{"id":540,"date":"2025-06-16T19:35:41","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T19:35:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/?p=540"},"modified":"2025-06-16T19:46:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T19:46:59","slug":"he-didnt-do-nothing-the-myth-that-obama-ignored-black-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/?p=540","title":{"rendered":"\u201cHe Didn\u2019t Do Nothing\u201d: The Myth That Obama Ignored Black People"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Every so often, I hear it\u2014from intelligent, well-meaning Black folks; from white people looking for political cover or just drinking the Republican Kool-Aid served hot on Fox News; or worse, from Black men who swear up and down that \u201c[insert name] <\/em>is not a racist.\u201d<\/strong> And the claim?<\/p>\n\n\n\n


\u201cObama didn\u2019t do anything for Black people.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s delivered with a shrug, a smirk, or just enough conviction to sound like fact.
But it\u2019s not. And the fact that so many repeat it\u2014across race and party lines\u2014makes it all the more urgent to push back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you\u2019ve been carrying the weight of 400 years, you want your \u201cfirst\u201d to do the impossible. To flip the table. To take us all to the mountaintop. But we have to be honest\u2014not just about what Obama did, but about what he was up against, and what we<\/em> did or didn\u2019t demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So here it is\u2014the receipts, the nuance, and the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Did Obama Actually Do for Black People?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can call it policy, I call it protection. The ACA cut the uninsured rate among Black Americans by over 40%<\/strong>\u2014from 19% in 2010 to around 11% by 2016. It expanded Medicaid (where states allowed it), covered pre-existing conditions, and gave folks access to treatment for the very things that had been taking us out for generations: hypertension, diabetes, asthma. That wasn\u2019t a handout. That was a health plan with life on the line.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

2. My Brother\u2019s Keeper<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critics said he lectured Black boys. But My Brother\u2019s Keeper<\/strong> was more than words\u2014it was structure. Obama launched it in 2014 to support boys and young men of color through mentoring, job training, and educational opportunity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s the genius part: he made it a public-private partnership<\/strong>, so corporate donors carried most of the funding load. That meant Congress couldn\u2019t kill it<\/strong>, even if they wanted to.
Learn more here: My Brother\u2019s Keeper Alliance (Obama Foundation)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n

\u201cI always tell young people in particular: Do not say that nothing\u2019s changed when it comes to race in America, unless you lived through being a Black man in the 1950s or ’60s or ’70s. It is incontrovertible that race relations have improved, but we have more work to do.\u201d<\/em>
\u2014Barack Obama, Howard University Commencement, 2016<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Obama never claimed to be a messiah. He led a country that questioned his birth certificate, his legitimacy, and even his wife\u2019s humanity. That he got anything done at all is a study in political chess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. Criminal Justice Reform<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

While Congress stalled, Obama commuted over 1,700 federal prison sentences<\/strong>\u2014mostly for nonviolent drug offenses. That\u2019s more than the last 13 presidents combined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also launched DOJ investigations into abusive police departments (Ferguson, Cleveland, Baltimore), banned juvenile solitary confinement<\/strong> in federal prisons, and shifted the conversation around mass incarceration into mainstream policy debates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

4. Support for Black Institutions<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He directed over $1 billion to HBCUs<\/strong>, expanded Pell Grants, and increased access to college for low-income and first-generation students\u2014many of them Black.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under Obama, Black-owned businesses saw a rise in federal contracts and SBA loans<\/strong>, helping some to scale or survive during the recession. The recovery wasn\u2019t perfect, but it wasn\u2019t absent either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

5. Presence and Power<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s not play small here\u2014symbolism matters. Michelle Obama walking into Buckingham Palace with cornrows beneath her hat? That shook people. His Cabinet, his judicial appointments, his two little Black girls chasing each other through the White House halls\u2014that mattered<\/strong>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n


Not just to us, but to every white supremacist who clutched their pearls and tried to rewrite the rules once they saw a Black man sitting at the Resolute Desk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

\u201cBut He Did More for the Asians and LGBTQ+ Community\u2026\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, I\u2019ve heard this one too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama signed the repeal of Don\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell<\/em>, supported marriage equality, and stood against anti-Asian hate. That\u2019s true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I always ask this:
What exactly did Black folks ask for?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The LGBTQ+ community organized around very clear, very specific policy goals. Marriage equality. Legal protections. Anti-discrimination laws. Asian communities mobilized for hate crime protections. They made it known.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, we\u2014Black America\u2014weren\u2019t unified in what we demanded. Some wanted reparations. Others wanted education reform. Some wanted justice reform. Others just wanted him to go full Malcolm in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can\u2019t pass legislation for vibes. And no president, no matter how Black, can respond to scattered demands with a unified bill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his memoir, Obama owned the criticism\u2014and the constraint. He knew what people wanted. But he also knew the math. You can\u2019t pass a bill with no votes.<\/strong> And the America he inherited didn\u2019t suddenly become post-racial in 2008. If anything, his presidency exposed just how deep the resistance really goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cI understand the temptation to want a Black president to champion only Black causes. But that\u2019s not how America works. If I had spent all my time talking about how Black folks were getting the shaft, I wouldn\u2019t have gotten anything done.\u201d<\/em>
\u2014Barack Obama, A Promised Land<\/em> (2020)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In his memoir, Obama owned the criticism\u2014and the constraint. He knew what people wanted. But he also knew the math. You can\u2019t pass a bill with no votes.<\/strong>
And the America he inherited didn\u2019t suddenly become post-racial in 2008. If anything, his presidency exposed just how deep the resistance really goes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Final Word<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the next time someone hits you with \u201cObama didn\u2019t do anything for Black people,\u201d ask them this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhat did we ask for, and who tried to stop him when he did?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the receipts are here. The record is real. And the truth is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Obama did what he could with what he had\u2014and what he built is still holding up.<\/strong>
It’s fact, don’t let anybody no matter the color tell you differently, if we keep letting them erase truth and the success of our people and letting them convince you that facts don’t matter…eventually they won’t.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Every so often, I hear it\u2014from intelligent, well-meaning Black folks; from white people looking for political cover or just drinking the Republican Kool-Aid served…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-540","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-race"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=540"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":544,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/540\/revisions\/544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}