4. Divided we stand
Obama may have broken racial barriers when he became the first African-American president of the U.S., but his election did nothing to improve race relations. In fact, a majority of Americans (54%) say that race relations deteriorated under Obama, according to a recent CNN/ORC poll.
Obama’s efforts on behalf of African-Americans often backfired. Before he had the facts in hand, the president accused Cambridge, Mass., police officers of acting “stupidly” when they arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his own home in 2009. The police were responding to a report of a potential burglary, which turned out to be Gates trying to pry open his front door.
The incident divided the country: blacks supported Obama’s accusations of racial profiling; whites said he had played the race card. Obama’s response was to bring the parties together for a “beer summit” at the White House.
Obama has promoted the idea of a police force biased against blacks. He vehemently denied FBI Director James Comey’s explanation for the surge in violent crime and homicide rates last year as a result of the “Ferguson effect,” with law-enforcement officers pulling back from proactive policing following the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
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