The Struggles of being the First Black President

A president is the leader of a state, which is sometimes referred to as a republic. The president is the leader or ruler of a Republican, dictatorial, or democratic government. This title is usually used as an extension of the leader of a group, such as a social group or a corporate entity. A president, according to Smith (21), is a person who holds the highest political position in a country. He is the president of a republic and the head of the executive of many countries.

In modern times, the word president refers to the individual who serves as the Republic’s head of state. This was first derived in the year 1987 from the constitution in the United States. This came up with the office of the president in the state. However, previously, the United States have been calling other people in different capacities presidents. Such people are the president of the Continental Congress or the president of the Massachusetts Provincial Congress. Nevertheless, in the older sense, these were the presiding officers who did not have an executive authority. Collins (11) asserts that this term was previously derived from American universities and colleges where the president was usually the head.

The United States is headed by a president. Most of the citizens in the country are white while black people are the minority. Most of the previously elected presidents have been white since the people who elect them have had a fear of being ruled by a black president. However, in 2009, the citizens gained courage and elected President Obama as the 44th president of the United States (Smith 37). Obama is well known as a black president since he is an African American citizen. He was the first president who was an African-American who served in the United States and also the only elected president that was born out of the contagious United States. Barrack Obama told the people living in America that they should stop racism and slavery which he termed as the origin of sin in America. This paper aims to discuss President Barrack Obama struggles as the first black president in the United States.

The Irony of President Obama

President Obama’s irony is that he grew to become the blackest successful politician in the history of America. He used to avoid the previous issues of racism by acting and behaving well. Biden (59) stated that his blackness that was very indelible used to irradiate everything he touched. The roots of this irony were in America which was the country he led. Two conflicting facts were premised on the political system of the American history. The first one was the of-stated love for democracy, and the other one was the inscribed supremacy that was inscribed at every government’s level (Collins 46). Historically, African Americans, in a paradox, have been restricted to the realm of agitation and protest. However, when President Obama tried to look and discover what had happened, he was not agitating or even protesting. He was employing federal power but not appealing to it. He had a power of the black, and he was received in several quarters of United States.

This could not be changed with any amount of moderation that was rhetorical. He did not care whether he addressed himself as a black American. Everybody in the state was asked to pull together which seemed so irrelevant. He refused to cast aspersions on the authorities that were investigating him, and he did not either speculate on the events which rather meant nothing to him. He also expressed his connection to Martin Trayon after his death. A monument of moderation is what he called his presidency. His speeches were given with an originality of ideas that were held by conservatives (Tate 71). President Obama was a conservative revolutionary who believed and preached change and progress in the United States. His character could not reveal the sphere where he held a singular race of gravity.

Race, the Presidency, and Grand Crises

Obama was born by a black man and a white woman, which is his background. He grew up in a multiethnic community in the universe. In his entire life, he seems to have enjoyed a distinctive vantage point on relations of race in the United States (Beckles 70). He has shown a desirable dexterousness as he usually navigates between white and black America. He struggled to find a language that he could use to address many people in both communities. His first speech was based on an indication of a nation that had a shameful history and was colored by old prejudices. All this was done when he first emerged in 2004 at the Democratic National Convention. At this time, talks about the effects of racism in the United States were not discussed. He rather talked about parenting power and condemned those who used to say that when a black child is carrying a book, he or she is acting white.

President Obama was celebrated widely after his first elections in 2008. He had received unanimous support from African American votes and other votes from tens of millions of white people. However, after the celebrations which were a historic triumph, there were so many questions being asked by the American citizens (Kluger 62). One of them is that they wondered what the white house would mean to the people who were racists in the United States. They also wondered if the presidency of Obama would bring the kind of policies that they had experienced earlier from other presidents like Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson who created wider gaps of racial equality. They also wondered what kind of difference that a black President like Barrack Obama would bring in America.

The history of United States had shown that sustainability of an opportunity and social qualitative reform in race relations area aroused from the crisis that was leveraged by great social and political organizing. This means that there was a crisis that terrified the ability of those people who were in power to maintain and sustain the countries governability and control. According to Black (11), political leaders and presidents of states are captives of the circumstance and periods that they inherit in their particular time of rule. The leaders who are usually elected have the capability to advance a political and policy agenda. Nonetheless, this only happens within the confines of the societal and broader chronological constraints of their times.

The status quo of politics is said to be stubborn in America. However, in the United States, there exists a system of checks and balances which are rarely elastic enough to respond to the civil society’s relentless call for change. Under extraordinary conditions, circumstances are when massive and fundamental social transformations occur. Some of these conditions occur when the efforts of ordinary citizens are focused on movements that are social and have high demands that threaten the elites with a crisis (Smith 21). This type of trend in the United States has always been seen throughout the history of racial relations. The question on whether President Obama would have the ability to major advancements in the United States in areas particularly those of race relations and social equality was relying on political viability, the economy of the state, political evolution balance of forces, social institutions and the ideological atmosphere that was his will.

Uniqueness of Obama’s’ Presidential term

In his term, President Obama used to say that he always stood on the shoulders of all those people who came before him (King 31). This can mean that he always admired the presidents who came before he was elected. Some of the presidents included Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, John Kennedy, and Lyndon Johnson. They all inspired him in his journey to fight as a president of the United States.

However, he was also standing on other Africa Americans who were forced to labor for White House (Kluger 92). Those who were employed and those who were directly involved in White House in various roles. Some of these roles were servants in the white house, slaves, officials who were either elected or appointed, reporters, advisors, service agents, photographers, artists, musicians and much more. He also appreciated the activists who used to lobby and give pressure to the White House as they were in their struggle for racial and social justice. The narratives of these people used to resonate in the home of Obama when he was a president.

Black People in America

White House Black history is full of stories and narratives of heroic men, women, and youth who had been trying to make the state live up to the egalitarian and liberationist principles that were expressed in its founding documents. Among this documents included the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of United States (Mitchell 22). African Americans and people with a different color other than white were legally disenfranchised and were denied citizenship rights for a period that were more than 200 years. They were also denied their right to vote for the country’s leader an order that used to come from the White House. However, black American people claimed to be Americans despite the fact that they were being oppressed by their state through racial apartheid that characterized the majority of the history of United States (Collins 12).

Obama’s concern about his Safety as a President

The election of Obama was seen as a historic milestone that spoke as racial healing in America. The race clearly mattered, and it manifested throughout his presidency. African American people were usually criticized and told that they would have to be twice as good as their counterparts who were the whites so that they would be classified as equal. These were the people who had come earlier before the movement of the civil rights. The pre-civil rights advice seemed to be valid after the 2008 election results in the United States (Williams 17). However, being equal and competent has never been enough despite the fact that Obama’s election made it clear that the unprecedented opportunities were available to all people regardless of their color. The whites seem to be mediocre or cannot be simply beaten because they are qualified. The race seemed to matter more, despite the fact that they were being ruled by a black president.

During Obama’s campaigns and nominations, rumors of race permeated the country. However, this did not scare him as his campaigns sought to make a calculated decision after they discovered that race dominated the campaigns. Instead, he decided to deracialize his campaign immediately he sensed the discomfort with which the whites used to approach the race discussions. He was a strong president who never feared anything. He rather went ahead and gave a speech in Philadelphia that was on, “Towards a More Perfect Union.” The speech was received well since a performance that showed some form of mediocrity would have ended his nomination quest. Nevertheless, as much as he dealt with race, he had to apply a down low blackness whenever he sought to help the black people in his quest to help each and every person in the United States (Collins 36).

This shows that he had fears of dealing with race openly as the white people in America were fragile towards the course. He was forced to maintain his strategy politically prudent. The people who were supporting color were patient, and they understood that maybe there was more that could be done in the name of social justice and racial equity that was under the rubric of helping the economically challenged people regardless of their skin color. Obama’s victory was described as a ”Pyrrhic Victory” and a ”post-racial” accomplishment. However, this described two extremes race that still mattered whereas his victory was more than symbolism.

A king beloved community is yet to be achieved despite the fact that a dialectic justice continued to yield greater margins of social justice on its range and de facto equivalent fortification under law. Obama knew that threats to a new President were not new and he expected it even in his period of the campaign. In his inauguration, people wondered why he was so exposed, but he did not find any big deal about it. Despite the fact that there were so many posts on the internet that were meant to threaten him, he stood firm (Tate 48). The race was certainly the reason as to why he was threatened.

The issue of racism seems to dominate the United States. This makes it hard for another black president to vie for the presidency in the state. However, after the Obama rule, the Americans now believe that African American people have the qualities to rule a country in a good way. Nevertheless, while there have been dissimilar strategies and ideologies regarding equity and social justice of African Americans, the nature of the state that was pervasive and discriminative muted the distinctions of sanctioned discrimination during Obama’s rule.

Conclusion

Many black people who have become presidents in the United States have struggled in one way or the other. Most of them have suffered racial discrimination and threats from the people they rule especially after the elections. Nevertheless, President Obama is seen to have grown to become the blackest successful politician in the history of America. He avoided the previous issues of racism by acting and behaving well. During his campaigns and nominations, rumors of race permeated the country. However, this did not scare him since his campaigns sought to make a calculated decision after they discovered that race dominated the campaigns.

Obama was aware that threats to a new President were not new and he expected it even in his period of the campaign. In his inauguration, people wondered why he was so exposed but he did not see any big deal about it. Despite the fact that there were so many posts on the internet that were meant to threaten him, he stood firm. The race was certainly the reason as to why he was threatened. Nonetheless, he made it through the two terms despite the threats and the struggles as a black president.

Work Cited

Beckles, Colin. ”Black struggles in cyberspace: Cyber-segregation and cyber-Nazis.“ The Western Journal of Black Studies 21.1 (2014): 12.

Black, Earl, and Merle Black. Divided America: The ferocious power struggle in American politics. Simon and Schuster, 2007.

Collins, Patricia Hill. Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge, 2013.

King, Mel. Chain of change: Struggles for Black community development. South End Press, 2013.

Kluger, Richard. Simple justice: The history of Brown v. Board of Education and Black America’s struggle for equality. Vintage, 2015.

Mitchell, Jacquelyn. ”Reflections of a Black social scientist: Some struggles, some doubts, some hopes.“ Harvard Educational Review 52.1 (2009): 27-44.

Smith, Susan Lynn. Sick and tired of being sick and tired: Black women’s health activism in America, 1890-1950. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2010.

Tate, Katherine. From protest to politics: The new black voters in American elections. Harvard University Press, 2011.

Williams, Rhonda Y. The politics of public housing: Black women’s struggles against urban inequality. Oxford University Press, 2009.