By Christopher Young,
Contributing Writer,
If someone were to ask, maybe a child or a grandchild, which of our past presidents has been the best for our country at improving race-relations, equality and equity – who would you name? Would it be Jefferson or Lincoln? Maybe Roosevelt with his New Deal? Maybe Truman when he integrated the armed forces in 1948? Would it be Ike who signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957? Would it be JFK, Jr. who gave the first presidential speech on race since Lincoln, in 1963, and was assassinated less than six months later? Kennedy’s successor, Johnson, signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968. So, who would it be? Let’s look at more recent presidents.
(As an aside, some of my relatives had photos on the wall in their homes of President Kennedy. In my childhood home it was just the white Jesus. What were they at your home?)
Reagan was top-notch at exploiting white resentment. His War on Drugs wreaked havoc on Black and Brown communities. When campaigning he embraced the Southern Strategy to perfection and with the constant racist dog whistles of busing, law and order, and welfare queens – he won by a landslide. Bush #1 wasn’t far off – remember his painting his opponent Michael Dukakis as coddling criminals citing the example of furloughed murderer Willie Horton who was Black and raped a White woman and assaulted the woman’s husband. Bush rode that to victory.
Then there’s Clinton, oh how we love William Jefferson Clinton from Hope, Arkansas. He played the sax on Arsenio’s show but then chastised Black rapper Sister Souljah to appeal to white voters. Once in office he gave us the largest anti-crime bill in our history – who can forget three strikes – maligning Black and Brown communities for decades.
Bush #2 selected a Black man, Colin Powell, as Secretary of State, and then a Black woman, Condoleezza Rice, as Secretary of State in his second term. He signed the Voting Rights Reauthorization Act. Got to give him props. Then came Hurricane Katrina and his delayed response – some called it inhumane – when perilous flooding and homelessness ravaged New Orleans and 40% of the dead were African American.
Barack Obama became our 44th president in 2009, ending a 233-year streak of white presidents. Supreme power controlled by whiteness since our independence from another white man – the King of England. Yet Obama’s very election to the presidency – just because of his race – along with the decline in white population, aggrieved America, and ultimately ushered in Donald Trump.
Trump announced his candidacy in 2015, built on racial resentment and anti-immigrant sentiment – after descending the gold escalator. His questioning of Obama’s birthplace had been going on for years.
It’s difficult to summarize Trump’s disdain for minorities. From his comments about Mexican’s entering America – calling them rapists – to his comments on the pro-White rally in Charlottesville – “You have very fine people on both sides” – to his attack on four freshman women in Congress, calling them The Squad and telling them to go back to where they came from. Some presidential historians say Trump is the most racist president since Andrew Johnson. Others say it’s hard to quantify since racism has been seared into America since the beginning.
In blinding contrast with President Biden, who signed an Executive Order to advance diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal government and made Juneteenth a federal holiday, Trump immediately signed Executive Orders to strip away those advancements, and so much more.
This time around, Trump has a better understanding of the power of the presidency and is using it shamelessly to get back at anyone who ever challenged him, anyone who ever disagreed with him, all while advancing a version of America that he and many of his followers seek – white supremacy.
We were warned. Congressman Bennie Thompson warned us. Congresswoman Liz Cheney warned us. General Mark Milley warned us. And of course, Joe Biden warned us. Today, as Americans and people all over the world watch daily indecencies toward others, the striping of norms, the installation of deeply inexperienced Trump devotees to vaulted positions of power, the firing of nearly 300,000 federal workers, a nearly all-white cabinet, a senseless trade war that is throwing economies worldwide into chaos – do you suppose folks are beginning to see things for what they actually are?
In the conclusion of the paper entitled, “A Historical Analysis of Racism Within the US Presidency: Implications for African Americans and the Political Process,” dated, July 2, 2021, the authors state what we all know – “Systemic racism is pervasive throughout all of society and continues to rob many African Americans of the opportunity to live up to their fullest potential.” The full scholarly paper can be viewed at https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8250541.
A year earlier, Princeton University’s International Economics Section published a paper, Wealth of Two Nations: The U.S. Racial Wealth Gap, 1860-2020. It read, “Immediately after Emancipation, the white to Black racial wealth gap in the U.S. was nearly 60 to 1. By 1920, it was 10 to 1, and by 1950 it was 7 to 1. Today – more than seventy years later – it remains at 6 to 1.”
An organic mix of politics, racism, greed and indifference always prevails in America. Through our history, for the very most part, our own president’s, people we expect to have integrity and character, end up through their policies, saying no to equality and no to justice at the levels that could truly bring about change.
I wonder now, if someone asks, maybe a child or grandchild, who is the worst president in your lifetime for race-relations, equality and equity – who would you name?
And so it goes in America, still: a white man in absolute power, and this particular one, cracking the whip more fiercely than we can comprehend in 2025 with no moral shame whatsoever, as America, and a huge percent of Americans, settle deeper into our historical roots.
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