Who Is Responsible for the Worsening of America’s Racial Divisions? Three words: Barack Hussein Obama. by Robert Spencer

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm-plus/who-is-responsible-for-the-worsening-of-americas-racial-divisions/

By the early years of the twenty-first century, it looked as if America’s traumatic racial divisions really were receding into the past. It seemed as if genuine equality of opportunity had finally been achieved, and that Americans of whatever background had a level playing field upon which they could make as much of their talents as they wished, depending on how hard they were willing to work.

But then came the presidency of Barack Hussein Obama.

Obama, who is, of course, the child of a black father and a white mother, seemed to herald the dawning of the new post-racial America. He couldn’t have been elected, of course, without the votes of millions of white Americans, and his victory in itself showed that the nation was not racist. Many white Americans voted for him in order to show that they were not racist, but others voted for him because they were not racist and simply favored his policies. Still others voted for him because they were thrilled at the prospect of showing the world that the United States really was the land of opportunity, in which a member of a once-despised and discriminated against racial minority could become president. And so when he became president, Obama embodied the hopes of many Americans — and promptly dashed them.

Throughout his disastrous eight years as president, Obama did not work to heal what remained of American’s racial divisions. Instead, he stoked racial tensions repeatedly. When he took office, the Justice Department was pursuing a case against the New Black Panther Party for voter intimidation in Philadelphia. Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, abruptly dropped the case in May 2009 and refused to cooperate with further investigations, giving the impression that the Black Panthers were getting away with voter intimidation because of their race.

Obama’s response to several widely publicized incidents exacerbated racial tensions even more. On July 16, 2009, black intellectual Henry Louis Gates found himself locked out of his Massachusetts home and began trying to force his way in. An officer, who was white, arrived to investigate a possible break-in; Gates began berating him and was arrested for disorderly conduct. Obama claimed that the police “acted stupidly” and noted the “long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by police disproportionately,” although there was no indication of racial bias in this case.