[img]139|left|Jessica Gadsden||no_popup[/img]Barack Obama is running out of ways to disappoint me. I had thought that there wasn’t one more way he could kick me in the proverbial gut, but I was wrong. It turns out, he’s one of those black people.
The Congressional Black Congress and other prominent African Americans have asked the question:Is President Obama doing anything for us? After all the Bushes, helped friends and cronies alike. Halliburton, and the now renamed Blackwater saw some halcyon days. Even President Bill Clinton did all he could to single-handedly stamp out unemployment in Arkansas. So it’s no wonder the black folks thought they’d get a little “somethin’, somethin’” from our first black President. And no we, didn’t expect any personal favors – those clearly went to big contributors, and a bunch of fellow Harvard alumni. All many of us could give were our votes. Give we did. So it’s no wonder we, who are sicker, poorer, and more unemployed than our white brethren, thought a tiny bit of government largesse might come our way. Boy, were we wrong.
Obama’s response, generally, has been – anything that lifts all boats will lift ours, too. Is it that Obama is not a student of history or just not cognizant of statistics?
A few weeks ago after the half-day White House “jobs summit” and brainstorming session fell from the news, Obama sat down with White House reporter April Ryan who asked (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/april-d-ryan/) the President what so many of us wished we could, “[I]n your opinion, what is the state of black America?”
Was He Modeling After Sarah?
Obama gave a partially Dickensian, and partially oblivious answer. He said, “You know, I think this continues to be the best of times and the worst of times. I mean, I think it’s the best of times in the sense that never has there been more opportunity for African Americans who have received a good education and are in a position then to walk through the doors that are opened. And, obviously, you and me sitting here in the Oval Office is a testament to that.”
I wondered then if he was doing his best impersonation of Sarah Palin. Clearly this is a man who didn’t read one of the most commented on articles in The New York Times just a few short weeks ago. Maybe there’s something about executive mansions that shields one from newspapers. Obviously he doesn’t know a lot of black folks. He turns out to be one of those black folks who thinks everything’s okay because, well, he’s okay. It’s the same line Oprah Winfrey and Bill Cosby continue to preach, despite all the evidence to the contrary. I hate to burst their collective bubbles – but it’s not okay out here. Education is not the savior. Sure there are some psychic benefits, but a careful cost/benefit analysis shows that it’s not the thing that’s going to put black people over the top.
As the November New York Times article demonstrated, having a degree was insufficient to close the so-called racial gap. A degree, undergraduate or graduate, does little to level the playing field. For me, and many of my fellow under and unemployed friends (from all sorts of “top” schools), this is not news.
How Many Interviews Are Enough?
Most of us made some obvious adjustments. We have scrubbed our resumes of anything remotely ethnic sounding – whether it was our names or our school affiliations. I, especially, encouraged my friends to do that when my last boss had a laugh over the applicant’s name – asking his secretary to guess who was black and who was not. Needless to say the Lakesha’s of the world did not get called in for interviews. Other friends of mine, black women, went so far as to buy wigs for interviews – so as not to offend potential employers with all that radical ‘natural’ hair. After all the New Yorker has shown us that having an afro is somehow akin to carrying an AK-47 or an Uzi. And Publisher’s Weekly (http://www.publishersweekly.com/article/CA6711692.html) demonstrates that an afro is somehow the subject of ridicule, or humor – either way something deviating from “normal.”
All that often isn’t enough. I have the battle scars from about ten years of interviewing – which resulted in two very mediocre, underpaying jobs. When I say underpaying, I mean landing a job from a multibillion dollar corporation willing to pay this Ivy League-educated lawyer $32,000 per year with no benefits, and no job growth potential – trust me – they were up front with that, at least. There’s nothing like applying for hundreds upon hundreds of jobs with nothing to show for it. (Now that was a fun way to spend the late nineties and early part of this decade). The telephone interviews are always promising because even I know I talk “white.”
Everyone from Human Resources to the hiring manager is very enthusiastic about your background. Then you walk in the door and it all falls apart. I’ve walked into interviews – confirmed that very morning, where the jobs is suddenly filled the minute I step into the lobby. I’ve had the combative interviews where the hiring person wants to know how I got those degrees at those schools without affirmative action. I’ve had the interview that was followed by the interview that was followed by the interview that was followed by the interview that was followed by the reference check that was followed by a seeming endless string of re-interviews – resulting in no job offer and no explanation as to why meeting with five to ten people was insufficient to determine if I was qualified for the job. Of course, if I’d just run for President . . .
Obama didn’t have any wise words of wisdom for those blacks without a college degree, either. If he’d kept up the latest research – especially that of Devah Pager, an associate professor at Princeton, he’d know that black applicants with no criminal record fared no better than white applicants who were just released from prison.
Couple all these facts with the high incarceration rates of blacks in this country, and the relatively low percentage of blacks who’ve graduated from college, and the state of black America isn’t looking good – except for Obama, of course. Perhaps, for him, that’s all that counts.
Jessica Gadsden has been controversial since the day she discovered her inner soapbox. She excoriated the cheerleaders on the editorial page of her high school paper, transferred from a co-educational university to a women's college to protest the gender-biased curfew policy, published a newspaper in law school that raked the dean over the coals with (among other things) the headline, “Law School Supports Drug Use”—and that was before she got serious about speaking out. Progressive doesn't begin to define her political views. A reformed lawyer, she is a fulltime novelist who writes under a pseudonym, of course. A Brooklyn native, she divided her college years between Hampton University and Smith.
Ms. Gadsden’s essays appear every other Tuesday. She may be contacted at www.pennermag.com
