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Sunday, May 15, 2011

The Perfect First Black US President



The Perfect First Black US President: President Barak Obama

Much has been written about President Obama since he authorised the take down of Osama bin Laden, but trust me, this essay will be the most unusual angle you have ever seen.

First, a little something about me: I am a black man, but I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican. I‘m not even an American, but I have a lot in common with President Obama.

I was born in Bermuda, a close neighbour of Washington D.C. and as such what happened there was reflected where I grew up. I am in my seventy-second year, so in my lifetime I have seen a whole lot of things, and there have been even more things that have changed. During my early to middle years I have lived through legalised discrimination in a country that practised apartheid as much as though we were in South Africa. Of course, my ancestors came to the west as chattel where they were bought and sold in the fashion of animals.

From such humble beginnings, through the help of white men who laid down their lives partly over the principle of whether it was right or not to treat human beings as black people were treated, creeping gains have been made over many years. I relished every improvement, and no life adjustment went unnoticed, but “America will still have a very long way to go after I die,” or so went my thinking. “There will probably never be an elected US black president, or for that mater, a woman president in that country.”

When Shirley Chisholm, a black woman ran for president, I thought: Wow! Now wouldn’t that be something if somehow she got elected. Jesse Jackson made a grand run, and he gave one of the very best speeches at the Democratic National Convention that I have ever heard, but somehow, in my mind Jessie wasn’t quite the right candidate. He was carrying a little too much baggage.

Then, a Republican black member, Colin Powell, was thought to be thinking about making a run for the Oval Office, and this was something that caught all of America off guard. For so many years we had talked about a black president in the United States. Hollywood had treated the fantasy with Morgan Freeman, and the black actor who played the president in the series “24”. With Colin Powell, all he had to do was say the word and I am sure that he would have been assured of election with the pride and confidence of his Republican party, because very seldom there comes someone so obviously presidential material.

Of course, we all know that he went on to be George W. Bush’s Foreign Secretary and dispatched his duties with more of a presidential air than George Bush himself. It is a mark of the man’s intelligence that he had the great sense to say no to the opportunity, if it was an opportunity. Frankly, the position is so fraught with stress and challenge that I wonder at the mentality of all those who actually want to hold the office.

Black people have been told for so long that we were incapable of doing anything significant. We knew better, and in many ways where we got the opportunity we have been proving our capability, so we knew that we could do as well or make as much of a mess as any white man.
With that in mind it gave every black person in the world a great sense of satisfaction when the Democratic Party confirmed Barak Obama as its Nominee. Many of us might have been wanting for Hilary Clinton to get the selection as she would have made history as well as the first woman president, and she may still do so, but Barak Obama was the choice, and history was made. Finally, in America, black people were being taken seriously, but more important America had grown up and the paradigm shifted.

Previously, in order to occupy the Oval Office you had to be a white male. Anytime artificial criteria are set, that automatically means that real talent possibly will be overlooked. America had finally decided to choose on the basis on who they thought might be best for the job without regard to sex or colour, and that was a sea change.

America was at a place in its history that was so bad that the only thing that seemed left to be done was to push the “flush” button. The last thing that we really wanted to happen was that a black person be appointed to such an impossible job. If he fails that would likely set people’s impressions back centuries and confirm what the nay -sayers had been saying all along. We have seen how the American people can trash a president they don’t like, and my friends and I did not want to wish that on Mr. Obama, simply to make the point that America had a black president.

Barak Obama has come to the world stage with a clean background and he has conducted himself with dignity and with confidence. He has made very few mistakes along the way, and he has played the political game with shrewdness and aplomb. He has achieved certain things, in the words of former President John F. Kennedy, not because they were easy, but because they were difficult, such as health care reform.

He is a joy to listen to as a speaker, and now, he has pulled off the ultimate success in taking down Osama bin Laden, America’s most wanted man, dead or alive. He is only a politician, not God, but he acts very much like the ideal President, and whether one agrees with his political views or not, he is a credit to black people and he is setting the stage for other black candidates, and also women candidates. Hilary Clinton could possibly sail into office in 2016, partly on the basis of his continued success, and the stage might be set for a candidate whose name absolutely warms my heart: Condoleezza Rice.

Copyright © 2011 Eugene Carmichael