Politics. Here is an OpEd I wrote for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on November 19, 2008, just after  Obama’s election to his first term. The piece was not printed because by talking about national politics I was “tresspassing” on the territory of the paper’s syndicated columnists. That was more than seven years ago. Much has happened since and much has not happened.

Obama and the African-American Community: Promise and Delivery

   I had many reasons to be an early supporter of Barack Obama: his nondoctrinaire liberal policies; his considerable intelligence; the possession of a temperament capable of listening to advice from strong people; a superior ability, clearly, to serve as effective CEO of a huge campaign organization, together with a persuading eloquence that makes “bringing different sides together” more than a clever campaign slogan

   But if that list had not included so many superlatives, there remains one trump-almost-all reasons for voting for Obama:  the effect of the election of an African-American (and to whom does that rubric better apply?) on approximately 13% of the population or 39 million souls, as the census takers used to say.  That Obama was elected showed something, if not everything, about changing attitudes of whites toward African-Americans, but it was remarkable, above all, how it energized the black population.

   Give another meaning to that Obama slogan: yes we can!  Ambitions that seemed out of reach to most blacks became plausible over night: I, my buddies, my children can be somebody, do something worthwhile, both for myself and for society.  Such a belief can have an immense effect on younger African-Americans.  It may become cool to be smart; no longer traitorously white to study and work hard—all because ambition may no longer seem futile.           

   The mere fact of Obama’s election has engendered a kind of moral revolution by making striving plausible; that is the promise.  But to fulfill that promise, his administration must also deliver.  Obama has said that he proposes to be the president of all Americans, in contrast to the reign of Bush who has been above all president of his “race”—rich folk, evangelicals, and corporations.  But if the gains achieved by the promise are not to wither away, the policies and practices of the next four years must be such that striving on the part of African-Americans is rewarded by favorable outcomes.

   I will single out two domains: jobs and education.  The easy one—conceptually, but certainly not in the real world—is jobs.  A necessary condition for progress is the sharp reduction of the high rate of black unemployment, especially among younger men.  If the promise increases the willingness to work, it will come to naught without opportunities to do so.  Initially, moreover, and it is an “initially” that will last for many years, there must be jobs that can be performed by relatively unskilled workers—precisely the sort of berths that have been disappearing from our economy.  To get started on an upward curve, it will be necessary to go from little to a lot more in the creation of jobs for the unskilled and semi-skilled.

   That leads directly into the conceptually more complex topic of education.  Both for better and for worse, education in this country is largely under local control.  Ways must be found for the federal establishment to help localities, especially the neediest, to provide a first class education from kindergarten on up.  No Child Left Behind is an example of Washington intervention in the country’s schools, but hardly a model.  It is difficult to think of a method that is less imaginative: requiring tests and punishing schools that don’t get a passing grade.  A better model, if a more difficult one, is the way in which Michelle Rhee, the spunky young chancellor of the DC school district, is digging down to the foundation of education by tackling the issue of the quality of teachers.  Much higher salaries with merit pay, attenuating job security, misleadingly called tenure—moves that call for considerable funds, tackling unions, and administrative sophistication.  Money, guts, and good judgment, none of these grow on the trees in the gardens of America’s school districts.

   And in the 21^st century, K through 12 is only a foundation—to be sure, a necessary one.  Real jobs call for higher education.  More money, well used, will of course help: additional financial aid to what used to be called the underprivileged will increase the size of the population that has access to college.  But that is not enough.  For many, attending the local community college is the next step in education.  For some such enrollment is a first step into higher education; for others it is at best K through 12 become K through 13.  The large number of two-year colleges—by my count almost 1600 of them—constitutes a mixed bag.  Since they are significant portals to higher education and into twenty-first century jobs, it becomes an important enterprise for the Obama administration to markedly improve the mixture in that bag.

   These are suggestions of things that might be done to have the released energy in the African-American community bear fruit.  In his long campaign and by his success Obama has awakened many expectations; there is no way that his administration can do justice to all of them.  But every failure runs headlong into an unhappy truth:  thanks given when the Lord giveth is nowhere near as fervent as resentment when He taketh away.  The tasks that confront president-elect Obama are multiple and difficult.  I fervently hope that he will succeed in fulfilling the promise his candidacy and election has meant for a sizeable proportion of our population, our African-American fellow citizens.