Obama’s presidency consummated black liberalism’s century-long inclusion project

Evidence

The election of Barack Obama should be understood as the logical conclusion of a form of black politics that has guided much of African American life since the dawn of the twentieth century. You can’t draw a straight line from the founding of the NAACP in 1909 and the National Urban League in 1910 to Obama’a political ascendance; there are real differences between these moments and a lot happened in between. What connects them, however, is the underlying political philosophy of black liberalism: a view that takes broad-base inclusion of black people into American life as its aim without closing the value gap. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 410

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

• DEFINE: Defines black liberalism centrally as inclusion without closing the value gap — the precise definition the reader needs.
• XREF: Directly advances the reader’s goal of defining the value gap; dovetails with the ‘value gap premise’ framing from the book’s intro.

Related

• Black liberalism seeks inclusion without closing the value gap (similarity 0.95)
• Obama’s presidency proved inclusion does not unhook white supremacy from American ideals (similarity 0.85)
• Black politics was historically pluralist, with black liberalism only one option among many (similarity 0.83)
• Obama’s presidency exemplified the deadly gambit of black liberal politics (similarity 0.83)
• Black liberalism holds that inclusion would redeem a fundamentally sound American creed (similarity 0.82)
• Black liberalism frames racism as a distortion of American principles that inclusion would repair. (similarity 0.81)
• Black liberalism demands strong federal power because white supremacy blocks liberal principles’ application. (similarity 0.81)
• Black liberalism sees racism as a fixable gap between creed and practice (similarity 0.80)
• Closing the value gap requires renaming racism and reimagining collective democracy (similarity 0.80)
• Black lives occupy the gap between American ideals and practice (similarity 0.79)
• The value gap rigs democratic outcomes toward racial inequality regardless of policy form (similarity 0.79)
• African American political traditions differ by how fully they accept America’s stated creed (similarity 0.79)
• America’s democratic claims are shadowed by a founding belief that white lives matter more. (similarity 0.79)
• The King-to-Jackson-to-Obama story reduces freedom struggle to black liberal politics. (similarity 0.79)
• Closing the value gap requires shifting views of government, black people, and national priorities (similarity 0.79)