(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) Once upon a time, millions of people seemed to believe that electing Barack Obama as president would automatically improve race relations in America. But nearly four years into the 'Age of Obama', many Americans are coming to the conclusion that choosing a black man as commander in chief has done little to speed up racial progress or soothe racial tensions. In fact, some even suspect that Obama's presence in the Oval Office may be slowing us down - and pushing us farther apart.
A new Newsweek poll puts this remarkable shift in stark relief for the first time. Back in 2008, 52 per cent of Americans told Pew Research Center that they expected race relations to get better as a result of Obama's election; only nine per cent anticipated a decline. But today that 43-point gap has vanished. According to the Newsweek survey, only 32 per cent of Americans now think that race relations have improved since the president's inauguration; roughly the same number (30 per cent) believe they have gotten worse. Factor in those who say nothing has changed and the result is staggering: nearly 60 per cent of Americans are now convinced that race relations have either deteriorated or stagnated under Obama.
Whites are especially critical of Obama's approach: a majority (51 per cent) actually believe he's been unhelpful in bridging the country's racial divide. Even blacks have concluded, by a 20-point margin, that race relations have not improved on Obama's watch.
The question now is why.
It is no surprise that race still divides America as it did since the first settlers landed on our shores. And it is no surprise that African-Americans are feeling particularly pessimistic after a recession that drove black unemployment as high as 16.7 per cent. The surprise is that one of the most encouraging signs of racial progress in our nation's history, the election of an African-American president, now seems to be deepening our divisions rather than diminishing them. But perhaps that shouldn't be so shocking either. What the Newsweek poll reveals-and what a review of recent history reiterates-is that Obama didn't create the misunderstandings and resentments that complicate a controversy like Trayvon Martin's death. He's just the spark that sets them off.
In other words, it's not him. It's us. At the heart of America's persistent racial divide is a fundamental disagreement over the frequency and severity of discrimination against African-Americans. When asked, vast majorities-89 per cent of blacks and 80 per cent of whites-agree that racial stereotyping still occurs in America today. But ask how racial stereotyping actually affects people's lives, and blacks and whites no longer see eye to eye.
The reason for this divide is simple but often overlooked: most blacks know how it feels to experience racism; most whites do not.
This is the dilemma Obama inherited: a white America eager to be convinced that racism is a thing of the past and a black America still painfully aware that it is not. So how is Obama's presence in the Oval Office driving us farther apart? By pushing all of this racial misunderstanding out onto the political playing field, where it is amplified and distorted by the polarising forces of partisanship.
Consider the events of March 23. Before that day the right and left seemed to agree that Trayvon Martin's death was a tragedy and that political posturing was verboten.
Then Obama decided to weigh in. "If I had a son," he said, "he'd look like Trayvon." As soon as his Trayvon remarks hit the wires, conservatives pulled a 180, abandoning the muted comity of the past few weeks in favour of apoplectic outrage. Rick Santorum said Obama was "seiz[ing] upon this horrific thing where families are suffering and inject[ing] ... divisive rhetoric." Newt Gingrich asked whether Obama would be "OK" if "a white ... had been shot" because "it didn't look like him." And so on.
There may be no way out of this rut. Whenever a race controversy goes national, Obama seems to feel compelled to comment-which makes sense, because he is black. Whenever Obama comments on race, Republicans seem to feel compelled to object-which makes sense, because that's how they react to everything he does.
And yet these frustrating feuds won't last forever. In the long run, the mere fact of a President Obama-a brown face alongside all those chalky portraits in our history books-will begin to have its own effect. White children will look at black children differently. Black children will look at themselves differently. And that, one hopes, will be more than enough to make up for whatever growing pains we're experiencing right now.
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