It's been well-documented here that President Obama is firmly and fully ensconced in the fuck devoid span of his presidency. He has nestled in his full-length no fucks futon; his bare feet stretched on his no fucks ottoman, reading perhaps How to Give No Fucks and Influence People or Chicken Soup for the Fuck-less Soul.
This is the president we anticipated when all that hoping and changing was happening in 2007 and 2008. But, for very practical reasons — namely, the country wasn't quite ready for a Black president, much less a fuck deficient Black president — we didn't start to really see him until he was reelected. Which, again, makes perfect sense. You just don't go all DeMarcus Cousins at your new job before your first performance review. But he's here now, and it is glorious.
And, to clarify, "giving no fucks" does not mean that President Obama — or anyone else who gives no fucks — is without a care or concern. It just means that you no longer care about and you're no longer concerned with meeting the unreachable expectations of people who don't actually want you to reach them. In Obama's case, these people are usually called "conservatives." For laymen such as you and I, these people are usually called "haters." President Obama does, in fact, seem to care about many things. ISIS. The economy. The Wire. Sasha's sartorial choices. Selfies with Michelle.
And while tears aren't always a reliable measure of ones actual feelings about a subject, I have no doubt that the ones he shed at today's press conference, where he introduced new gun control measures, were real. Violence is not a uniquely American problem. For a developed country, however, gun violence is uniquely American, and its something we all have at least a tangential connection to. If you happen to be a Black American, this tangential connection becomes sturdier. I have been personally affected by gun violence. I've had friends killed, cousins incarcerated, and a home shot into. And I imagine most reading this can say similar things. No one — not even a millionaire family with two Ivy League-grad parents and two private school-attending teenage daughters — is immune, and I'm certain our president is aware of this. And I'm also certain he's aware, as many of us are, that the primary factor morphing perfunctory human agitation and conflict to the type of murder and mayhem we see today is the availability of guns.
If these measures — which, like all other gun control measures he's proposed, are so remarkably mundane and common-sensible that the pushback bleeds into absurdity — work, perhaps Congress will be shamed into following suit. I doubt that'll happen, though. Because while America having a fuck depleted Black president is one thing, America actually listening to him — even if he's telling a truth we know is true — is another.