I love President Obama. And the no-excuses speech he delivered to the NAACP convention yesterday was radical and amazing. I have to admit: I refrained from grinning whenever Obama broke into "black preacher talk". Everyone knows the man was born into a white family in Hawaii and black preacher talk wasn't an everyday occurrence, but hey, if the black preacher lilt gets the message through to black folk, so be it. But I agreed with everything Obama addressed yesterday. From parental control to aspiring to a life beyond the career of LeBron James, Obama hit the mark and left black America stinging.
However, I was left with this nagging thought: it's certainly paramount that black America pick itself up by its bootstraps and continue to tear down the walls of discrimination, but, BUT, when will Obama address white America? When will he single out the larger community [and the institutions it runs] and point out their subtle or overt or unknowing discriminatory practices? I'm certainly an advocate for black people setting out to achieve excellence and not mediocrity, but I'm not convinced discrimination is as "downsized" as Obama insists. And I'm certainly not convinced white America should be able to sit back and watch black America get its hiney spanked by the president and not get their turn at the belt.
Any thoughts on this?
Keith Josef Adkins is an award-winning playwright, screenwriter and social commentator.