Republican obstructionism does not explain black leadership’s failure to press Obama

Evidence

Some might cry that what has transpired between 2010 and 2014 has little to do with the failure of black leaders to hold President Obama accountable for black social misery or with black liberal theatrics. The real problem has been and continues to be Republican obstructionism. The argument implies that if it were not for the shenanigans of the right wing, President Obama and black leaders would have substantively addressed the crisis engulfing black America. But this claim is a red herring. I am not denying that Republicans have stood in the way of much of the president’s agenda. The issue isn’t President Obama and his policies or his failures. The real issue is the implication of this form of black leadership. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 483

Categorization

• XREF: The dismissal of Republican obstructionism as a red herring rejoins the book’s core claim about the value gap and black complicity in their own decline.