The perception is that President Barack Obama has not done little to combat institutionalised racism in spite of his youthful activism and role as a community leader in Chicago. In December last year, he admitted that racism “is deeply rooted” in US society” but rather than take positive action, he passed the buck to activists, urging black youth to push for reform.

When challenged by NPR during his first term to explain why he hadn’t done more to assist African Americans, he replied, “I have a special responsibility to look out for the interests of every American…” Last year, he pointed to racial tensions as negatively impacting his popularity ratings.

“There is no doubt that there are some folks who just really dislike me because they don’t like the idea of a black president,” he said.

Those who have stated their belief that racial strife has worsened include African Americans, such as the actor Morgan Freeman, Pastor Alvin Herring and the Reverend Kevin Johnson, who pondered out loud, “Why are we [the African-American community] so loyal to a president who isn’t loyal to us.”

A poll conducted by Al Jazeera America/ Monmouth University found that 43 per cent of Americans believe race relations have worsened, while 70 per cent of Black and Latino respondents characterised racism as a big problem.

People’s ingrained racist attitudes cannot be changed overnight, if ever, without deploying Orwellian thought police, but there is much that government can do to even the playing field particularly in law enforcement and the justice system.

In 2014, the UN Committee on Racial Discrimination issued a report stating, “We remain concerned at the practice of racial profiling of racial or ethnic minorities by law enforcement officials, including the FBI, Transportation Security Administration, border enforcement officials and local police.”

It further noted that “those convicted of killing whites are more likely to be sentenced to death than those convicted of killing blacks” and concluded that “the impact of race on capital sentencing is staggering”.

There are also wide disparities between white and black Americans in terms of wealth, unemployment, homelessness, quality of health care and even life expectancy. A CDC report reveals that “death rates for the black population are higher than those for the white population for eight of the 15 leading causes of death.”

The black community’s discontent is real. The sense of injustice felt by the majority of African Americans is valid and supported by statistics. Equal opportunity sounds good on paper but generational and social factors are rarely taken into account.

The civil unrest that erupted into rioting and looting in Ferguson, Cleveland and Baltimore is not just about police brutality resulting in the deaths of unarmed black men, it’s the uncoiling of the kind of inner rage Obama admitted to harbouring during his own youth when he identified with his Kenyan father more than his white mother and grandparents.

“It was into my father’s image, the black man, son of Africa, that I’d packed all the attributes I sought in myself, the attributes of Martin [Luther King] and Malcolm DuBois and Mandela,” he wrote in ‘Dreams from my Father’.

“I ceased to advertise my mother’s race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites,” he wrote.

But I suspect that many African Americans today interpret his lack of action to better their lot implies that he has abandoned the very people he once considered his own to ingratiate himself with the establishment. And, no doubt, some will conclude, “If a black president can’t or won’t strive to make a difference, then who can?”

Black America is now pushing back with actions echoing the 1960s Civil Rights Movement. White CNN correspondents reported that the Baltimore demonstrators were hostile to whites; Fox News reporters came under attack.

Right-wing conservatives are hurling back verbal punches. John Nolte of Breitbart was entirely unsympathetic to the Baltimore protesters.

“I live in rural NC [North Carolina]. We don’t riot. We shoot rioters...” he tweeted. Fox News contributor Bo Deitl urged the police to use “deadly physical force” to quell riots.

Radio host Laura Ingram tweeted “No fathers, no male role models, no discipline, no jobs, no values — no sense of right and wrong.”

Fox News’s host Charles V. Payne, an African American, wrote on Twitter, “No matter what, President Obama simply winks his eye and nods his head as if rioting and destruction are justifiable.”

A slew of articles on right-wing websites, some citing black celebrities who allegedly support the new Black Panther Party, ask the question: “Is a race war inevitable?”

African Americans are asking the same. Louis Farrakhan, who heads The Nation of Islam, is actively calling for just that. He condemns Obama, Jesse Jackson and other prominent African Americans as “pacifiers” attempting to thwart warranted violence against “the white man’s tyranny on black people.”

Were these simmering racial tensions to explode into a race war during Obama’s presidential tenure, it would be the ultimate irony and he would, rightly or wrongly, be the history books’ fall guy. He has pussy-footed around this issue for far too long.

 

Linda S. Heard is a specialist writer on Middle East affairs. She can be contacted at lheard@gulfnews.com