Salon.com > Rich Benjamin

Barack Obama: Incidental black man?

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:58:00 +0000

With all the distracting controversies piling on his political plate, who could blame President Obama for getting reflective at his recent commencement speech to Morehouse College graduates? Who could blame the first black president, typically a cool arbiter of analysis and restraint, for getting personal in his remarks to his receptive, brotherly crowd?

How does a black president deliver 2013 Morehouse graduates realistic advice and a pep talk at the same time? How can he optimistically send them forth — with straight talk, or a straight face?

The average white family has about $632,000 in wealth, versus $98,000 for black families. The overall unemployment rate for whites is 6.7 percent, versus 13 percent for blacks, generally. The unemployment rate for black young adults ages 16 to 24 -- those outside the commencement halls -- is 25 percent, on par with Spanish- or Greek-level joblessness.

There will be more Trayvons

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 18:11:00 +0000

Trayvon Martin was shot dead exactly one year ago today. As we acknowledge this dubious anniversary, a question to consider is: Are we doing any better a year later, when it comes to keeping young people safe?

Not long after the shooting, young people, of all races took to the streets, to show their solidarity with Trayvon, in Million Hoodie Marches, saying, “We are all Trayvon.” In the ensuing year, the response to the case often shook out under two camps: those who identify with the young man, versus those who reflexively, insistently, perniciously identify with George Zimmerman. (“We are all George Zimmerman," they inherently believe, the potential victims of a nasty mugging.)

Also not long after the shooting, I appeared on The O’Reilly Factor to insist that Trayvon had been “shot in cold blood.” The show’s host took great exception to my claim. Bill O’Reilly vented surprise and outrage that I would be unwilling to shoot an armed assailant attempting to mug me. “I would shoot a four-year old!” O’Reilly shouted at me.

Whites-only GOP meets its demographic destiny

Wed, 07 Nov 2012 19:48:00 +0000

"Obama wins because it's not a traditional America anymore," Bill O’Reilly said on Fox News last night. "The white establishment is the minority. People want things."

Just listen. That creaking, cracking noise you hear — not unlike a rusty forklift — is the sound of conservative straight white men trying to fight off change. But, as we saw last night, change is rolling over them.

The whoppers emerging from some candidates’ mouths were so outrageous I couldn’t even catalog, never mind rank, them all. A woman’s rape could be God’s plan, said Richard Mourdock. Todd Akin explained “legitimate rape” to voters. “I’m not concerned about the very poor,” said Mitt Romney, later dismissing half the country as “victims.”

Tempting as it may be, it's a mistake to scapegoat these hapless candidates or dismiss their unvarnished comments as aberrations. Rather, they speak to a reactionary confusion that is gutting the GOP, and to a larger conflict over the meaning of America.

Still running from Rodney King

Mon, 18 Jun 2012 18:50:00 +0000

“People look at me like I should have been like Malcolm X or Martin Luther King or Rosa Parks,” Rodney King told the Los Angeles Times this year. “But it’s hard to live up to some people’s expectations.”

King’s brutal beating by police officers, and the riots provoked when white officers were acquitted of charges, provoked dramatic reform at the LAPD. It spawned a still urgent debate about racial profiling and police brutality. But what King, who passed away Sunday, also symbolizes, tacitly to conservative white people, is a seemingly endless loop of black pathology.

Can’t they just get it together?

What a dramatic image. After the 1992 riots, you could see a fleet of U-Haul trucks barreling north out of Los Angeles for whiter pastures. A white exodus vacated Southern California. In 1993, 11,212 people fled California for Idaho alone. The one-way truck rentals from California to Idaho were so overwhelming that year, U-Haul had to pay people to drive trucks back empty. Rodney King, and the riots his case spawned, helped provoke White Flight 3.0 – or the Californication of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, Utah and Colorado. LAPD officers themselves helped popularize those destinations to other white migrants out of Southern California.