If there is one thing more than any that convinces me that President Barrack Obama is a hypocrite of major proportions, at least about some matters, it is the difference in treatment that Obama accorded Henry Louis Gates, on the one hand, and Kenneth Gladney, on the other. If, as President Obama claimed, the run-in that Gates had with a white police officer is a reminder that America still has a ways to go in the matter of race relations, then what happened to Gladney is surely no less of a reminder that America still has a ways to go in the matter of race relations, albeit from a very different perspecvtive.
Whatever else freedom is about, it is about people having the right to their own views and a right to speak their views publicly in a non-violent way. Yet, it is precisely that right that Kenneth Gladney was denied or, in case, attacked for exercising. Indeed, he was attacked by numerous members of the group SEIU (Service Employee International Union). It was considered unseemly for a Kenneth Gladney to demonstrate with Tea Party of individuals concerning government spending under the Obama administration. Why? Because Kenneth Gladney is a black man. And the argument, I suppose, is that a black man is not supposed to be opposed to anything that Obama does, since Obama is America’s first black president.
Words cannot begin to do justice to how morally obnoxious the line of reasoning is here. Surely, the thought cannot possibly be that the enslavement of blacks by blacks is superior to the slavery of blacks by whites. Surely, it is not morally objectionable for whites to insist that all blacks think a certain way, but morally admirable for blacks to insist that blacks think a certain way.
To be sure, I understand the morally objectionable status of the Uncle Tom. But when it comes to preventing someone from being an Uncle Tom, surely a morally decent white is as obligated to do so as is a morally decent black. So it is, although a white and a black might take different strategies in their endeavor to prevent someone from being an Uncle Tom. But then two blacks might very well need to take different strategies as well. An extremely well-off black would probably not take the same approach as a very poor black.
But, to begin with, it is just so much nonsense to suppose that a black is an Uncle Tom merely in virtue of the fact she or he disagrees with President Obama’s spending policies, and publicly takes a stand against Obama. That is rather like holding the utterly ridiculous view that any black (female or male) who marries or even becomes deep friends with a non-black is thereby self-hating.
If Obama’s economic policies undermine the financial stability of the United States, then Americans of every race, religion, and so forth will be worse-off, including—dare I say it—black Americans. And one does not have to be a self-hating black to think that there are very serious problems with Obama’s economic policies. Obama is contributing mightily to the debt that the United States owes to China. Anyone who exercises a modicum of commonsense can see that this is a problem.
At the risk of saying something utterly obvious, but which nonetheless appears to be sufficiently sublime: Obama is not automatically right about economics or anything else simply in virtue of the fact that he is the first black president of the United States.
This brings me back to the contrast between how Obama responded to the Gates matter, on the one hand, and how Obama responded to the Gladney matter, on the other. What I should like to know is why didn’t Gladney also get an invitation to the white house? This would have been a wonderful opportunity for Obama to showcase the American ideal of free speech and respectful disagreement.
After all, who in fact was treated more disrespectfully: Gates who was asked by a white police offer for identification with respect to the home that he (Gates) was trying to enter without keys or Gladney who was beaten by several black members of SEIU for publicly expressing his opposition to Obama’s economic policies?
Gladney was exercising his constitutional right in the way that this has been done down through the ages. What exactly was Gates doing over and above exhibiting a way too easily bruised ego?
If Obama had not made the gesture of inviting Gates to the White House, it would never have occurred to me to think that Obama should also have invited Gladney to the White House. But Obama did the first to draw attention to the persistence of racism in America.
Well, nothing will ever convince me that Obama was unable to see the importance of affirming the freedom of blacks to disagree with one another—and even to disagree with a black president. This would have been a way in which Obama could have affirmed the standing of all blacks—nay, all Americans‑‑by affirming Gladney’s right to disagree with even America’s first black president. That simple gesture would have given race a transcendent quality that is rarely seen in politics. The gesture would have been a way of taking a black person seriously that would have affirmed the equality of all to be reflective individuals.
Among other things, the gesture would have signaled to the media that a more fair-minded approach to news reporting is in order; and that would have gained Obama lots and lots of points across the board.
Alas, what we know is that President Obama did not take the opportunity to affirm Gladney in this way. And Obama is too smart and too perceptive not to have appreciated the point. This is why in the end I hold that Obama is rather hypocritical regarding the equality of blacks in America. He is much more worried about his office than the equality of blacks in America. Thus, it is much more important to him that blacks in the United States go around acting like lemmings in unthinkingly fawning over the fact that he, Obama, is America’s first black president than that blacks should be reflective things for themselves regarding what he (Obama) is doing for the country. And the proof par excellence of Obama’s indifference to reflective blacks who might take issue with him is none other than the fact that Obama somehow managed to miss the story of Kenneth Gladney.
It is reported that those blacks who attacked Gladney called him a “nigger”. Well, by his obliviousness to the Gladney matter, it turns out that in so many unspoken words President Barrack Obama has paid Kenney Gladney exactly the same “compliment”.
