One Last Time, Thank You President Obama
Like a lot of Americans, particularly those of us of African descent, I’m all in my feelings as President Barack Hussein Obama, his incredible wife and First Lady Michelle LaVaughn Robinson, and their amazing daughters Malia and Sasha bid adieu to the White House after 8 long, yet short years. There are already so many think pieces on Obama covering multiple angles of his presidency: His stance against racism and police brutality in the era of the first Black president, his efforts towards reversing climate change, his battles against an intransigent Republican congress, and of course “Obamacare”.
This isn’t one of them. This here is just one brotha’s inelegant but honest attempt at saying “Thank You President Obama” to a man, who together with his family, literally changed the world.
Thank you President Obama for daring to do what many thought would never be done, at least not in this lifetime. By becoming America’s first Black president, you took the entire diaspora from slaves, to housemaids and mammies, to the most powerful house in the free world. Oh how the ancestors must have wept as their son walked into the White House not as a slave or servant, but as its master!
Now some may argue that you didn’t do enough for the Black community on certain issues (Hey Dr. West! Hey Tavis!), and while certain points may be debatable, you never shied away from your Blackness and neither did your family. You married to a strong, fiercely intelligent Black woman from the Southside of Chicago, and together brought up two beautiful Black queens in the process.
I remember when you were elected and my roommates and I being ecstatic about the White House smelling like Motions Pink Lotion for the first time. Of course we have no idea what hair products your family use, but just the idea that items like cocoa butter, Murray’s hair grease, wave caps and hair bonnets were now on the presidential shopping list brought us so much joy. The same sentiment was on full display when you let 5-year-old Jacob Philadelphia touch your hair so he could see that the President of the United States was just like him.
I remember one of my first stories on Parle was about how the Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act of 2009 (PTFA) saved my roommate and I from potential homelessness after discovering that our landlord hadn’t paid the mortgage on the house in months. It was right smack in the middle of the worst recession since the Great Depression. The PTFA you and a Democrat-led congress passed gave us seed money for our own apartments. Without it, neither of us would’ve been able to afford our respective down payments and first month’s rent, especially on such short notice. I thanked you then in that piece, and I thank you now.
I remember how the GOP slighted you at every turn, including Rep. Joe Wilson shouting, “You lie!” while you were in the middle of a presidential address. I remember your humble attempts to work with Republicans on economic stimulus packages, health care reform, and more, even though GOP leaders like Mitch McConnell brazenly bragged they wouldn’t work with you. They even secretly met the night of your inauguration to devise a plan of intransigence and disrespect that would last until your final day in office.
I remember how for 8 years you and your family didn’t give us any scandals. There were no shady business or investment deals, no tawdry affairs or mistresses, no DUIs – nothing. Just a regular American family refusing to let the international spotlight burn their family unit to the ground. The Obamas are the epitome of Black love, Black strength, and the power, love and unbreakable bond of the Black family. In you, we see us, and not the media caricatures mainstream America has made us out to be for centuries. For all of this and more, I can only say one thing:
Thank you President Obama.
P.S. If Michelle wanna change her mind and run, we wouldn’t be mad at her!
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4 comments
8 years of total incompetence. 8 years of blacks being shot up by other blacks. 8 years of black unemployment growth. 8 years of civil disobence. 8 years of law enforcement death toll rise. 8 years with a wife who spouts hatred for America. 8 years of spending billions of taxpayer dollars on personal trips and pleasures. Yep, thanks Obummer for getting Trump elected. He couldn’t have done it without people remembering what you spent 8 years doing to them.
FACT when that clown took over in January 2009, the total national debt stood at $10.6 trillion, as of 01/22/2017 the gross US federal government debt is at 19.9 trillion, that means each U.S. citizen went from owing $80k per taxpayer (not welfare recipients or students) 8 years ago to now owing $170k, now you see why we dont want anymore refugees, any more liberal precious snowflake programs, nor any more handouts to those freeloaders that dont deserve it. YES THANK YOU SO MUCH…
thank him for what ??? he will go down in history as the most shameful president our country has ever had…..name one thing he has done that should be praised,…..Obamacare has been a failure, my son in law has to pay for all of the welfare people that cannot afford insurance etc. and his deductible is $10,000 a year, what did obama do to protect us…absolutely nothing,,,,and he also thought he was King when he passed executive orders over and over again without going through congress….where was the lefts criticism then….releasing prisoners, standing for gay rights, and then if I give my opinion I am criticized as an ultra right fanatic, talk about a double standard….the Liberals have been spewing such hate toward conservatives in the past few years and yet they say we are full of hate….talk about hypocrisy, I think obama is living in a dislusional world, only concerned about his legacy, bowing to the will of the left etc. etc. etc. what about the rights of the unborn Barack, or is it only the reproductive rights of women and let us forget about the child she is carrying, he was ill equipped when he became our president, he never was MY PRESIDENT… and if our forefathers could see how obama and the liberals have destroyed the very values that they stood for they would weep…I could go on and on but I think you get the picture…..Barack, good riddance…