Very Serious WaPo Journalist Quite Disappointed Obama Hasn't Fixed Racism Yet

We all remember when silly naive Barack Obama ran for president and announced his plan to single-handedly end racism forever. Oh, you don't remember that? Funny, that's how Very SeriousWashington Postjournalist Chris Cillizza, aka The Fix, remembers it .

The speech that made Barack Obama famous cast him as a post-racial figure offering a vision of America no longer divided along black and white lines. [...]

And yet, from Obama’s introduction to the national stage that night in Boston to today, as the country’s collective eyes turn toward the ongoing racial unrest in Ferguson, Mo., the president’s relationship with the issue of race has been far more complicated — and fraught — than he could have imagined on that night a decade ago.

Excellent point. Certainly Obama's relationship with the issue of race, which he's had since, oh, around the time he was born -- if he even was born -- is something he could not possibly understand. At least not the way race-in-America expert Cillizza understands it because he is A Expert. If only Obama had bothered to ask Cillizza, "Will it be easy to end racism in America, yes or no?" Cillizza would have happily educated him about just how difficult the issue of racism in America is, since he obviously did not already know that.

But noooo! Obama, with his hope and change and speeches and impossible promise of ushering in a post-racial America by simply becoming the first African-American president -- because that's exactly what he promised, as no one except Cillizza recalls -- did not even bother. Oh, the audacity! No wonder "his endeavor to defuse racial controversies in the country — either by word or deed — became significantly more difficult." First, there was his "hokey beer summit" between Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates and the maybe a little bit racist cop who "acted stupidly," which, shockingly, did not end racism forever. Then there were his comments about the murder of Trayvon Martin, which were simultaneously insufficient and totally over the top, and that didn't end racism either, damn you, Obama.

Then Obama "issued a single, paragraph-long statement" on the killing of unarmed teenager Michael Brown, which again was obviously inadequate because it did not end racism forever. Maybe it should have been two paragraphs. That might have done it. Still, it's not as if Cillizza is completely unsympathetic to just how dumb Obama is when it comes to the issue of race in America.

On one level, Obama’s decision to watch and wait on high-profile incidents in which race seemed to play a role makes perfect sense.

So gracious of Cillizza to acknowledge, on one level anyway, that Obama's failure to immediately issue multi-paragraphed statements every time there is an incident in America in which racemightplay a role makes sense. On one level. Like, maybe he is busy plotting the next Benghazi or being the weakest tyrant ever, or maybe he is a human being like the rest of us and when such incidents that "suggest we aren’t in that post-racial America just yet" occur -- as they tend to do pretty much every second of every day, even though some people named Cillizza might not be paying attention -- even Obama cannot always summon the perfect heals-all-wounds, ends-all-racism speeches to make it all better, DAMN YOU, OBAMA!!!

Perhaps it’s too much to expect any one individual, even the president, to help finally close such a deep and long-standing gash on the country’s conscience.

Yeah. Perhaps. PERHAPS. Per-fucking-haps. Even though "many people, both black and white, expect him to do just that." Or at least many people who cannot wrap their teeny tiny brain cells around the FACT that racism is as American as baseball and made-in-China American flags; that it is an iniquitous and inherent part of who we are and how we came to be; that it is not merely some ugly dark stain on our history, but is very much in the here and now and tomorrow; that centuries of racism cannot be undone by the election of one black president, no matter how many speeches he gives, which is something he probably understands pretty well, actually, even without simple-minded Very Serious Journalists explaining it to him by projecting their own shock and disappointment onto him as if he's the idiot who believed his election would put all of that behind us.

In case you think that's the worst of what Cillizza has to say on the issue of dumb Obama and his dumb failure to understand the issue of race in America, too bad for you, dummy, because it gets worse.

Today at least, Obama’s vision of a post-racial America looks even farther away than it did that night a decade ago in Boston.

Did Cillizza conclude his steaming pile of wordcrap by implying that racism is worse now than it was a decade ago, back when it wasn't all that bad, really, and that maybe Obama's failure to click his heels and say "There's no place like post-racial America, there's no place like post-racial America" might have actually made things worse? Sure seems that way, doesn't it?

Ready to burn down all the things yet? Here, have a match.

[ WaPo ]

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