\tLe 19 mai, le pr\u00e9sident Barack Obama doit donner un discours solennel au tr\u00e8s fameux Morehouse College, en Alabama. Morehouse est le plus prestigieux \u00e9tablissement du r\u00e9seau HBCU (Historically Black College and Universities<\/em>), \u00e9tabli \u00e0 partir du d\u00e9but du XX\u00e8me si\u00e8cle pour l’\u00e9ducation des Africains Am\u00e9ricains, au temps o\u00f9 r\u00e9gnait aux USA la s\u00e9gr\u00e9gation raciale leur interdisant l’acc\u00e8s aux \u00e9tablissements scolaires et universitaire du r\u00e9seau existant. (On compte de nombreux \u00e9l\u00e8ves fameux \u00e0 Morehouse, par exemple Martin Luther King et Spike Lee.) Par cons\u00e9quent, et selon une approche th\u00e9orique lib\u00e9rale, multiculturelle et multiraciale, le discours \u00e0 Morehouse du premier pr\u00e9sident africain am\u00e9ricain devrait \u00eatre l’occasion d’une c\u00e9l\u00e9bration d’un progr\u00e8s consid\u00e9rable dont lui-m\u00eame est n\u00e9cessairement le symbole. Il semble que cela n’est pas du tout \u00e9vident. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tA la place de c\u00e9l\u00e9bration, mettez aussit\u00f4t pol\u00e9mique. Elle s’est d\u00e9velopp\u00e9e aux USA, surtout chez les \u00e9lites africaines am\u00e9ricaines, alors que grandit le sentiment que le premier pr\u00e9sident africain am\u00e9ricain des USA, et son \u00e9lection par cons\u00e9quent, ont peut-\u00eatre fait plus de mal que de bien \u00e0 sa communaut\u00e9, en faisant croire<\/strong> \u00e0 un progr\u00e8s de cette communaut\u00e9, de ce qui n’\u00e9tait en v\u00e9rit\u00e9 qu’un bond en avant de l’int\u00e9gration de cette communaut\u00e9 dans le Syst\u00e8me, avec toutes ses pressions d\u00e9structurantes, dissolvantes, etc. \u00abSo, why are we so loyal to a president who is not loyal to us?<\/em>\u00bb, interroge Gary Younge, chroniqueur africain am\u00e9ricain du Guardian<\/em>, ce 6 mai 2013<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tL’affaire se d\u00e9veloppe \u00e0 la suite d’une prise de position d’un ex-partisan d’Obama, le pasteur de Philadelphie Kevin Johnson, prestigieuse autorit\u00e9 de la communaut\u00e9 africaine am\u00e9ricaine, qui vient de publier un article anti-Obama. Johnson devait ouvrir la c\u00e9r\u00e9monie de Morehouse par un grand discours, avant celui d’Obama, et le voil\u00e0 r\u00e9trograd\u00e9 \u00e0 la suite de cet article \u00e0 une place parmi d’autres dans un d\u00e9bat \u00e0 trois accompagnant les festivit\u00e9s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tNous avons toujours pens\u00e9 que l’\u00e9lection d’Obama, acclam\u00e9e par les \u00e9lites multiculturelles et antiracistes comme une avanc\u00e9e d\u00e9cisive pour leur cause, n’\u00e9tait en fait qu’un accident politique du autant \u00e0 l’inf\u00e9condit\u00e9 du personnel du Syst\u00e8me qu’aux pressions<\/a> de la crise financi\u00e8re. L’importance symbolique qui a \u00e9t\u00e9 plaqu\u00e9e sur cet accident a donn\u00e9 effectivement une nouvelle dimension \u00e0 la pr\u00e9sidence Obama, mais dans le sens inverse de celui qui \u00e9tait esp\u00e9r\u00e9, notamment du point de vue racial<\/a>. Ayant choisi d’\u00e9pouser compl\u00e8tement le Syst\u00e8me, Obama a donc men\u00e9 une politique d\u00e9structurante et dissolvante qui fait bien plus de mal que de bien \u00e0 sa communaut\u00e9, tout en faisant taire<\/a> les principales critiques et en entretenant la narrative<\/em> de l’American Dream<\/em> accomplie pour les blacks<\/em> US. Tout cela est compl\u00e8tement faussaire, comme Obama lui-m\u00eame ; les Africains Am\u00e9ricains sont plus que jamais les victimes du Syst\u00e8me, d’ailleurs comme les autres communaut\u00e9s puisque d\u00e9cid\u00e9ment nous parlons communautaire, chacune \u00e0 mesure de ses positions et de son importance. Ainsi commence \u00e0 appara\u00eetre la v\u00e9rit\u00e9 \u00e0 cet \u00e9gard, le triomphe du Syst\u00e8me, et Obama en marionnette porteuse de la narrative<\/em> antiraciste, et le texte de Younge en est l’illustration.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00ab…Later this month, Barack Obama will deliver the keynote address at Morehouse’s graduation ceremony. Another invited speaker was Morehouse alumnus Kevin Johnson, a prominent Philadelphia pastor. Then Johnson, an ardent Obama supporter during both presidential runs, wrote an article criticising the president for failing to appoint enough black cabinet members and to address the needs of African Americans in general. Obama has not moved African-American leadership forward but backwards, he wrote. We are not in the driver’s seat or even in the car Why are we so loyal to a president who is not loyal to us?<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbShortly afterwards his speaker’s slot was removed. Instead of addressing the students alone, the day before Obama, he will now be one of a three-person panel curated to reflect a broader and more inclusive range of viewpoints. Evidently, whatever they’ll be celebrating at this graduation at Morehouse, it won’t be critical thinking. And that’s a shame. Because that’s precisely what black America could do with more of at a time when the quest for greater black representation has been almost completely divorced from improving the material conditions of black people as a whole.<\/em> […]<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bb… But increasingly it feels more like a preference for mythology over meaningful engagement lest the symbolic importance of who Obama is the first black president be tainted by a substantial conversation about what he actually does. Yet the longer his presidency goes on, the more urgent those questions become. For Johnson is right on two counts. First, Obama’s second-term cabinet will probably have fewer black members than his first and those of either George W Bush or Bill Clinton. Meanwhile, there are the same number of black governors and Congressmen and one less elected senator than in 2008. For all of the euphoria about the election of Barack Obama in black America, his election has not had coat-tails, said talk-show host Tavis Smiley.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbSecond, African Americans, as a group, are far worse off now than when Obama was elected and the wealth gap between whites and blacks has grown since the recession. Between 2007 and 2010 black families’ wealth decreased by 31%; for white families it was 11%. <\/em>[The racial wealth gap<\/em>] was already dismal, Darrick Hamilton, a New School professor, told the New York Times. It got even worse. You can argue about the degree to which the relationship between Obama’s presidency and that reality is causal. But you can’t contest that it is factual. Obama’s meteoric rise has coincided with black America’s precipitous economic descent.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbOne reason why having that conversation is so difficult is because black people have rarely been more upbeat. They are considerably more optimistic than whites, presumably because the percentage in 2010 who thought black people were better off than they were five years earlier doubled, and a significant proportion think the standard of living gap between whites and blacks is actually narrowing. That optimism appears to be directly related to Obama’s presidency. In 2011 African Americans were twice as likely to think race relations had got better as a result of his election than that they had deteriorated while 64% thought they would get a lot better or a little better in the years ahead. A third believe his election has been the most important advance in terms of progress for blacks in the past century.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbSo black Americans feel better even as they fare worse. Unravelling that contradiction demands more and deeper debate, not less. For while Johnson identifies part of the problem, his proposed solution is inadequate. Clinton’s diverse cabinet coincided with a sharp increase in the black prison population and the slashing of welfare; Bush’s diverse cabinet oversaw hurricane Katrina and the economic slump. Clearly, there is precious little correlation between the presence of black faces in high places and progress in black Americans’ lives. One shouldn’t dismiss black representation as irrelevant or insist that symbolism is not important. But we shouldn’t fetishise them either. For in themselves they are worse than meaningless without a discussion about what that representation is for and what those symbols mean.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbIt isn’t that black Americans are entitled to special consideration because the president is black. Quite the opposite. They should demand of him what they would and have done of any president greater equality and social justice. Only more so, because they gave him a greater percentage of their votes than any other group or to any other president. The talented tenth is barely worthy of the adjective unless it makes space for these debates or its progress is in some way related to the remaining 90%.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbAs Arundhati Roy explained in her essay Do Turkeys Like Thanksgiving, in which she referred to the presidential pardoning of a single turkey during Thanksgiving: A few carefully bred turkeys the occasional Colin Powell or Condoleezza Rice are given absolution and a pass to Frying Pan Park. The remaining millions lose their jobs, are evicted from their homes, have their water and electricity connections cut, and die of Aids. Basically, they’re for the pot who can say that turkeys are against Thanksgiving? They participate in it!<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n dedefensa.org<\/em><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Barack Obama pr\u00e9sident, ou l’\u00e9chec d’une illusion Le 19 mai, le pr\u00e9sident Barack Obama doit donner un discours solennel au tr\u00e8s fameux Morehouse College, en Alabama. Morehouse est le plus prestigieux \u00e9tablissement du r\u00e9seau HBCU (Historically Black College and Universities), \u00e9tabli \u00e0 partir du d\u00e9but du XX\u00e8me si\u00e8cle pour l’\u00e9ducation des Africains Am\u00e9ricains, au temps… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[7621,2769,8138,3126,4840,3169,12147,9995,3424,6447],"class_list":["post-74975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ouverture-libre","tag-africain","tag-americain","tag-antiracisme","tag-black","tag-college","tag-jackson","tag-morehouse","tag-pasteur","tag-racisme","tag-younge"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74975"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74975\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}