Monday, March 23, 2015

The "post-racial" legacy that wasn't.

Image result for president obama racist imagesTonight we will hear from Clarence B. Jones as our Field Negro education series continues.

"President Obama has less than two years remaining in his presidency. Recent events have caused me to rethink some initial conclusions I had been considering about the future historic legacy of his administration.

The fight against ISIS, the ongoing negotiations with Iran, the U.S. Supreme Court's pending review of a key section of the Affordable Care Act, the events of Ferguson, the National Urban League's Annual Report on "The State of Black America," and numerous racially charged incidents, including the fraternity song at Oklahoma University, the confrontation between police and an African-American student over the validity of his campus ID, the unexplained hanging of an African-American man from a tree in Mississippi, racist police behavior in Fort Lauderdale, and a rising tidal wave of race-based resistance to President Obama mandate a more clinical review of his presidency in the future pantheon of American history.

When he was elected in 2008, there was an outpouring of media commentary from the left, right, and moderates.

Businessweek's  Nov. 11, 2008, issue described Barack Obama as "A Leader for the 'We' Generation":
The sweeping victory of Barack Obama ushers in a new era of leadership that will affect every aspect of American institutions and that sounds a death knell for the top-down, power-oriented leadership prevalent in the 20th century.
  A new style of "bottom-up, empowering" leadership focusing on collaboration will sweep the country. A new wave of 21st century authentic leaders will take oversee U.S. institutions of every type: business, education, health care, religion, and nonprofits. These new leaders recognize that an organization of empowered leaders at every level will outperform "command-and-control" organizations every time.
Recent estimates are that thanks to the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, about 16 million additional persons now have health insurance. Assuming this is so, this is encouraging if not remarkable. However, as I begin to rethink and review the Obama presidency, I think history will judge it based principally on two other matters: his foreign policy and the consequences of his presidency on the unfinished business of race relations in America.
Left with the financial and ideological results of our preemptive attack on and invasion of Iraq and the winding down of our war in Afghanistan, Obama has had to develop and implement a foreign policy limiting Iran's nuclear ambitions and safeguarding America from the maniacal, ideologically driven violence of ISIS. How much he succeeds or fails in this effort will indelibly define his presidential legacy.

However, what is likely to overshadow all other issues defining President Obama's legacy is how successful he was, as America's 44th president and first African-American president, at resolving the issue of race in America.

In writing about the 2012 campaign to reelect President Obama, I wrote:
There is one issue ... notwithstanding the paramount importance of the economy, that continues to be the common denominator of the presidential election in 2012, as it was in 2008: the historic issue of race and race relations in America. 
Not since the Civil War and the failed Congressional Reconstruction thereafter has race been such an explicit or implicit national issue. "Race relations" principally, but not exclusively, between black and white America continues to be the 800-lb. gorilla in most American households.
 Perhaps only surpassed by sex, is any public discussion -- or lack of discussion -- about race in America weighted down with more hypocrisy, ambivalence, fear and misunderstanding.
In the most simplistic sense, use or disuse of the so-called "race card" will cease only when there is a completely new "deck" from which the card is drawn.

Some 600,000 Americans killed one another during our civil war over the issue of the abolition or continuation of slavery. However, as Eric Foner writes in Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Business:
Virtually from the moment the Civil War ended, the search began for legal means of subordinating a volatile black population that regarded economic independence as a corollary of freedom and the old labor discipline as a badge of slavery.
 
The failure of Reconstruction irrevocably hindered the intended outcome of the Civil War: the full restoration of all the rights and privileges of citizenship owed to African-American slaves under our Declaration of Independence and Constitution, as amended with its Bill of Rights
Lest we forget, as James W. Lowen writes in Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong, "Perhaps the most pervasive theme in our history is the domination of black America by white America. Race is the sharpest and deepest division in American life."
In a speech titled "Mystic Chords of Memory," delivered at the University of Vermont on Sept. 12, 1991, celebrated documentary filmmaker Ken Burns said:
The black-white rift stands at the very center of American history. ... If we forget that -- if we forget the great stain of slavery that stands at the heart of our country, our history, our experiment -- we forget who we are, and we make the great rift deeper and wider.
 
Presenting a more optimistic outlook on race, in a December 2014 interview on BET, President Obama said:
It's important to recognize that as painful as these incidents are, we can't equate what is happening now to what happened 50 years ago. If you talk to your parents, your grandparents, they'll tell you things are better. Not good, in some cases, but better. The reason it's important to understand that progress has been made is that it then gives us hope we can make even more progress.
Regrettably, however, our 2015 existential reality repeatedly confirms that a deep and abiding derivative of the white supremacist racism of slavery is still alive and well under the presidency of Barack Obama. It is more insidious than ever, only today existing in a form commensurate with the ubiquitous and advanced technology of the communication of information in the second decade of the 21st century.  
Perhaps unfairly, but I believe unavoidably, Obama's presidential legacy will be determined by the success or failure of our collective effort to finally resolve the issue of race under his presidency. Historically, this is likely to be more definitive than any other single issue.
 I had hoped it would be otherwise." [Source]

Call me crazy, but I am not a bit surprised that race relations got worse and not better under Barack Obama.

Did people really believe that racists all over America were going to say: Oh, we have a black president now;  I don't despise black people anymore. Please!

The problem with this president is that he also bought into the "post-racial" hype. And, unfortunately for him, by the time he realized that there was no such thing, his enemies had already gained the upper hand.

It's a shame that Americans wanted the election of Barack Obama to absolve them from the ugly stain of racism that continues to sully our history. That was never going to happen. There is no  magical mystical Negro with a kumbaya wand to wave away bigotry and ignorance.

That will take generations of education and self-awareness, as well as a willingness for us as a country to acknowledge that the problem still exists.


  


34 comments:

Anonymous said...

Did we really think that a "Second Reconstruction" could have been achieved given the economic state of the United States. After all, the Black man was only property, a means to make money! Every policy advocated that would adversely affect Blacks was advocated to save money and reallocate that money to reduce taxes or get this, stimulate the economy!
Yes, we have made advances in race relations and have exposed the ugly truths of racism but to place President Obama in the position of the great "Race Relater" is unfair. We will never have a healthy dialogue for race equality until blacks stop being pawns in the economic game of free enterprise.

Anonymous said...

I want to clear up many misconception to my nation. There are many great improvements. We no longer always use wife to plow field, build barn, feed animal, shovel fertilizer, only mostly. Also too they now ride on inside of bus since last NATO troops come then leave then come back. This great improvement since happy wife bring higher price in trade. National sport is no longer chase dog on bicycle while drink vodka. You cannot earn a living being a Gypsy catcher. Gypsy no more in my nation. Wine is not made from fermented horse urine. Wrong animal. It is not customary for a man to grab another man’s khrum except on birthday. We have no state religion. We follow the Hawk.

PilotX said...

Another good post. I disagree that Barack will be judged by the state of race relations, objective political scientists will judge him on the same merits as all other presidents. He came out ok in the last list, no. 18 I believe. If a white guy wins I think white people will do what we did when Barack won, give each other that knowing nod and we'll go right back to ignoring racial problems but racism won't be as blatant because there won't be a uniting target like there is now.

Bill said...


If the racists didn't like a Black man in the white house, why was there a lower rethug turnout in 2012 than 2008?

Anonymous said...

The rise of ISIL on Omama's watch and Omama's decision to pull troops out of Iraq prematurely led directly to the spread of ISIL. This blunder speaks volumes about how illequipped he was to be president. What else will history need to remember? There's the legacy.

Anonymous said...

Good post, brother Field. And I agree. Obama will be judged by the upheaval in race relations by the Blacks and Whites.

There is no doubt that racism increased and continues to increase under Obama's Presidency. That is not a good look for him to Blacks or Whites.

I regret that he was, and still is, a weak leader and man.

Anonymous said...

BTW, Zimmerman doesn't like Obama either. Today in USA he called out Obama about his handling of the Trayvon Martin matter.

I mean, Zimmerman is still 'hot' over the trouble Obama caused him. I can't say I blame him.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/03/24/zimmerman-video-trayvon-martin/70362142/

Anonymous said...

How often should you wash your pole?

Anonymous said...

(AP) The Field Negro was credited with what could be deemed a half-miracle in on Sunday, although it didn't involve bringing anybody halfway back to life or turning water halfway into wine. Instead, the normally-solidified thought processes of the blogger became momentarily rational after he stopped kissing the picture of himself he keeps on his desk and engaged in thought. After commenters remarked that the quality of his thinking had dramatically improved, Fields said, "this my blog dammit! I gonna say what I likes!" Then, the miracle was over. Rev. Lilac and Archbishop FocusedPurpose are convening an ecclesial council to examine the occurrence.

Anonymous said...

Has anyone seen Lilac? Every time I visit FN looking for her, she is no where to be found.

Then when I leave, she comes around. It's depressing.

dpressed negro

Anonymous said...

Hey, come to think of it, I never see Field and Lilac together at the same time. Oh no! They're the same person!!!

Anonymous said...

While Field sleeps
The trolls creep

Anonymous said...

What I like about Field is his tolerance of everyone. He let's everybody speak. No comment is too inane or unintelligent. Most bloggers kick people off so fast it makes 'em shit house crazy. They run the blog like Joseph Stallin having his period. But not TFN. He's super-cool, super-mod like a 24th Century Space Cowboy. An his voice? It's a voice like warm butter.

focusedpurpose said...

isis/isil = cia + mossad funded creation.

BO has gotten the negro spanking. how DARE he stand AGAINST netanyahu?!

folk that will ride and die with him choked...

then waited for the smoke blow over.

so..he, being mighty uppity, simply circumvents and takes it to the un.

lol.

i bet he REALLY chaffs folks' hides. lol!

this Right here:

"That will take generations of education and self-awareness, as well as a willingness for us as a country to acknowledge that the problem still exists."

=depressing.

we got folk SWEARING that america used to be Right with Yah but has now turned her back on Yah.

what year was the Right going down?

the indigenous genocide?

the African holocaust?

dropping bombs on folk that could not ever defend themselves? then appointing ourselves as the world terrorists police, despite our global terrorist tendencies as a nation.

rounding up americans 'cause they looked like the "enemy" at the time?

WHAT YEAR?

cue the next lie.

so nope...

the whole "education" madness seems to be what is messing folk up.

folk need Messiah Yahushua aka Jesus Christ around the world...

and to worship Him in Spirit and in Truth.

which means that they will need to UNwhiten Him and DO what He said as is written.

first stop: do unto others as...

this is the Truth for ALL hues of man. (in this instance, i mean mankind. and nope, folk can't pin illuminati creation "feminism" on BW either. there is a niche jewish lady that deserves the credit. fellow jewess GSteinum ALREADY knows this, though. BW BEEN treated like menfolk. it was WW that couldn't wait to get some. check the record and see GS's deceitful, i support Shirley Chisholm for potus. NOT! flow. grrr!)

Blessings all!

Anonymous said...

LOL. From hope and change to Obama's going give us all Obama cash.

Field and his ilk are left with blaming racists for Obama's failed presidency.

This is what happens when you worship a false idol.

Bootzey said...

His election, and subsequent re-election, brought out what the white man has been hiding in his heart for years. It's proper and helpful that we get to see it. Now we can act from a place of knowledge

The Purple Cow said...

"If the racists didn't like a Black man in the white house, why was there a lower rethug turnout in 2012 than 2008?"

Cuz the racists didn't want to fuck Romney and Ryan like they wanted to fuck Sarah Palin.

Bill said...

The Purple Cow said...
"If the racists didn't like a Black man in the white house, why was there a lower rethug turnout in 2012 than 2008?"

Cuz the racists didn't want to fuck Romney and Ryan like they wanted to fuck Sarah Palin.


Doesn't sound very racist if it is about screwing a woman.


Are you sure you understood my question? Want to try answering it again?

Why didn't the racists make a better showing in the 2012 election?


A country full of racists couldn't figure out how to vote the Black man out of the white house?

Something isn't making sense.

Bill said...


Is the government the new KKK?

Bill said...


Interesting CNN poll...

Election 2016: The perfect candidate
A new CNN/ORC poll finds most Americans say they would like a candidate who's a seasoned political leader, someone with an executive background, and someone who's willing to change Barack Obama's policies.
...
and 57% say their perfect Obama successor would change most of the policies enacted by Obama's administration.

http://edition.cnn.com/2015/03/22/politics/2016-election-poll-perfect-candidate/index.html

57% of a CNN poll said they wanted the new president to change the Obama policies?

Ouch.

Bill said...


Report: Israel spied on Iran-U.S. talks and shared information with lawmakers
...
...
...
...
The White House learned of the operation, the paper reported, when U.S. intelligence agencies “intercepted communications among Israeli officials that carried details the U.S. believed could have come only from access to the confidential talks, officials briefed on the matter said.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/03/24/report-israel-spied-on-iran-u-s-talks-and-shared-information-with-lawmakers/

So we learned Israel was spying on us when we were spying on them.

Gotta love it.

The Purple Cow said...

I understood your question perfectly Billy-boi, I mean it's a stupid infantile fucking question, as befits someone of your limited intellect, but I understood it.

The answer to your question to the drop in Republican support is that there aren;t enough angry white people to go around.

field negro said...

Bill, u do realize that O's approvals are about the same as your idol, Ronnie of St. Reagan, at this time during his presidency, right? Or is that too much for your wingnut heart to take?

Poor Bill. :(

PC, Bill is not very lucid when it comes to this subject. He is still upset over the fact that O beat him and his people twice.

Joder La Resistencia said...

BUT REAGAN! BUT REAGAN!

BUT BUSH! BUT BUSH!!!

You only the left are the funniest.

Desperate times in Obama's Amerikkka.

It wasn't suppose to be like this.

Seems like only yesterday Obamaholics were scream "YES WE CAN!!" Blahs were talking about free Obama cash and Obama was going to pay they rent.

The left thought Obama was their messiah and he was going to turn America into liberal utopia.

Obama was going to lower the seas and heal the earth. Everyone around the world would love us.

Obama was going to rebuild Amerikka from the bottom up.

Instead, Obama will leave office with a country and world more divided than it was before he took office.

We are more hated in the world.

The poor have gotten poorer.The middle class is shrinking. Only the top 10% have benefited from Obama's trickle down big government policies.


The only thing the left has left is to play the race card.


And blame Reagan and Bush....

Joder La Resistencia said...

"The state of black America."

Hows life in the state? How have blahs been rewarded for giving Obama over 90% of their vote?



In what ways are blahs better off?

Bill said...


field negro said...

Bill, u do realize that O's approvals are about the same as your idol, Ronnie of St. Reagan, at this time during his presidency, right? Or is that too much for your wingnut heart to take?


My wingnut heart?

You're the one comparing Obama to what you consider one of the worst presidents.

The Purple Cow said...

"Seems like only yesterday Obamaholics were scream "YES WE CAN!!" "

Yes that was naive of them in retrospect. Capitalism will never allow fundamental change. Fairness and decency would kill it.

**
"Blahs were talking about free Obama cash and Obama was going to pay they rent."

No they didn't you see, you're just making this shit up as you go along.

**

"The left thought Obama was their messiah and he was going to turn America into liberal utopia."

No they didn't you see, you're just making this shit up as you go along.

**

"Obama was going to lower the seas and heal the earth. Everyone around the world would love us."

No they didn't you see, you're just making this shit up as you go along.

**

"Obama was going to rebuild Amerikka from the bottom up."

Nobody said that, you're just making this shit up as you go along.

**
"Instead, Obama will leave office with a country and world more divided than it was before he took office."

The world is every bit as divided as it was twenty years ago. America is more divided because people like you choose to make it so.

**
"We are more hated in the world."

You still don't get to do you? America is the most hated country in the world for a reason, you keep invading foreign countries and dropping bombs on them. And when you are not doing that you are killing their children with drones - all in the name of freedom. If you want people to stop hating you stop killing their children.

To suggest that America is even more hated now than it was at the time of the Iraq war is just laughable.

**

"The poor have gotten poorer.The middle class is shrinking. Only the top 10% have benefited from Obama's trickle down big government policies."

Yes that's because Obama is a conservative and he has followed the idiotic failed conservative fiscal mantra slavishly. This process of making America's poor and middle class poorer began in the late 70's and has continued unabated since then.

**
"The only thing the left has left is to play the race card."

Ahhhh yes the mythical "race card". Simply saying racism exists is considered "playing the race card"

Is saying blue eyes exist "playing the blue eye card"?

Is saying night follows day "playing the night card"?

Is saying the Redskins suck "playing the redskins card?"

**

"And blame Reagan and Bush...."

Well yes they were cunts as well. But then they would be wouldn't they?

You elected them...

Bill said...


The Purple Cow said...
You still don't get to do you? America is the most hated country in the world for a reason,


Because someone in a 3rd world country working a manual labor job in the sun to earn $5 for the days labor sees Americans spending more than that on a cup of coffee at starbucks?

Because someone that watched his kid starve to death know that Americans build machines into their sink to dispose of unwanted food?

Or when someone from another part of the planet walks through an American grocery store and sees more choices in the pet food isle alone than the store in their neighborhood has total?

Anonymous said...

FocusedPurpose= Schlitz Malt Liquor + One Night Stand .

I AM FP. I has got the negro STANKING. how DARE I stank AGAINST Netanyahu?!

folk that ride ME choke ON THE FUMES...

then wait for the stank blow over.

so..I be mighty uppity and takes it to the underwater full load.

lol.

i knows my snatch REALLY chaffs folks' hides. lol!

this Right here:

"That will take generations of education and self-awareness, as well as a willingness for us as a country to acknowledge that the problem of FP still exists."

=depressing.

we got folk SWEARING that america used to be Right with Yah but has now turned her back on Yah.

what year was the Right going down ON ME?

the indigenous genocide of my CRABS?

the African holocaust of OILED AFROS and MUSK?

dropping my snatch on folk that could not ever defend themselves? then appointing MYSELF as the world YAW police, despite MY tendencies as a FOOL.

rounding up potential one nighters 'cause they looked "BUTCH" at the time?

WHAT YEAR?

cue the next lie.

I already did...

the whole "education" madness seems to be what is messing folk up.

folk need Messiah Oprah aka Lady Jesus Christ around the world...

and to worship Her in Spirit and in Fashion.

which means that they will need to UNwiden her and DO what SHE said as is written.

first stop: do unto others as...

this is the Truth for ALL hues of man. (in this instance, i mean mankind. and nope, folk can't pin illuminati creation "feminism" on OPRAH either. there is a niche jewish lady that deserves the credit. fellow jewess BStreisand ALREADY knows this, though. OPRAH BEEN treated like menfolk. it was DR. PHIL that couldn't wait to get some. check the record and see the sex tape. (grunter... a grunter! a real grunter! )

Blessings all!

field negro said...

"You're the one comparing Obama to what you consider one of the worst presidents."

Yes he was.

But to wingnuts like you he was god.

Just thought I would help you get some perspective.


Anonymous said...

Netanyahu, the GOP, the Iran negotiations, and the flash rise in racism in America are going to bury Obama....FN too.

Anonymous said...

field negro said...
Yes he was.

But to wingnuts like you he was god.

Just thought I would help you get some perspective.
8:36 PM
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Cuts through BS like a a hot knife through butter"


:D Ummhmmm

focusedpurpose said...

actually netanyahu Real last name=

Mileikowsky

israelis change their names to appear more Hebrew.

americans from the same tribe change their names to appear less jew.

goyim are never the wiser either way + are afraid as all get out to call things what they are.

the khazars = gentiles.

those of US that are true Yahuthim/Yahudah according to what is written fear NO one, as the Yah of Abraham, Isaac and Yacob IS with US.

that.is.all.

Juli said...

The formatting of the Dec 2014 quotation from Pres Obama makes it look like it includes the next 2 paragraphs of commentary (continuing with "Regrettably, however, our 2015 existential reality repeatedly confirms ..."); please check it out.

And thanks for this piece. Just discovered your blog.