Commentary: Pair of Obama speeches shows lack of progress on race, unity

By Erec Smith

On July 12, in the twilight of his second term, President Obama spoke at the funerals of the officers slain in Dallas, prescribing unity and collaboration as the antidotes to America's racial divide. His speech came more than eight years after his campaign speech "A More Perfect Union," delivered as he sought the presidency.

As his time in office winds down, Obama's presidency is bookended by speeches about race and unity because as a nation, we prefer to sit back and wait for someone to solve the problem instead of taking it on ourselves.

In "A More Perfect Union," Obama provided the following prescription:

"Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle. . . . But I have asserted a firm conviction . . . that working together, we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union."

Compare that with his words on July 12:

"Now, I'm not naive. I have spoken at too many memorials during the course of this presidency. I've hugged too many families who have lost a loved one to senseless violence. And I've seen how a spirit of unity, born of tragedy, can gradually dissipate, overtaken by the return to business as usual, by inertia and old habits and expediency. . . . If we're to sustain the unity, we need to get through these difficult times. If we are to honor these five outstanding officers who we lost, then we will need to act on the truths that we know."

A call to collaborate to end racial discrimination fell on deaf ears in 2008. We are now mourning the very public deaths of black civilians and white, black, and Hispanic police officers. Perhaps these men would still be with us if we heeded Obama's words eight years ago.

Collaboration and the desire to improve police-community relations must start locally. As Obama said in yet another speech about citizen agency, "We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek."

But the prominent black intellectual Cornel West believes the work is out of our hands. West commented on Obama's response to the Dallas shootings: "He's always got to explain to white America how black people are feeling. Black people don't feel as if we're being treated unequally - it's a fact that we're being treated unequally. He sort of always has to serve in this translating role. That's how he rolls, but that's not how I roll."

For one, in both "A More Perfect Union" and the Dallas speech, Obama did his best to explain one side to the other. He did not merely translate black thoughts for whites. He called out both sides to collaborate; he did not placate one side at the expense of another.

West believes Obama has failed African Americans because he has not come down on one side and, as West said in an interview with Thomas Frank of Salon.com, always seeks a middle ground. The middle ground can be a hiding place for those who do not want to rock the boat, but in issues of race and cultural dissonance, the middle ground is where people on both sides of a struggle need to meet to search for solutions.

West and others believe that Obama should be some kind of savior who would end racial discrimination in apparently dictatorial ways. However, even if America had adopted a dictatorship, racism and xenophobia would have to be dealt with from the ground up.

As Obama says in his Dallas speech, "We also know that centuries of racial discrimination, of slavery, and subjugation, and Jim Crow; they didn't simply vanish with the law against segregation. They didn't necessarily stop when a Dr. King speech, or when the Civil Rights Act or Voting Rights Act were signed. Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime. Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggles that helped us achieve that progress. But we know . . . America, we know - that bias remains."

If top-down policies did not do all the work before, what will they do now? This country needs community collaborations to progress where the federal government cannot.

America, here is your call to action:

Find local organizations - the NAACP, the YWCA, etc. - and see what you can do to end discrimination and cultural misunderstanding. We are, indeed, the ones we've been waiting for.

Erec Smith is an assistant professor of rhetoric and composition at York College of Pennsylvania and the editor of "The Making of Barack Obama: The Politics of Persuasion" (Parlor Press, 2013). esmith47@ycp.edu