Obama and Black Voters: Beginning of the End?

The Washington Post's Jonathan Capehart has this post about Representative Maxine Waters asking black voters at a job fair in Detroit the permission to put pressure on the President.  As reported by Capehart, Representative Waters said:

We don’t put pressure on the president. Let me tell you why. We don’t put pressure on the president because y’all love the president. You love the president. You’re very proud . . . to have a black man [in the White House] . . . First time in the history of the United States of America. If we go after the president too hard, you’re going after us. . . . When you tell us it’s all right and you unleash us, and you tell us you're ready for us to have this conversation, we’re ready to have the conversation. . . . All I’m saying to you is, we’re politicians. We’re elected officials. We are trying to do the right thing and the best thing. When you let us know it is time to let go, we’ll let go.

Caphart reports that she received permission, at least from those at the jobs fair in Detroit.  The President has lost some support from the black community, but not too much.  Are black voters starting to take defect?  Is the high-profile criticisms of the President by Dr. Cornel West and Tavis Smiley starting to soften the President's support in the black community?

UPDATE: See this article in Huffington Post.  There seems to be a concerted effort by black political leaders in Congress to be more vocal and public about their criticism of the President.  It might be that these leaders are feeling increasing pressure from their constituencies and thus pointing the finger at the President.  But this is definitely something to pay attention to.

Black Elites' Increasingly Public Rift on President Obama: What Does it Mean?

When President Obama was candidate Obama one question that preoccupied many black intellectuals was whether his candidacy or eventual presidency would be good for the blacks.  Notwithstanding the tremendous amount of progress that African Americans have made in the last 50 years, experts who work in this area will tell you that African Americans lag whites in almost all areas of socio-economic well-being.  The question among black elites was : (a) whether candidate Obama should be viewed as just another politician and thus should be made to compete for the votes of black voters by stating explicitly what he would do to help narrow the myriad equality gaps  or (b) whether the tantalizing prospect of a black man becoming President of the United States was so significant that all black people should simply get in line and vote.  Black people did get in line and vote in overwhelming numbers and the question was trampled by the euphoria of having a black family in the White House. But now the dissension among the black elites is back and it is becoming increasingly public.

Obama and Race

Sheryl Gay Stolberg has written this article for the NY Times making the point that Obama's nuance on race is increasingly frustrating black leaders and black scholars. The question raised by the article (and a question that has been asked since President Obama was a candidate) is a normative one: what should be the relationship between the Mr. Obama and African-Americans.

After spending some time thinking about this question, my answer is the relationship should be viewed as one between a representative and his electorate. President Obama is right to constantly remind us that he is the President of the United States not simply of African Americans. his is good politics on the part of the President. But I also think that he is right.

African Americans are right to ask President Obama how his policies will benefit them, not because President Obama is black, but because he is the President. This is the same question that should be asked of every President, but more particularly, of those who owe their office in part to the support of the black community. Thus, the black community has no special race claim on the President.

Note however, that there are two sides to this coin. Black people were excited to vote for President Obama in part because he is one of them. Though most black people have more affinity for the Democratic Party, they did not turn out simply to vote for a Democrat. They were obviously excited to vote a black Democrat for President. Now that the President has clarified that the electoral connection, as opposed to the racial connection, is the lens through which he views his relationship with the black community, I wonder to what extent this will change the way the black community views the President.

Will black voters be excited to vote from President Obama again in 2012 because he's a black Democrat or will it be a case of "what have you done for me lately"? If black voters will turnout in strong numbers no matter what, then the President's current posture is brilliant. If however black voters are going to hold him to account, then he has to walk a fine line.