Author: Danté Fair

For me personally I was too young and uneducated to follow what actions the former president took while in office so I’m not posting to speak about that. I wanted to use this post to explain what I believe Obama did for the black community. He gave us hope, it was the first time in my live that I realized that anything is possible. Up until that point I would’ve never thought that I would be able to look up to a President that has the same skin color as me. He broke the standard of whiteness through a whole lot of adversity and people praying on his downfall. But even hope and breaking the norm has consequences. When President Obama was elected it made everyone believe that racism was over and that the U.S. was in a “post-racial era” as described in class. This belief allowed people to relax even if they didn’t believe that the issue of race was over. This relaxation allowed for the countless acts of discrimination, hatred, harm, and misuse of the law with regard to minorities in this country. Im not saying that these actions wouldn’t have happened otherwise, I’m saying that the slightly period of relaxation allows people to fall to their “roots” and the “roots” of the United States of America is the act of racism and unequal treatment based on systems that were put in place to hinder those who aren’t white.

Before reading this piece I was completely unaware of restrictive covenants. I had always believed that it was a personal preference of the person selling the home. But now I am aware of the fact that the discriminatory action of refusing to sell someone of a different race a home is written into the neighborhood laws. I was completely shocked while reading this piece because it is just another example showing how the dominant race uses laws and restrictions to hinder the success or comfortably of the minority race. To add to that, although this reading is from 2005, I find it ridiculous that these restrictive covenants haven’t been thrown away. The fact that there are people still abiding by these racist restrictions shows that we haven’t made much progress in this country. There was a time in which it seemed as if there was an amazing amount of progress being made towards equality. But now it seems like the dominant group thinks minority groups are “content” with where they are, which couldn’t be more wrong. This requires the minority groups to fight even harder, and make sure everyone knows that they are not content. More change is necessary.

Throughout high school I had always seen Abe Lincoln as a hero because of his fight in freeing slaves. But after reading this letter my idea of this president has completely changed. Although we talked about this in class on 2/4/19, I was still shocked to read that his main focus was just saving the Union. His words, “If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that” (A. Lincoln). This clearly shows that it did not matter to him what happened to the slaves, his main focus was saving the Union and preserving its ideas. There was no focus on the thoughts, feelings, or morality of the slaves. They were still indeed seen as property, not human. After reading this I will no longer see him as a hero although he had a major role in freeing the slaves within the United States. I will simply see him as another individual that made their decision based on what would be best for themselves and the people who held the same beliefs as them.