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While many pundits have focused on President Obama’s gun violence remarks at a gathering for the National Urban League in New
Orleans, I largely ignored those comments because, well, they’re pretty meaningless. Obama isn’t going to do anything to limit the sale of 6,000 rounds of ammo, so there’s really no need for me to pay him much attention. But this comment did stand out for me:
“They’re not watching Real Housewives… You gotta earn success… That wasn’t in my prepared remarks… I’m just saying.”
What I can’t, for the life of me, figure out, is what President Obama could possibly know about *earning* anything. I mean, for a man whose resume is only about a half page long, he has an awful lot of advice on earning.
What really qualifies Obama to even be president? His first job as a corporate PR hack (oh, he didn’t tell you about that?) ? His short time as a community organizer in Chicago? His time as Michele Obama’s intern? His short term as a Constitutional law professor?
Is a man who admittedly whittled away too much time as a youth ”puff, puff, passing”, the leader of the Choom Choom gang, really in any position to wag his finger at young people, or black people, for watching Basketball Wives?
One thing to understand is that America took a chance on Obama – he didn’t earn it. Like it or not, earning the grand job of President of the United States of America has evolved to require a series of stepping stones – legislator, governor, and the like. The American electorate usually requires that its candidates demonstrate that they can lead over time before they can ascend to the White House. It may not be fair, but at least in the modern era, that has been the central canon for our assessment of leadership. The 2008 election, with Clinton and Obama, was our first modern experiment with untested candidates.
If President Obama had wanted to earn it, he would’ve ran for Congress, then mayor, then governor – for example. Obama didn’t win because he earned it. He won because he was the right guy, at the right time, and American voters were willing to take a chance on an unknown after everything they’d been through during the disastrous years of “Dubya”. That’s rare. And if I called it anything, I’d call it dumb luck before I called it earning.
Consider this: what would you be saying right now if Mitt Romney was a first term Senator who had as the highlight of career his time as a community organizer? Would you be taking advice from him right now on how to earn your way to the top? Doubt it.
In fact, Romney is mocked now because everyone knows that he didn’t earn his way to the top. He inherited it. But you can’t be hypocrites here and berate Romney for not earning his own stripes, then turn right around and pretend that Obama earned his way to the top.
If the President wants to veer away from his prepared remarks to say a little something extra, it should be about what he’s going to do to help black folk if he’s re-elected. Stay on message. But please, Mr. Obama, spare us the whole “you gotta do better” routine, because many of us look back at you and think the same thing. Obama is, more than anything, a man who could use a mirror.
Yvette Carnell is a former Capitol Hill and campaign staffer turned writer. She is currently an editor and contributor to Yourblackworld.
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Shakir
September 6, 2012 at 6:22 pm
Lets attempt to put all of this in its proper political social and economic context. Say we are playing a game and one was able to choose what ever character you wanted, character 1 straight white guy. 2 gay white guy 3 straight white woman 4 gay white woman 5 staight black woman 6 gay black woman and so on. what character would have the easiest most and best options if this game was the game of life. what character would have the least conflict and the easiest and best chances at success in this game if it was a game called life, in 2012 2013. this is a chess board no matter what anyone thinks, try playing this game any other way, and history and evidence proves the outcome.
ALLISON
August 25, 2012 at 1:04 pm
Should the Puff, Puff, Pass blogger be taken seriously 72 days before an important election in our Nation’s History? We stand at the precipice of a trajectory that one party has warned if elected, they will take us back 50+ years. They are dealing with voter suppression in multiple States in an effort to do so, and African Americans stand too lose the most if this party re-gains the White House. Yet with your platform you are not encouraging folks to vote for the lesser of two evils. What am I missing? The majority of us realize The President does not have a long resume, but he is Our President. I wish you would respect him as such. Share your knowledge, but don’t indict. For We are going to be a world of hurt if the Republicans win this time around. Never forget what they did less than 12 years ago to this Nation.
charlie b.
August 24, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Inotice yvette is very critical of Obama but less
critical of past president who did nothing for black.Why the big difference Yvette?
Phillip Battle
August 19, 2012 at 10:49 pm
FWIS– your analysis of Obama’s upbringing is suggesting that he’s incapable of feeling the souls of the descendants of Americas Slaves. Which allows him to be comfortable with not addressing the issues of the African American who’s fore parents have suffered at the hands of the fore parents of those he surrounds himself with?
Boycott Christmas 2012
FromWhereI'mStanding
August 10, 2012 at 3:55 pm
Is it at all possible that Obama’s berating s of African-American in public is deeply rooted in the ridicule he received as ‘black child’, per se, reared in a predominantly white household? The vestige of such an experience, I surmised, carried over into his adulthood, and is the basis of Obama’s somewhat self-deprecating remarks. This may also be the reason for his need for White acceptance and approval beyond the pragmatism of any President occupying the Oval Office. Like so many of our public figures—Negroes, specifically, and Politician like Bill Clinton, generally– Obama has an unshakable need to “Puff, Puff, Pass” on anything that might substantively convey his love affair with African-American Culture and expression, but not African-American people!
Thus, Obama is truly a man of historical and contemporary making: He is at once filled with hubris and charged with the duties of perpetuating the American Oligarchy’s doctrines of Class warfare, White Supremacy, and Imperialism. And, therefore, he cannot address the concerns of the African-American, indeed the condition of Poor folks as well, with any integrity. In the face of such a mandate and his own self-betrayal, the most African-American’s can expect from Obama, and politicians like him, is swagger and ego! Haven’t you caught his Al Green act?
joceeco
August 23, 2012 at 2:47 am
You are a creative writer, and if you have not already do so, you should consider putting your thoughts into book form! I really enjoyed reading your comment.
ncjohnso
July 26, 2012 at 2:26 pm
I agree with you to some extent. I am a senior in college and Obama is the first person I have ever voted for. So i am a supporter, who is critical, but still a supporter. The thing that bothers me most is this “rule” within Washington politics that blacks need to be chastised by our political leaders, either telling us to stop being lazy and etc. everyone knows the routine. We face some real systemic issues and the “talking down to” that we regularly get from people in Washington (Obama, Republicans, Democrats, etc) is so out-dated and condescending. All I want is to be treated like a constituency the same way any other American constituency is treated. These are systemic issues that need to be addressed through policy and reform, not condescending or politics of respectability. Unemployment rate and education disparity have nothing to do with Basketball Wives.
K. Wall
July 26, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Very well stated.
K. Wall
July 26, 2012 at 8:25 pm
Very well stated.
JusMyThoughts
August 19, 2012 at 6:54 pm
I see your point of view but if you don’t think television is a stigmatism to our community you’re wrong in my opinion. Many people (not only black) waste their lives away sitting in front of a Maury or Judge Judy program. And the shows that show pregnant teens really don’t help to detour pregnancy in our youth it seems to only encourage it. I’m speaking from personal experience from watching the lives of the youth in my family and I can see what encourages and motivates them.
Ray
July 26, 2012 at 1:24 pm
Man, the author of this article is hatin hard. Jealous much. Notice the author didn’t notice Obama spent 12 years in legislation. President of the Harvard Law Review. Harvard Law Degree. Columbia degree. Wiped the floor with veteran politicians like Clinton and McCain. And he didn’t earn anything? Can u say hater? When u are biracial and your name is Barack Obama you cant help BUT earn your way in life. It seems like the author of this article is jealous she couldn’t accomplish half of what Obama has done if she tried. Sad.
lin
July 26, 2012 at 3:42 pm
I agree.
lin
July 26, 2012 at 3:45 pm
The author is biracial. I bet a DNA test would show she has European blood that Obama. I wish she would go with her European people and leave black folks alone.
BiggestBoss
July 26, 2012 at 4:03 pm
Actually I know the author, Yvette, personally, and she is not biracial. She has two black parents. Yes, she is lighter than both of them, but they’re black. So you shouldn’t say she’s biracial just bcuz she’s light skinned.
dave
July 27, 2012 at 11:27 pm
i grew up in the same neigborhood with yvette. her mother is white, came to the u.s. from south africa as a child. yvette is bi-racial, stop lying and tell the truth.
yvette
July 28, 2012 at 10:43 am
I normally don’t reply to comments, but this is outrageous. Firstly, Dave, I’d be curious to know where you grew up, because you, obviously, didn’t grow up around me (Yvette Carnell). My mother, a few shades darker than me, would be shocked to learn that she’s a white woman. And she was born and raised in Georgia, not South Africa.
Really, it’s one thing to disagree with me, another altogether to outright lie and pretend that you knew me and my family.
Feel free to contact me Dave. You can reply here, or leave me a Facebook message, because I think we both know you owe both me and the readers of this blog an apology for passing off a boldface lie in an effort to buttress your argument.
Yvette Carnell
dave
July 27, 2012 at 11:22 pm
If your only accomplishment is a former Capitol Hill and campaign staffer turned writer…you would be jealous and angry if compared to obama. not even a half page resume. lol
Derrick
July 26, 2012 at 11:42 am
Conscious Blacks see through this dude like windex!
This was a front move to get Black votes, plain & simple, but negroids are so ‘high’ on the mullato president, they can’t see past his madness.
How come Blacks are ALWAYS LAST on errthing, but FIRST when it comes to crime, dis-eases and murder!!!
O’Drama don’t give a d**n about Black people…PERIOD! He’s in office to help the chili chokers, white fe-males, and asians gain economic strength, while Blacks continue to suffer!
THIS MULLATO IS CONTROLLED BY THE ELITE, LIKE THE REST OF THOSE ‘RESIDENTS’ THAT WERE IN THE BLACK HOUSE
kelly
July 29, 2012 at 2:10 pm
@ Yvette C
did someone hit a nerve by calling you bi-racial, when you stated in your blog: “I think we both know you owe both me and the readers of this blog an apology for passing off a boldface lie in an effort to buttress your argument.”
what’s wrong yvette, you can dish it out but you cannot take it. how about all the lies you write daily about people in your articles..will you send an apology to president obama and rev. sharpton? you look like a fool asking for an apology after some of the c**p you have written about others.
i noticed you took down my first post…you’re still a half breed, mutt…that’s a fact…accept the truth. i forgot, you’re a little sensitive when it comes to someone writing about you.
and don’t give us that bull c**p about you don’t normally respond, when you first started writing for ybw you did it all the time until a reader told you how stupid you looked responding and how we didn’t see boyce or any other respected writers on here arguing with bloggers.
i guess a leopard doesn’t change it spots..you’re still stupid!
BiggestBoss
July 29, 2012 at 8:24 pm
WHOA! For real???? u on some real s**t! I KNOW her, and you’ve never met her, but you know she’s biracial!? How? Wow. I guess it’s time for the n****r police, gotta be black as Boyce “real n***a” Watkins to post on ybw huh? Never thought n****s advocate teh paper bag test again. Errybody hate the light skin chicks… I know. Hey Kelly, how we know u ain’t biaracial? And is barack a half-breed? Bet you’d jump on that half-breed d**k given half a chance… but y’all black women just hate each other. .. sick
kelly
July 29, 2012 at 11:34 pm
your use of the n word shows your intelligence, therefore i will not respond to your retarded a*s!
joceeco
August 23, 2012 at 2:38 am
Don’t take your anger out on us. You need apologize for using that word!!!
Sincerely yours,
Retards
Ms.Virgo
September 13, 2012 at 12:43 pm
I don’t know Derrick … “how come?”