To accuse the president of failing to move us past racism is like blaming our doctor when we don’t lose weight—though you made no effort to change our unhealthy habits.
It is, of course, easier to blame Obama than to confront the resentments and fears in our own minds. Even beyond the evident imbalance in our justice system, studies clearly show educational and economic gaps separate us racially in terms of opportunity and the persistence of racial discrimination. Saying it is Obama’s failure to make us post-racial is skirting our own responsibility to scrutinize ourselves.
Still, the current frustrations and anger, in fact, show us how far we have come. Extraordinary times of change are often followed by counter-movements pushing against what has been achieved. After the Civil War, William Lloyd Garrison declared victory and disbanded his antislavery organization, against Frederick Douglass’ urging. A decade and a half later, as the promise of Reconstruction morphed into the horror of Jim Crow, Garrison concluded, “It is clear, therefore, that the battle of liberty and equal rights is to be fought over again.” However crushing this must have been, people like Douglass did not shrink from that struggle; Douglass continued it relentlessly until his death, taking on lynching alongside younger activists like Ida B. Wells.
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