America's Second Black President (left) and America's First Black President (right)
Author Toni Morrison may have called Bill Clinton our first black president, but Mellissa Harris-Lacewell, an associate professor of African-American Studies at Princeton, begs to differ. She thinks he may be a racist.
In a recent article published in the Nation Magazine she takes issues with remarks made by former President Bill Clinton on the Larry King Show.
While on the show, the former President said, “While I have devoted my life to getting rid of racism, I think this [health care] is a fight that my president and our party — this is one we need to win on the merits.” To which Harris-Lacewell remarked, “This statement required a double take. President Clinton said that he has devoted his life to getting rid of racism? And no one challenged this assertion?”
“Clinton used welfare reform and crime legislation to cement his position as a moderate ‘new’ Democrat,” she added. “Clinton’s policies made life substantially more difficult for poor black mothers and led to the incarceration of tens of thousands more black men. Repeatedly during his presidency Clinton found his way to the center by ignoring the material needs of black communities.”
She went on to say America’s First Black President “has a very checkered past involving racial innuendo, stereotypes and racialized political strategies.”
But she may as well have been speaking about America’s Second Black President.
Source: TheNation.com, HuffingtonPost.com
- written by Patrick Michael
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