{"id":38763,"date":"2014-12-09T15:10:44","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T15:10:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=38763"},"modified":"2014-12-09T15:45:51","modified_gmt":"2014-12-09T15:45:51","slug":"unrest-over-race-is-testing-obamas-legacy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=38763","title":{"rendered":"Unrest Over Race Is Testing Obama\u2019s Legacy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unrest Over Race Is Testing Obama\u2019s Legacy<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2014-12-08<\/p>\n

Julie Hirschfeld Davis<\/strong><\/a>, White House Reporter<\/p>\n

Michael D. Shear<\/strong><\/a>, White House Correspondent<\/p>\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 As crowds of people staged \u201cdie-ins<\/a>\u201d across the country last week to protest the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police officers, young African-American activists were in the Oval Office<\/a> lodging grievances with President Obama<\/a>.<\/p>\n

He of all people \u2014 the first black president of the United States \u2014 was in a position to testify to the sense of injustice that African-Americans feel in dealing with the police every day, the activists told him. During the unrest that began with a teenager\u2019s shooting in Ferguson, Mo.<\/a>, they hoped for a strong response. Why was he holding back?<\/p>\n

Mr. Obama told the group that change is \u201chard and incremental,\u201d a participant said, while reminding them that he had once been mistaken for a waiter and parking valet. When they said their voices were not being heard, Mr. Obama replied, \u201cYou are sitting in the Oval Office, talking to the president of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Rasheen Aldridge Jr.<\/a>, 20, a community organizer from St. Louis<\/a> who attended the meeting, it was not enough. \u201cIt hurt that he didn\u2019t seem to want to go out there and acknowledge that he understands our pain,\u201d Mr. Aldridge said in an interview. \u201cIt would be a great mark on his presidential legacy if he would come out and touch an issue that everyone is scared to touch.\u201d<\/p>\n

But Mr. Obama has not been the kind of champion for racial justice that many African-Americans say this moment demands. In the days since grand juries in Missouri<\/a> and Staten Island decided not to bring charges<\/a> against white police officers who had killed unarmed black men, the president has not stood behind the protesters or linked arms with civil rights leaders. Although those closest to Mr. Obama insist that he feels a new urgency to capitalize on the attention to racial divisions, few dispute that he is personally conflicted and constrained by the position he holds…<\/p>\n

…The son of a white woman from Kansas<\/a> and a black man from Kenya<\/a> has struggled with questions about his own racial identity \u2014 described in his book \u201cDreams From My Father<\/a>\u201d \u2014 but Mr. Obama is by nature cool and cerebral and rarely shows emotion in public…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unrest Over Race Is Testing Obama\u2019s Legacy The New York Times 2014-12-08 Julie Hirschfeld Davis, White House Reporter Michael D. Shear, White House Correspondent WASHINGTON \u2014 As crowds of people staged \u201cdie-ins\u201d across the country last week to protest the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police officers, young African-American activists were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,63,8,26,20],"tags":[18650,11617,17765,18593,18655,17764,15046,18646,773,2711,596,2640,18647,18617,18648,2327,18649],"class_list":["post-38763","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-barack-obama","category-media-archive","category-politics","category-usa","tag-eric-h-holder-jr","tag-eric-holder","tag-ferguson","tag-julie-davis","tag-julie-h-davis","tag-julie-hirschfeld-davis","tag-michael-d-shear","tag-michael-shear","tag-missouri","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-times","tag-rasheen-aldridge-jr","tag-staten-island","tag-tanya-clay-house","tag-the-new-york-times","tag-valerie-jarrett"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38763","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38763"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38763\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38763"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38763"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38763"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}