President Obama to Deliver Howard University’s 2016 Commencement Address

President Obama will deliver the 2016 Commencement Address at Howard University on tomorrow, May 7, 2016. It will be interesting to hear what advice he offers this group of predominately Black graduates about navigating the socioeconomic and other challenges they will undoubtedly face in comparison to the advice he indirectly offered the Black Lives Matter leadership while addressing a group of young people at a town hall meeting in London on April 24 and how that advice compares to what he has offered to past college graduates, minority and non-minority alike. At the Town Hall meeting in London, the President initially praised the Black Lives Matter Movement’s young leadership for its effectiveness in bringing attention to problems then chided them for not cooperating with the system. Obama stated “Once you’ve highlighted an issue and brought it to people’s attention … then you can’t just keep on yelling at them. And you can’t refuse to meet because that might compromise the purity of your position.”

Social movement greats like Dr. King would disagree and so would Malcolm X. Dr. King highlighted Black disenfranchisement and Lyndon B. Johnson said he couldn’t get Voting Rights passed. The Selma march happened and the Voting Rights Act was passed, not because of a table in a room but because of a widely viewed protest near the Edmund Pettus Bridge! Malcolm X advised people not to compromise the purity of their position. Casting one’s ballot without ascertaining what you get in exchange for that ballot is tantamount to compromising the purity of one’s position. For Obama, the value of social movements is having a seat at the table, in the room and working to figure out a solution to the problem. We would argue that the value of social movements also lay in getting people away from the table, out of the room to see what is happening outside.

Obama’s issue with Black Lives Matter is the race-conscious, linked-fate, collectivist manner in which they wage their campaign. Politicization of Black grievances as Black grievances alone for Obama is problematic. Black collectivism is acceptable only when Black concerns are buried under those of Whites and immigrants. Safety from being brutalized, shot and killed by the police is not a larger aspiration of all Americans because that doesn’t overwhelmingly happen to all Americans. It’s a uniquely Black challenge and therefore a unique Black aspiration.

His advice to the Morehouse graduates in 2013 and to Barnard graduates in 2012, on the pursuit of socioeconomic parity bears this out with subtle nuances evincing his indifference for Blacks highlighting their grievances.

Obama tells the Morehouse Men of their collective responsibilities to be the example. “There are some things as Morehouse Men…you are obliged to do for those still left behind.” Those living “[i]n troubled neighborhoods…many of them heavily African American… who spend their youth not behind a desk in a classroom, but hanging out on the streets brooding behind a jail cell.”

He also blames Blacks for their own suffering, stating “Too many young men in [our] community continue to make bad choices,” and then to make excuses for those choices. Obama acknowledges that “the bitter legacy of slavery and segregation” still impacts life chances but tells the Morehouse class of 2013 they have “no time for excuses”; Blacks must not blame structural racism for their lower socioeconomic parity.

Minimizing the Morehouse graduates’ struggles Obama says:

Nobody cares how tough your upbringing was. Nobody cares if you suffered some discrimination. And moreover, you have to remember that whatever you’ve gone through, it pales in comparison to the hardships previous generations endured — and they overcame them. And if they overcame them, you can overcome them too.

Invoking Morehouse pioneers in the struggle for Black interests, Obama charged the Morehouse class of 2013 to follow their example: “These men … knew … the role that racism played in their lives. But when it came to their own accomplishments and sense of purpose, they had no time for excuses.” Obama’s claim is inaccurate and Dr. King did in fact speak out about structural racism.

In President Obama’s 2012 commencement speech at Barnard, he invokes the concept of linked-fate and to “never underestimate the power of your example.” He continues:

The very fact that you are graduating, let alone that more women now graduate from college than men, is only possible because earlier generations of women — your mothers, your grandmothers, your aunts — shattered the myth that you couldn’t or shouldn’t be where you are.

This diploma opens up new possibilities, so reach back, convince a young girl to earn one, too. If you earned your degree in areas … — like computer science or engineering — reach back and persuade another student to study it too….

As he did at Morehouse, Obama told these predominately White females they have to be responsible and work hard. Unlike at Morehouse, where Obama tells the Black men that nobody cared about their hardships, he offers the women empathy and consolation: “It’s up to you to hold the system accountable and sometimes upend it entirely. It’s up to you to stand up and to be heard, to write and to lobby, to march, to organize, to vote.” The world should know of the injustices committed against (White) women. For White women, it is time to “upend” the system; for Black men, it is time to stop making excuses.

As President Obama approaches his Howard commencement speech it is going to be interesting to see his approach and tack to this group of graduates. Will he charge them to stop making excuses for the structural issues of the past or will he advocate for social movements and protest to create an upheaval of systems that have disenfranchised subaltern groups of people since the beginning of time. President Obama must decide what he would like his true legacy to be without having to think about reelection. This is his chance to make a difference. Will this be his Lyndon B. Johnson moment or will this be his Dr. King moment. . It’s now up to him to decide.

Lessie Branch, Ph.D. is a Senior Fellow at the DuBois Bunche Center for Public Policy at Medgar Evers College and Professor of Business Administration at Monroe College. Edward Summers, Ph.D. is the Executive Director of the Brooklyn Education Innovation Network (BE.IN) and Professor of Public Administration at Marist College.