Would a white president better serve black America?
After Scott Brown’s stunning upset victory over Martha Coakley in the Massachusetts senatorial election Tuesday, many pundits have started speaking about how troubled Barack Obama’s presidency might now be. Their consensus seems to center on whether the Obama White House is capable of getting any significant legislative packages — health care-related or otherwise — enacted by Congress. Although I have similar concerns about President Obama’s future effectiveness as a national leader, I’m writing today to posit the question of whether — through the first year of the Obama presidential term — black Americans would have been more effectively served by having an individual in the Oval Office who was white. An incendiary question for sure, but nonetheless, one that needs to be considered. Before I am accused of any black-on-black “crime” for even raising such a question (I am black), consider that in a Jan. 15 New York Times op-ed by Clyde Haberman, “For These Three, the Audacity of Nop
