Preaching to the Choir
President/Pastor Barack Obama
“Amazing grace how we sweet the sound,
That saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now I’m found
Was blind but now I see.”
Time seemed to stop as the President of the United States paused deeply and began to sing the uplifting words of “Amazing Grace” in unison with the Emanuel Methodist Church down in Charleston, South Carolina. The song came in the midst of the President’s eulogy of Rev. Clementa Pinckney, one of nine people murdered in a church on the evening of June 17, 2015. Obama’s eulogy was inspiring, heartfelt, and prophetic. As he echoed soulful hymns from the pulpit, I couldn’t help but think of his role in the Black community as more of the Black preacher than the President.
Obama didn’t just sing “Amazing Grace.” He did so in uniquely Black fashion. He added several pauses, seemingly trying to release the collective tension in the room. This method is often used in Black sermons by the preacher to add dramatic effect. If you’ve never been to a Black church service, the pauses are usually followed by a series of amens and cheers, from which the pastor gages whether or not his audience is feeling him. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. often employed this tactic as he looked over the congregation, sometimes waiting more than ten seconds between phrases.
But Obama doesn’t have roots in the ministry like Dr. King or Rev. Jessie Jackson. In fact, this is one of the many things that make him unique in Black politics. He is one of the few nationally recognized Black politicians to not be molded in the church. Obama, born and raised in Hawaii, received his degree in political science from Columbia University and graduated from Harvard Law School before going on to teach Constitutional law at the University of Chicago. His knowledge and skills in the realm of political organizing and mobilizing come directly from the world of elite institutions of higher education. So why then does the President sound like a seasoned pastor when addressing Black folk?
In the wake of the 2008 Great Recession, Black America entered into economic free fall. Black wealth began to diminish quickly, as the Black unemployment rate reached higher than 14 percent. Obama’s themes of “Hope” and “Change” began to inject some optimism into Black communities.
In this regard, the role of President and pastor are quite interchangeable. The pastors’ job, if nothing else, is to uplift the spirits of the people in the community. The pastor is invested in giving you the “word of God” so vigorously that you emphatically catch the “Holy Ghost.” In a similar way, one of the many jobs of the President is to be morale-booster-in-chief. The President is supposed to inspire the nation, particularly during times of adversity. Fueled by a “Yes we can” rhetoric, Obama’s campaign definitely forged a sense of hope in Black communities.
However, Obama the candidate and Obama the President have turned out to be quite different. As President, Obama used his platform to crucify Black America’s like only Black politicians can.
In 2013, the President delivered a commencement speech to the graduating class of Morehouse College. Reiterating his tough-love approach the President told the graduates:
“We know that too many young men in our community continue to make bad choices. Growing up, I made a few myself. And I have to confess, sometimes I wrote off my own failings as just another example of the world trying to keep a black man down. But one of the things you’ve learned over the last four years is that there’s no longer any room for excuses”
Seems kind of ironic for someone receiving an honorary degree to tell a room full of people, who have just earned their degrees at that very moment, that the world is no place for excuses. Nevertheless, the President was hell-bent on preaching the good ‘ole “pull yourself up by the boot straps” philosophy to a graduating class of Black men. Obama’s rhetoric exemplifies the fact that he sees it as his personal responsibility to hold Black people to higher standard of accountability. A role he takes on not simply because he’s the President, but because he’s a Black President.
Being the first Black President has made Obama in some sense beyond reproach amongst African Americans. In a nation so plagued by the ideology of race and racism, many Black people feel that the fact of Obama’s blackness is enough to garner their support. The sheer hostility and blatant racism to which Obama is subject from the Republican Party is also enough to get Black people to come to the President’s defense. Many Black folks see attacks on Obama as attacks on the Black community and on them personally. Still Obama’s Blackness shouldn’t generate a blind, cult-like following, or put him past political critique.
What does it mean to have Black faces in high places? What good is it to have Black people in positions of power without a radical policy agenda to go with it?
Obama’s election gave the illusion that America was entering an era of post-racism. This couldn’t have been further from the truth. The murders of Oscar Grant, Trayvon Martin and Mike Brown, prompting the emergence of a #BlackLivesMatter movement were a reminder that this nation has not rid itself of its demons.
We are made to believe that Obama can mobilize drone armies overseas, but cannot get the Department of Justice to investigate the violent murder of Black people by the police. As this crisis persist, along with many other severe disparities, Black communities are in need of targeted policy reform, rather than soulful sorrows and a false sense of hope.
Although as the 2016 presidential election comes to a close, I do believe that many Black people wouldn’t mind listening to Obama preach for another 8 years. The perception that this year’s election is a choice between white supremacy lite (Hillary Clinton) or white supremacy deluxe (Donald Trump), hasn’t generated the same enthusiasm among Black voters confronting the ballot box.
Still, I must acknowledge the fact that if Hillary Clinton is elected President, that she may be able to address some of the issues that trouble Black communities without appearing as if she’s giving Black folk “the hookup.”
This was one of the many criticisms that faced Obama when he steadfastly refused to directly address specifically Black political problems, avoiding the appearance of racial preferences by positioning himself as President of all Americans. Despite his many policy failures, Obama’s role, combining preacher and President, has been a powerfully comforting cultural presence to Black Americans.
Barack Obama will always be the Michael Jordan of American politics. His grace in office, his combination of power and presence, has change this country and Black politics forever, because sometimes we need policy from the White House, and sometimes we need a preacher.
Amen.
