. society (Reed, 2008).

Focusing primarily on reducing individual forms of prejudice and racismalso has limited usefulness because it ignores institutionalized racism and

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its collective negative effects on blacks. An important feature of institu-tional racism is that it can also be intentional or unintentional.Consequently, intent is not a relevant issue. “If racist consequences resultfrom an institution’s laws, customs, or practices, that institution is racistwhether or not the individuals maintaining those practices have racistintentions” (Jones, 1972).

Social institutions are at the center of the operation of American society.Institutions such as families, health care, housing, law enforcement, andpolitics are social arrangements through which collective action takes placeto maintain and perpetuate the society and its culture. Additionally, socie-ties establish formal and informal rules, that is, policies, practices, and pro-cedures within institutions so that social institutions function in desiredways. The policies, practices, and procedures we find in American institu-tions are established by the predominant race (i.e., white) and may inten-tionally or unintentionally be racially discriminatory. Whether intentionalor not, they exist and work to the detriment of sub-dominant racial groups(see Feagin, 2006; Jones, 1972; Willie, 1983).

Historically, the United States was developed on the basis of a system ofchattel slavery that subjugated people of African descent. Subsequently, anideology was developed within American institutions to support the contin-ued existence of racial slavery while simultaneously valorizing whitenessand devaluing blackness. After slavery ended in the American South, it wasthen followed by 100 years of formal discrimination (Jim Crow segrega-tion) and was buttressed by an ideology that supported that practice.Although many antidiscrimination laws have been legislated, old racialpractices still exist within many social institutions. Until these practices arechanged, we will continue to have institutional racism.

We can see and measure the effects of institutional racism in the powerof the dominant white group to control the lives of racial others such asblacks. When control is organized around racial categories, institutionalpractices create and sustain racial hierarchies that disproportionately affectracial minorities. An excellent example of the power of the dominant whitegroup to control the lives of blacks is the recent shooting of an unarmedAfrican American teenager named Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri,and the aftermath.

Several named witnesses stated that Michael Brown was fleeing whenFerguson, Missouri, police officer Darren Wilson fired several shotsand that the 18 year old had turned around and had his hands up when theofficer shot several more rounds, killing him in the middle of the street(Riley & Ferguson, 2014). While conflicting accounts and police reticence

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have made it difficult to ascertain what provoked officer Darren Wilson tokill Michael Brown, what is undisputable is that Michael Brown wasunarmed. An autopsy showed that he was shot at least six times, includingtwice in the head. “One of the bullets entered the top of Brown’s skull, sug-gesting his head was bent forward when it struck him and caused a fatalinjury, according to Dr. Michael M. Baden, the former chief medical exam-iner for the City of New York” (Robles & Bosman, 2014, August 17).Michael Brown’s killing sparked protests, demonstrations, internationaloutrage, and white backlash.

The focus on Michael Brown’s killing also revealed the realities of insti-tutional racism in Ferguson, Missouri. Ferguson is a city with a two thirdsAfrican American population but has a police force with only threeAfrican American officers and only one African American City Councilmember. Ferguson’s crime statistics are troubling and reflect why its citi-zens continue to protest for the arrest of office Darren Wilson more thantwo months after he killed Michael Brown. In 2014, African Americanswere arrested eight times more than whites in Ferguson, making its arrestratio higher than that of St. Louis County, which has an arrest ratio of 5 to 1,compared with the national average of 3 to 1 (Barry & Williamson, 2014).The mayor and the five of the six City Council members are white(Associated Press, 2014, September 9). As of August 20, 2014, there were155 people arrested in Ferguson related to protests calling for the arrest ofofficer Darren Wilson. One hundred and twenty-three of one hundred andfifty-five people arrested were black and faced the charge of “refusing todisperse” (Lowery, 2014, August 20).

Institutional racism is more significant than racial prejudice because theeffects of institutional racism are widespread and systemic in Americansociety. These effects can result from overtly racist actions taken byindividuals enforcing negative race based policies or from the actions ofindividuals who are carrying out supposedly bias free policies. A whitesupervisor can dislike a person of color because of racial prejudice and con-sequently give the person of color a poor job rating regardless of theirperformance.

While such individual level racism affects a modest number of people, aracist institutional policy can systematically disadvantage many membersof a racial group, and the consequences can endure for many years, evenfor generations.

A case that we have used before to illustrate the difference between indi-vidual racism and institutional racism is the bombing of the SixteenthStreet Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. This was a

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horrendous act of individual racism. The individuals who committed thiscrime were not prosecuted because such justice was not usually accorded toblacks in Alabama at that time. Thus, in this instance, institutional racismgave de facto impunity to an act of individual racism. The killing of blackmales by police officers appears to present a corresponding situation.Although justifiable police homicides are not formally tracked andreported, some news organizations and websites have attempted to trackthese data for the America’s10 largest cities between 2001 and 2012(Walton, 2014). Each of these cities had double or more the number ofblack shooting victims (by police and citizens) than their share of the city’stotal population. Further, the percentage of black people killed by police inNew York City, San Diego, and Las Vegas was at least double that of theirshare of the city’s population. Yet, nearly all of these cases were justifiablehomicides. For example, only 1 shooting out of 84 fatal police shootingswas found unjustified. Without official data to indicate otherwise, the per-ception is that the criminal justice system is slow to prosecute widespreadquestionable behavior by the police. Fifty percent of the American publicthink police personnel are not held accountable for misconduct (Detrick,2014).

INSTITUTIONAL RACISM IN THE AGE OF OBAMA

When we look at the areas of housing discrimination, employment, and thecriminal justice system, we can see the adverse effects of institutional racismon blacks, much of which occurred during Obama’s tenure. Variousnational commissions and agencies, including the National Commission onFair Housing and Equal Opportunity and the Bureau for Labor Statistics,have released several major reports of institutionalized racial discrimination.

Housing Discrimination

In a key facet of life, housing, African Americans continue to suffer discri-mination. The nationwide practice of predatory lending was a part of themortgage foreclosure disaster that has been in the news since 2006 and pre-cipitated the current economic recession in the United States. ManyAmericans pushed into subprime loans were members of a protected class,even though they had credit that should have qualified them for a prime

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rate loan. The overwhelming majority of the victims of this practice werepeople of color, the elderly and single women with children (Reed, 2008).

Predatory lending is illegal under the fair housing laws. The NationalCommunity Reinvestment Coalition (NCRC) defines a predatory loan as“an unsuitable loan designed to exploit vulnerable and unsophisticatedborrowers. Predatory Loans are a subset of subprime and nontraditionalprime loans” (National Community Reinvestment Coalition, 2007). Apredatory loan may: (1) charge more in interest and fees than is requiredto cover the added risk of lending to borrowers with credit imperfections;(2) contain abusive terms and conditions that trap borrowers and lead toincreased indebtedness; (3) not take into account the borrower’s ability torepay the loan; and (4) violate fair lending laws targeting women, minori-ties, and communities of color (National Community ReinvestmentCoalition, 2007).

Predatory lending occurs when a lending institution, mortgage broker,or real estate professional steers an individual toward a subprime (highcost) loan when the borrower qualifies for a prime rate loan because oftheir race or membership in another protected class. The most frequent tar-gets of this illegal practice are African Americans, Latinos, other people ofcolor, and the elderly (National Community Reinvestment Coalition,2007). The result of predatory lending is that many borrowers lose theirhomes to foreclosure. The African American community, followed by theLatino community, receives a disproportionate share of subprime loansregardless of income and creditworthiness. Consequently, they are bearingthe brunt of subprime foreclosures (Center for Responsible Lending, 2006).

The financial crisis of 2007�2009 revealed other aspects of the racializednature of housing markets. Rugh and Massey (2010) demonstrated that 40years after the passage of the Fair Housing Act segregation had not onlydeclined very little but had played a key role in the differential amount offoreclosures suffered by blacks and Hispanics. The ongoing high levels ofsegregation and the continuing problems of accessing mortgage credit cre-ated situations ripe for subprime lending and risky mortgages. Dymski(2009) called this phenomenon the “transformation of racial exclusion” inU.S. mortgage markets. For many years racial minorities had been system-atically excluded from participation in mortgage markets by the banks’practices of redlining and discrimination. As those practices subsided andresidential segregation continued, minorities were given mortgages butunder far more adverse terms than were provide to whites borrowers.

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Increasing Wealth Gap

Another current issue is the increasing wealth gap between blacks andwhites. Wealth, which is what we own minus what we owe, is a necessaryasset for families to be economically secure and to provide for the future,for example, college education for their children. However, AfricanAmericans are losing wealth rather than gaining it. The gap between blackwealth and white wealth increased fourfold between 1984 and 2007, andmuch of this increase was caused by persistent discrimination in housing,credit, and labor markets (Shapiro, Meschede, & Osoro, 2010).

Home ownership is the most prominent asset of most American families;and it is a greater part of the wealth of African American familiesthan white families, 53 percent for blacks and 39 percent for whites.Consequently, the Great Recession in 2008�2009 had a larger effect onblack families. Overall, half of the collective wealth of African Americanfamilies was lost due to the housing and foreclosure crisis. Black Americanswere twice as likely as whites to lose their homes, primarily because of pre-datory high-risk loans.

They tended to receive high interest risky loan products, even after account-ing for income and credit scores (Shapiro, Meschede, & Sullivan, 2013).

For every dollar of wealth that black families averaged in 2005, whitefamilies averaged 11 dollars. After the bursting of the housing bubble in2006 and the recession that followed to mid-2009, the ratio rose to 20 to 1(Kochhar, Fry, & Taylor, 2011). Just as President Obama was cominginto office African Americans were being disproportionately affected by theeconomic crisis. Yet the plight of African American families was seldomrecognized. While the financial crisis occurred before President Obamatook office, many of his supporters expected him to focus more attentionon the plight of homeowners, especially black homeowners who bore thebrunt of the foreclosures.

Employment

We see the effects of institutional racism with regard to black employmentas well. In a study about employment outcomes for previously incarceratedblack and white men, Pager found that among blacks without a criminalrecord, only 14 percent received callbacks, relative to 34 percent of whitenon-criminals. What is even more shocking about Pager’s study was that alarger percentage of whites with criminal records (17 percent) received more

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callbacks than blacks without criminal records (14 percent) (Pager, 2003). Inthis stunning example of racism, we can see how white privilege operates inthe favor of formerly incarcerated white men and how blackness operatesto the detriment of black job applicants without criminal records.

The racial gap in employment has been exacerbated during the currenteconomic recession. A New York Times article published during PresidentObama’s early years in office suggests that race continues to be an obstaclefor prospective white employers when considering black applicants (Luo,2009, December 1). The racial gap in employment has also been confirmedin academic studies. “Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakishaand Jamal?” revealed labor market discrimination by sending fictitiousresumes to help wanted ads to Boston and Chicago newspapers. Theauthors of the study randomly assigned “African American” and “white”sounding names to the resumes they sent out to prospective employers.According to the authors, “white” sounding names received 50 percentmore callbacks for interviews than the resumes with “African American”sounding names (Bertrand & Mullainathan, 2004) which suggests that thefictitious “African American” job applicants were being discriminatedagainst precisely because of the association of their names with deleteriouscharacteristics and stereotypes associated with blackness (laziness, untrust-worthiness, and limited cognitive abilities in comparison to whites).

The realities of racial discrimination during the economic downturn, infact, have forced some college educated African American men to whitentheir resumes. Johnny R. Williams, who earned an MBA from theUniversity of Chicago and worked for JPMorgan Chase, removed anyreferences in his resumes to the African American business students asso-ciation he belonged to in an effort to garner job interviews. Barry JabbarSykes, a Morehouse graduate with a degree in mathematics, goes by BarryJ. Sykes on his resumes for potential employment although he has gone byJabbar, his middle name, for most of his life (Luo, 2009, December 1). Thisjob employment strategy reflects accommodations to structural inequalitiesprevalent in American institutional hiring practices.

Criminal Justice � The Case of Racial Profiling

Racial profiling is a major factor in African American life, and as suchPresident Obama could have used the bully pulpit to address it. Racial pro-filing is the use of a person’s race or ethnicity by law enforcement to deter-mine whether or not to engage enforcement. A type of racial profiling by

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law enforcement officials is using the race of black drivers to pull themover because the drivers are “suspicious.” This is also commonly referredto as “driving while black.” As a result of widespread allegations of racialprofiling over the past two decades, several jurisdictions around the coun-try have begun tracking information about those who are stopped,searched, ticketed, and/or arrested by police officers. Dunn and Reed(2011) analyzed this data from 13 states. A basic pattern emerged: blacksand Hispanics were stopped at greater rates than white drivers, and theywere searched at greater rates than white drivers. Data were obtained onthe percent of traffic stops by race for 12 states. Of these 12 states, blackswere stopped at higher rates than would be expected if there is equity in therate of being stopped. In Illinois, blacks were 13 percent of the drivers inthe state; however, they were 18 percent of the drivers that were stopped, arate over one third (18/13) higher than equity. For the other 10 states, thestop rates were compared to the population percentages.

Data for Hispanics were available for 11 of the states, showing excessrates of stopping Hispanic drivers in 5 states. In two states, Nebraska andTexas, Hispanics were stopped at rates that were less than their proportionof the population.

In terms of searches, vehicles driven by black drivers were searched athigher rates than whites in 9 of the states. The disproportionality was evengreater for Hispanics. In 9 of 10 states Hispanics were searched at higherrates than whites.

There was no criminal justice reason for the stopping and searching ofvehicles driven by black and Hispanic drivers at disproportionately highrates in comparison to their proportions in the population, or to their pro-portion of cars stopped, as the hit, or yield, rates were more often higherfor white drivers. In 11 states with yield data, whites were guilty of carryingcontraband more often than blacks or minorities in 8 states, and moreoften than Hispanics or minorities in 9 states. This apparent profiling ofblacks and Hispanics is inappropriate. Consequently, this activity is unfair,inefficient, and racist.

President Obama may have fumbled a great bully pulpit opportunityaround the controversial arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.In July of 2009, Professor Gates had trouble unlocking the door to hishouse after returning home from a trip abroad. Gates argued, apparentlybelligerently, that he was in his own home; however, the Cambridge policewho were investigating a possible break-in booked Gates for disorderlyconduct. The incident raised concerns among many African Americansthat Gates, a prominent African American professor, might have been a

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victim of racial profiling. When queried about the incident in a press con-ference President Obama indicated that the Cambridge police had actedstupidly and that blacks and Hispanics are in essence racially profiled.Following substantial criticism of his comments, especially about the policeacting stupidly, the President backpedalled and invited the white policemanand Gates to the White House for a chat over beer.

President Obama had cosponsored legislation in the Illinois legislatureagainst racial profiling, a point he made in his first comments on the affair.It would have been productive to have the President talk more about whythere is a need for such legislation. However, that did not occur and hissubsequent actions clouded the discussion of the issue. The President couldhave used the occasion to acquaint the public about profiling, arrests, andincarceration of African American males.

MISUSE OF THE BULLY PULPIT

President Barack Obama has not only “witnessed racial profiling by thepolice with his own eyes � an issue he engages directly in his memoirDreams of My Father (2004) � he also has firsthand experience as a legisla-tor crafting policies that helped identify and combat the longstanding prac-tice [of racial profiling]” (Ikard & Teasley, 2012, p. 34). But while he hasinhabited the office of the presidency, President Obama has not used thebully pulpit to champion the dismantling of the structural inequalities thatproduce institutional forms of racism and negatively affect the collectivelives of black Americans. Please note that we do not expect the President tosolve problems of institutional racism. Rather we are suggesting that hecould have used the bully pulpit to advocate for their solution and perhapsto argue for steps toward solutions. Instead, over the course of his two-term presidency, the President has used the bully pulpit to admonish andscold African Americans who critique him.

President Obama appears to oppose receiving pressure from current daycivil rights activists. In a previous article Reed (2011) argued thatPresidents do not usually step out ahead of the public and commit boldacts, especially if it applies to racial issues. FDR, in the oft repeated exam-ple, is reputed to have told black leaders that he was in agreement withtheir proposals; however, he would need them to “make him” do thesethings, implicitly by building the case in the public. This position may notapply to the Obama Presidency, even though members of the Obamaadministration often express it. One of President Obama’s responses to the

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claims made by black critics who realize that the trenchant inequalities turnthe American dream into a nightmare for black folks is to “stopcomplaining.”

“Stop Complaining”

In September 2011, President Obama made a speech at the annual awardsdinner of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). At that moment inAmerican history, black unemployment was 16.7 percent � nearly doublethat of the national average (Smith, 2011) and up from 11.5 percent whenhe took office. As Huffington Post Politics reporter Mark Smith wrote:

[President Obama] acknowledged � [B]lacks have suffered mightily because of the

recession, and are frustrated that the downturn is taking so long to reverse. “So many

people are still hurting. So many people are barely hanging on,” he said, then added:

“And so many people in this city are fighting us every step of the way.” But [President]

Obama said � [B]lacks know all too well from the civil rights struggle that the fight for

what is right is never easy. “Take off your bedroom slippers. Put on your marching

shoes,” he said, his voice rising as applause and cheers mounted. “Shake it off. Stop

complainin’. Stop grumblin’. Stop cryin’. We are going to press on. We have work to

do.” (Smith, 2011, September 25)

Another rhetorical tactic President Obama has used to avoid dealing withblack criticism of his administration is to tell blacks that they have “noexcuses.”

“No Excuses”

In a previous article (Reed & Louis, Jr., 2009), we observed that in reactionto the historic election of President Barack Obama, many AfricanAmericans were saying that blacks now had “no more excuses” to achievetheir goals and dreams, as if the “low expectations” and “laziness” of blackfolks explained their overall lack of collective social progress in comparisonto whites and other ethnic groups in the United States. While AfricanAmericans have never been monolithic, it seemed that after the 2008election this “blaming the victim” mentality was rampant in black commu-nities. While this was a prominent refrain within African Americancommunities, it is also a phrase that President Obama uses in the bullypulpit � that is, telling blacks that they have “no more excuses.” In otherwords, telling blacks that they have “no more excuses” is a rhetorical toolthat the President uses to tamp down black criticism of his administration.

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He has employed this rhetoric on the campaign trail and elsewhere. It hasoccurred in many instances when he has addressed predominantly blackaudiences. An event that the 44th president of the United States attendedin May 2013 sheds light on the use of this type of rhetoric.

At the 2013 commencement ceremony of Morehouse College, a histori-cally black and male institution, President Obama delivered an address thatmany found problematic in parts. Specifically, he told the graduating classat Morehouse College of approximately 500 young black men, that there is“no time for excuses” for this generation of African American men andthat it was time for their generation to step up professionally and in theirpersonal lives (Madhani, 2013). He continued: “We’ve got no time forexcuses � not because the bitter legacies of slavery and segregation havevanished entirely; they haven’t,” President Obama told the graduating classand their families who sat through intermittent rain and thunder. “It’s justthat in today’s hyper connected, hypercompetitive world, with a billionyoung people from China and India and Brazil entering the global work-force alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything you haven’tearned (Madhani, 2013).” What struck many of President Obama’s criticsas odd was that he was addressing a room full of young black men whowere able to finish all of their coursework and assignments in order to grad-uate from college; people less likely to make “excuses.” President Obamaresists any criticism of his inaction on matters of social justice for AfricanAmericans. Yet he freely offers criticisms of black males. He carries on thiscriticism even though he does not have the moral authority to do so. HarryBelafonte does. Belafonte has been there through the years, fighting forblack males as well as black females. People like Al Sharpton, MarianWright Edelman, Julian Bond, Andrew Young, Ben Jealous, LewisFarrakhan, and many others have earned the moral position to criticizeblack males, but President Obama has not. We can include elected officialswho have earned that right, officials like Congresspersons John Conyersand Barbara Lee, and of course the civil rights icon, Congressman JohnLewis. African Americans are used to being criticized. However, criticism ismore meaningful if it is offered by someone who continually provides sup-port and nurturance (e.g., like a parent).

On the Trayvon Martin Verdict

The Trayvon Martin murder case provided a propitious occasion for thePresident to use the bully pulpit to advance a discussion of continuing

92 BERTIN M. LOUIS, JR. AND WORNIE L. REED

racial problems in the country. In February of 2012, a 17-year-old AfricanAmerican named Trayvon Martin was shot and killed in Sanford, Florida.The shooter was George Zimmerman, a 28-year-old white man (whoclaimed Hispanic heritage). In his role as a neighborhood watch volunteer,Zimmerman reported seeing and following a suspicious person to thepolice; however, after discussing the situation, the police dispatcher askedhim not to follow the person. Zimmerman apparently pursued him anyway,at some point getting out of his car and confronting the boy. Trayvon, whowas heading back home to the residence of his father’s fiance, had a bag ofSkittles and a can of iced tea. Zimmerman had a 9-millimeter handgun.Trayvon Zimmerman admitted killing Martin, but claimed he was acting inself-defense. The two allegedly engaged in a physical altercation. There wasyelling, and then a gunshot. After weeks of protests and demonstrations inSanford and across the country, Zimmerman was arrested; and in July of2013 he was acquitted of all charges.

On the day after the not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin homicidecase in 2013, President Obama urged respect for the trial verdict and askedfor calm and reflection; however, a few days later he made a second andlonger more formal statement. He mentioned the historical and experientialbackground to black America’s pain over the verdict:

I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at

this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away … The

African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial dis-

parities in the application of our criminal laws � everything from the death penalty to

enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how peo-

ple interpret the case … the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities

can be traced to a very difficult history. (Obama, July 19, 2013)

Then he asked “where do we take this?” His first response to his own ques-tion was to indicate the need to have the Justice Department, governors,and mayors work with law enforcement on training police personnel. A sec-ond suggestion was to examine some state and local laws (presumably likethe Stand Your Ground law in Florida)1 to see if they encourage the kindsof confrontations and tragedies like the Trayvon Martin homicide. Theseare the kinds of statements many would expect from an African Americanoccupant of the presidential bully pulpit.

When President Obama mentioned his third suggestion for “where weshould take this” he ventured far away from his first two suggestions: “weneed to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforceour African American boys.” While this is an admirable and much neededobjective, perhaps leading to his later development of the “My Brother’s

93Racial Justice under President Obama

Keeper” program, it nevertheless refocuses the discussion in a way thatblames the victim. In reacting to the not guilty verdict in the TrayvonMartin case, African Americans were not upset over a paucity of programsto bolster and reinforce African American youth. They were upset overwhat appeared to be yet another instance in a long line of racial injusticesin the criminal justice system. A more appropriate response to this anguishwould have emphasized his second suggestion, examining state and locallaws like the Stand Your Ground law. There was very little if anything inthe Trayvon Martin story that should cause one to think that Trayvon hada need for “bolstering and reinforcing” that might have averted the inci-dent. This was another misuse of the bully pulpit.

There have been a few encouraging initiatives on racial justice from theObama administration. Some are discussed briefly below.

PROMISING DEVELOPMENTS

A few positive developments concerning race have emanated from theObama administration, mostly from the Department of Justice; however,this is quite fitting, as criminal justice might be the most important issueconfronting African Americans. In 2010 Attorney General Eric Holderremarked that Americans should not be afraid to examine and discuss therole of race in our society and in our system of justice. Also, Holder hasdone more than talk about race. He launched an examination of the crim-inal justice system, focusing on the effects of race and on ways to rid thesystem of racial bias.

In 2010, the Obama administration successfully advocated for the reduc-tion of the unjust 100-to-1 sentencing disparity between crack and powdercocaine. Of course, contrary to popular opinion, crack cocaine is not a“black urban drug.” So this is not just a matter of blacks being prosecutedfor the drug they use. Rather blacks are disproportionately prosecuted forall drugs, including crack. Whites have always been more than one-half ofall crack users and sellers. Yet, blacks are 80 percent of persons prosecutedfor crack (Porter & Wright, 2011). In addition to reforming sentencingpolicies and practices, curtailing racial profiling is essential. By basing thesurveillance and prosecution on race, thus disproportionately pursuingblacks, substantially more blacks are arrested, prosecuted, and incarceratedthan would be warranted by differential involvement in illegal drugactivity.

94 BERTIN M. LOUIS, JR. AND WORNIE L. REED

More recently, Attorney General Holder mandated a modification ofthe Justice Department’s charging policies so that certain low-level, non-violent drug offenders with no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs, orcartels will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian man-datory minimum sentences (American Bar Association, 2013).

CONCLUSION: USING THE BULLY PULPIT

PRODUCTIVELY

In conclusion, we offer suggestions regarding some issues President Obamamight address from the bully pulpit. We do so with the full realization thathe has stated he would not do anything just for blacks, as he is president ofall Americans. A concern is that President Obama does not readily engagein the use of the bully pulpit for his own legislature agenda. Such practiceis a problematic issue of his presidency. Since he occasionally uses his bullypulpit to berate young black males, we are merely suggesting he mightsometimes use the pulpit to advance the cause of social justice for AfricanAmericans.

We see two ways, among others, that President Obama might use thepulpit. One way would be to make the case for current or future legislationhe would later push. For example, there is the Justice Integrity Act, whichseeks to insure equal treatment for all citizens involved in the criminal pro-cess. It would require the formation of advisory panels to the United StatesAttorney’s office in 10 federal court districts. These panels would be taskedwith gathering information on the performance of prosecutors in a rangeof areas, with an eye towards identifying potential areas of racial disparity.Originally introduced in 2008 by Senator Joseph Biden, the bill has beenintroduced unsuccessfully every session since. The bill is presented as ameans of gathering data to insure Americans’ faith in the system. PresidentObama could use his considerable communication skills to tout the bill aspursuing that objective.

He can also use the bully pulpit to address racial profiling. As a result ofracial profiling, African Americans are stopped, searched, arrested, prose-cuted, and incarcerated much more often than warranted by their relativeparticipation in activities such as the illegal drug business. He mentionedhis previous work on racial profiling in the Trayvon Martin speech. Heindicated that as a state senator in Illinois he had passed racial profilinglegislation, which did two things. One was to begin collecting data on

95Racial Justice under President Obama

traffic stops to monitor and potentially curtail racial profiling in trafficstops. The other was to fund the training of police departments across thestate to recognize and address potential racial bias. Using this experiencePresident Obama could have a major effect on educating the country onthis phenomenon, even if the racial profiling legislation that is introducedin the Congress each term is not passed.

This leads us to the second way the President can use the bully pulpit,educationally. He could use the bully pulpit to educate the public on theobjective of several proposals of his administration. Of course, this wouldbe a change of form for President Obama; however, advocates must pressthis issue as there may not be any alternative. He may not win these battles,but he is certain to lose them if he continues to yield the stage to his politi-cal opposition to define the problem.

He might do much for racial justice by easing up on the criticism ofblack people, especially black males, and increasing the discussion aboutguarding against bias. Racial profiling might be one of the areas that hecould discuss since he has done much needed legislative work in this area.It is hard to avoid criticizing the President’s relative inaction because he isso knowledgeable about the issues. We reviewed the syllabus for a coursehe taught in the Law School at the University of Chicago (Obama, 1994).The course, “Current Issues in Racism and the Law,” included a longreading list, and addressed the following issues: theory; Indian removal;slavery; reconstruction, retrenchment, and Jim Crow; black responses;and civil rights and retrenchment. Some of his suggested student grouppresentation topics were racial gerrymandering, race and the criminaljustice system, immigration policy, racial bias in the media, welfare policyand reproductive freedom, inter-ethnic tensions, reparations, hate speech,affirmative action, and public school financing. Since he has such vastknowledge of racial issues he is substantially beyond the “why” of variousracial policy proposals. He just needs to engage the issues, either throughadvocating for specific legislation and/or through educational statementsand speeches.

Finally, African Americans must continue to push for an agenda fromthe Obama administration because there needs to be a rearrangement ofthe current racial order so that African Americans can collectively lead bet-ter lives. If blacks fail to press the first black President of the United Statesto do so, it will be very difficult to make the case for a black agenda tofuture presidents of the United States (Ikard & Teasley, 2012).

Blacks must also continue to take charge of black affairs in order to pre-vent the worsening of our collective condition.

96 BERTIN M. LOUIS, JR. AND WORNIE L. REED

NOTE

1. The so-called “Stand Your Ground” laws, passed first in Florida and then inover 30 other states, allow a person to stand their ground instead of retreating ifthey reasonably believe doing so is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harmto himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.In short, after the law was passed, people could defend themselves even outside oftheir homes with deadly force if necessary if they believed someone was trying tokill them or seriously harm them. This was a change to the original laws regardingself-defense, which specified a “duty to retreat.” In other words, there was a require-ment to attempt to avoid the violence before using force. The “Stand YourGround” laws remove the duty to retreat and allow for a claim of self-defense evenif the claimant did nothing to remove themselves from the threat of violence.

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