How The Obama Administration Talks to Black America

[CACtain Planet]

President Obama on Sunday told the graduating class at Morehouse College, the country's pre-eminent historically black college, there is "no longer any room for excuses" for this generation of African-American men and that it was time for their generation to step up professionally and in their personal lives.



Obama, the county's first African-American president, chose a particularly poignant moment to deliver the commencement address at the Atlanta college that boasts civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., filmmaker Spike Lee and Atlanta's first African-American mayor, Maynard Jackson, among its alumni.

Obama's visit comes nearly 50 years after King led the March on Washington, and ahead of 150th anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

The president connected his own path to the White House to the work of King and other African-American leaders of that generation. But Obama also conceded that at times as a young man he wrongly blamed his own failings "as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down."

"We've got no time for excuses — not because the bitter legacies of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they haven't," Obama told the graduating class and their families who sat through intermittent rain and thunder. "It's just that in today's hyperconnected, hypercompetitive world, with a billion young people from China and India and Brazil entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything you haven't earned."

Obama spoke in very personal terms to the 500 young men as he urged them to not only become leaders in their community, but also good fathers and good husbands. Obama, who was raised by a single mother and grandparents, lamented the absence of his father in his life and urged the graduates to make family their top priority.

Obama told the Morehouse men they are also obliged to set an example for other black men.

"Keep setting an example for what it means to be a man," Obama said. "Be the best husband to your wife, or boyfriend to your partner, or father to your children that you can be. Because nothing is more important."

In the weeks ahead of the commencement, a spat between the college administration and alumni over the role a Philadelphia pastor would play during graduation weekend threatened to cast a shadow on the president's historic visit.

Morehouse President John Silvanus Wilson and a group of alumni sparred after Wilson invited alumnus Kevin Johnson to deliver the baccalaureate sermon only to later to diminish his role.

Wilson, a former adviser in the Obama administration, told Johnson he was changing the ceremony to a multispeaker format after Johnson wrote an op-ed in a Philadelphia newspaper criticizing the president for appointing too few African Americans to senior Cabinet positions.

A dozen prominent alumni spoke out against the decision, and Johnson initially refused to take part in the baccalaureate under a multispeaker format.

But last week, Wilson and Johnson came to a resolution and Johnson delivered the baccalaureate sermon, while two recent alumni were given lesser speaking roles.

In his speech, Obama also connected the discrimination that African Americans have faced with some of the struggles of minority groups — including gays and lesbians fighting for the right to marriage, Hispanic Americans battling anti-immigrant bias and Muslims who face suspicion because of their faith.

With their own personal understanding of discrimination, Obama said, this generation of African Americans are uniquely equipped to be leaders for the country and world on these issues.

"If you tap into that experience, it should endow you with empathy — the understanding of what it's like to walk in somebody else's shoes," Obama said. "It should give you an ability to connect. It should give you a sense of what it means to overcome barriers."

Obama: There's no longer room for excuses for black men

 

[My Girl is Bow Legged]

I agree with the need for personal responsibility but damn it seems that any time Obama is speaking to nikkas it's some variation of "stop complaining"

Imagine him saying this to gays, Mexicans, Jews etc

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

This a misleading troll thread title that should be changed.

 

[Piff Huxtable]

i disagree 95% of the time with this man BUT he called out Obama's tough teacher shtick long ago

 

[You Win Perfect]

I agree with the need for personal responsibility but damn it seems that any time Obama is speaking to nikkas it's some variation of "stop complaining"

Imagine him saying this to gays, Mexicans, Jews etc

It does seem like every time the black community "complains" we are told to shut up and stop complaining right off the bat when nothing has been done to help address these issues. Issues that Obama did speak on in that little speech.

The government just talks but doesn't do anything to address any issues the citizens, not just blacks, present to them (unless it only benefits them).

 

[My Girl is Bow Legged]

It does seem like every time the black community "complains" we are told to shut up and stop complaining right off the bat when nothing has been done to help address these issues. Issues that Obama did speak on in that little speech.

Agreed, he'll make jokes about smoking weed in college yet do nothing about draconian drug laws that imprison millions of blacks

Then again why bother when you have 98% black support just off the virtue of being black and mentioning Jay-Z a couple times

 

[The Real]

The usual, uniquely patronizing rhetoric. "Nobody is going to give you anything you haven't earned." I guess Black people expect things they haven't earned? Or is it that addressing the legacy of slavery and segregation (always expressed in the past tense, as if there isn't an active status quo reality of discrimination) with actual policy would be equivalent to giving Black people something unearned?

 

[ThatTruth777]

 

[Serious]

in before @theworldismine13


But I actually like this article. Most importantly because I agree with this paragraph:

"We've got no time for excuses — not because the bitter legacies of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they haven't," Obama told the graduating class and their families who sat through intermittent rain and thunder. "It's just that in today's hyperconnected, hypercompetitive world, with a billion young people from China and India and Brazil entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything you haven't earned

 

[AV Dicey]

maybe if you look at it as some extension of parental love, your pops may tell you and your friends to shape up, but when you get home the switch and the 'am doing this coz i love you' speech comes out. Or maybe its just not becoming to tell some stranger how to behave, but you damn skippy will tell your folk not to act a fool. Or maybe its kinda like how you watch the ratchet on worldstar and laugh at those morons but you will be breaking iphones if you see your kid sister getting into fights in the public.
those white graduates should inquire why their president only implores african americans to work harder, whats up with that?

 

[acri1]

The usual, uniquely patronizing rhetoric. "Nobody is going to give you anything you haven't earned." I guess Black people expect things they haven't earned? Or is it that addressing the legacy of slavery and segregation (always expressed in the past tense, as if there isn't an active status quo reality of discrimination) with actual policy would be equivalent to giving Black people something unearned?

Well, as a black man Obama is constantly under a microscope and anything at all he says related to race will be closely scrutinized. In other words, Obama is completely afraid of Limbaugh/O'Reilly/FOX News accusing him of giving black people preference over everyone else (even though they will regardless), so he overcompensates. I'm sure he takes articles like these completely seriously.

At this point I'm used to it, so whatever.

 

[Gravity]

those white graduates should inquire why their president only implores african americans to work harder, whats up with that?

Why would whites make that inquiry when that is exactly what they want to hear?

 

[Piff Perkins]

Sounds like truth to me. It's baffling how often I hear my fellow brothas making excuses. IMO the biggest difference between young blacks and young whites is that we can't be average or lazy. A white person can get by doing average, if he has the proper connections and network support. Most of us brothers don't have that network support, or that good old boys system of helping each other, or having a parent who can get you a decent job that you can build off of.

That's where the challenge is. Once we get more people into those high place positions we can build our own networks.

 

[CACtain Planet]

This a misleading troll thread title that should be changed.

Its the title of the USATODAY article shut the fukk up bytch :belbetray:

 

[Dusty Bake Activate]

Its the title of the USATODAY article shut the fukk up bytch :belbetray:

So you already changed the thread title. Stop being a stupid fakkit.