1) Frederick Harris states that black vote rs put Essays

1) Frederick Harris states that "black vote rs put aside policy demands for the prize of electing one of their own to the White House" (p. 169) and implies that President Obama should be more responsive to the black policy agenda. Discuss whether President Obama should have been more responsive to black substantive concerns. What role do black voters and black leaders play in Harris' analysis of the Obama presidency? President Barack Obama just happens to be Black, that doesn't mean that he was obligated to dedicate his term to catering to the needs and wants of Blacks more than any other race. While he was in office, Obama pretty much sold African Americans a dream and rarely fulfilled his promises. His commitments to bettering the lives of Blacks were carried out at a minimum ad for sure put on the back burner. The concerns that Blacks wanted addressed were the bit least of a worry for the president, and he blatantly disregarded them. It's clear that Blacks were overjoyed yet blinded about Obama becoming president, therefore we believed in him too much. Blacks praised him without even getting to know if he was the best candidate to get things done. I think the biggest mistake that the voters of Obama made was that we saw color above anything else. And for that we paid for it in a huge way , because even after he's out of office, we're not ahead as we'd expected to be. Surely, when Obama was initially elected, he came into a mess of a country that would take a miracle to clean up. He gave it his best shot, but still catering more to patching up the issues of the racial divide opposed to the needs of his own kind. On several occasions the president gave us his experiences of his upbringing and the difficulties he faced being bi-racial. I think he continuously used them to gain sympathy and just like any other candidate running for presidency, used it to his advantage. President Obama's strategy was one that allowed him to lure Blacks into voting for him, but what shadowed him was false hopes. During his candidacy, Obama repetitively mentioned that we should deal with the issues of race and its original sin which is slavery. Going forward, he displayed interest in all else except race, which he sparingly spoke about. He preached that himself had to be twice as good and half as Black which he definitely revealed to be a false promise and double standard of integration. For most of his term in office, Obama declined to talk about the ways in which race complicates present America. Not only now, but the president refused to address race throughout his own presidency. During his time as president, America had extensive acts of hate wars, police brutality, and off the chart numbers of white law enforcers murdering unarmed Blacks. When it came to dealing with these situations, he dealt with them with the same wink and nod approach he used when he was being elected. A s a consequence of Obama's historic presidency, issues of racial inequality and injustice have been pushed further to the margins of national politics. H is approach for ensuring that Blacks mattered were ridiculed during his 2012 campaign, where black voters were most looked as volunteers. He portrayed to be a great leader for us but condoned the attitude of let us make history again above all other things more important. The truth is, us black voters need to be as critical in setting policy agendas as we are when it comes to voting. Obama has pretty much added to normalizing the dysfunction and believes that society is color-blind and race doesn't matter. He couldn't be more wrong. Instead of him taking the race issues by the horn and confronting them head-on, he still deals with them through the back door. I think Obama emphasized too much on what white America thoughts of him were, rather than used his political powers to the much-needed capacity that Bl acks could have greatly benefitted from. President Obama should have listened to candidate Obama, then he would not be following a pattern of becoming