A Gentleman’s view.

Men of power on Wall Street and in DC are still learning how this black man two steps.

For the first time the State of the Union that we call the United States of America, was presented by a black man. The State of this Union is quite fine, thank you very much to the Black Man in the White House. This experience is proving to be challenging for so many men of power who never had to deal with a black man at this level before as an equal on both sides of the political spectrum, Republican and Democrat. It seems both sides are being educated, we as a people just don’t roll the same way the white culture does when we do anything, especially so with our President, Barack Obama. I was off too on judging him for his handling of the Health Care Reform debate until it occurred to me that he couldn’t really do it any other way. As much as the white culture wants to claim this experience as proof that we ‘overcame’ our issues with race since the President was elected, reality keeps finding ways and situations to blatantly state the opposite. There have been more groups and individuals disrespecting the Office of the President than ever before and the amount of racially charged rhetoric is worst than any time in the 55 years of my lifetime, though needed. The battle with the opposition is about nothing but teaching blacks in this country they have no right to be seeking election to the office of the Presidency ever! You must first understand the Democrats as a group of men of power don’t necessarily have a problem with that or even adding the office of a Senator to that list also but they can never say that or suggest it. The power brokers and the pundits all proceeded to look at and treat the President as though every thing he does will be a statement of his blackness and to us, he will never be black enough or he wouldn’t have made that far. Not having  stero-typical black roots here sure didn’t hurt his cause at all.

If he came out the gate claiming mandates and taking a hard stand on the exact type of plan to put in place for fixing the problems with people who can’t get protection from getting sick or stopping the companies who refuse to protect people with illnesses already such as heart disease or diabetes or high blood pressure to get protection from getting sicker, everyone would have been screaming about the angry black man coming to Washington dictating to all the old white men and brow beating them into getting legislation passed that is not in the best interest of rest of the country. I still feel he was setup with this financial crisis waiting in the Oval Office by the Republicans trying to stack the deck against his success. Had he not been a more engaged fellow say like; McCain, or just sharp as Bush, or Reagan, this might have just been the one of the worst downturns in this country’s history. Underestimating his intelligence, although his reputation as a professor and intellectual preceded him, because of the color of his skin seems to be a continuous theme for most of those out of his inner sphere of influence. He comes into office facing banking going down the tubes, the country’s auto industry on life-support, housing and mortgage DOA, two wars to prosecute, the world in recession and us losing jobs at over a million a month for the last year. The man walking out the door started with a major surplus and left that mess in the Oval office with a trillion and a quarter in deficits that the Congress, mostly aided and abetted by the power of the Republicans, and the intimidation of the Democrats went along with to the country’s detriment.

So the President had to spend a lot of political capital his first year cleaning up this mess and the Republicans had the audacity not to participate and yet and still, paint this expenditure of government resources at this time of financial chaos and turmoil, though they inflicted it at best, allowed it to happen and look the other way at worst, as poor leadership on the part of the ruling party of Congress today and overreaching and imposed socialization by the President.  As it is, they consider him to be uppity, arrogant, elitist, and aloof, all code words for a Black Man in a position that is way above his pay grade or undeserving of holding it to begin with. The Democrats have the majority in both houses of Congress and still cannot get legislation passed or positions filled. He has been wise enough to give them said required rope in order for them to hang themselves and true to form as he said it was in Springfield, when he was State Senator, same Bullshit, different local. He has given them a year to contribute to the dialogue if not some solutions to no avail. He put them on notice during the state address to both houses of Congress and held his own quite well at gathering of theirs two days later.

No knows how this Black Man who happens to be the President of the most powerful and prosperous nation on the planet will react to anything. No matter our perception of his being lite-skinned black not dark enough to be perceived as a threat or not black enough at all because of his mother and growing up in was mostly an white culture environment in Kansas, there are those of us who have yet to see the tough man we know must be in there in order for him to have made it this far, no black man has held this much responsibility before our very eyes and those of the white power structure here and abroad. One might’ve decided at one point to take a certain tact with the Clintons because of the known hard politics they play, but a black man has never had the opportunity to display his talent at this level, and all of us haven’t the foggiest idea how this man rolls. This is going to be extremely enjoyable for me to watch as this man learns how to work his magic in this the most visible of all stages. I will say this; Chris Matthews, host of the MSNBC show ‘Hardball’ made a very telling comment of what he saw: “I wouldn’t want to be on the other side when this President finally learns what it takes to get things done in this town”.

© 2010, agentleman.