How the Detroit Mayor's Fall Hurts Obama | Newsweek National News

The Fire Next Time
Joshua Alston 6/11/2009 12:00:00 AM
Considering all the effort put into shrouding Barack Obama in swarthy otherness during the election, it's a wonder that one biographical factoid went without much scrutiny. On their first date, he took Michelle to see Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing, the dystopian meditation on race relations that, a full 20 years after its release, remains the hottest firebomb in Lee's provocative filmography. Never mind Jeremiah Wright and Michelle's Princeton thesis; if anything would have given "hardworking white Americans" pause, it's the thought of their president and first lady courting at a film that features a black mob gleefully torching a white man's business. There's even a recitation of a Louis Farrakhan quote about how the black man will one day "rise and rule the earth as we did in our glorious past," but Obama wasn't asked to reject or denounce his choice of date movie.
VIEWPOINT
Michelle Hits Her Stride
Allison Samuels 5/2/2009 12:00:00 AM
There have been plenty of un-veiling ceremonies for new statues at the U.S. Capitol. But when Michelle Obama peeled the cover off the bronze bust of abolitionist Sojourner Truth last week, the moment was heavy with symbolism. Truth is the first African-American woman to be honored with a statue in the Capitol. In a way no first lady before her ever could have done, Obama connected the dots between herself and the black feminist pioneer. "Now many young boys and girls like my own daughters will come to Emancipation Hall and see the face of a woman who looks like them," she told the gathering. "I hope that Sojourner Truth would be proud to see me, a descendant of slaves, serving as the first lady of the United States of America."
JUSTICE
A Race Case? Duck And Cover.
Michael Isikoff 3/7/2009 12:00:00 AM
What began as a reverse discrimination lawsuit filed by 20 New Haven, Conn., firefighters five years ago could become a long-term political headache for the Obama administration. The case involves a complaint filed by 19 white firefighters and one Hispanic who were rejected for promotions despite passing a civil-service test. After the lead plaintiff, firefighter Frank Ricci, who had hoped to become a lieutenant, and his fellow plaintiffs got high scores, the city scrapped the test and promoted no one rather than give them the jobs over black candidates who had earned lower scores. When the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case in January, the Obama administration was faced with a dilemma: how to handle a case with the potential to stir up old controversies over "racial quotas"—an issue that Obama, as a candidate, made clear he wanted to get beyond? The case's sensitivity was only heightened by Attorney General Eric Holder's recent remark about the United States still being a "nation of cowards" on racial matters—a comment that was deemed needlessly divisive by some and refreshingly candid by others.
RACE
No Apologies
Raina Kelley 2/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
Dear fellow journalists (especially the ones on TV): can I offer you a bit of unsolicited advice? Be brave. Listening to you talk (and talk and talk) around the subject of Barack Obama and race has been downright painful. Yes, our new president is black, and most of you are white, and judging by the way you excruciatingly measure every word you say about him, it's pretty clear that you are worried that you'll inadvertently say something insensitive and you'll wind up being accused of racism and it will ruin your career. I understand your fear. But seriously, it makes for some pretty painful watching.
EDUCATION
Rethinking Race In the Classroom
Allison Samuels 2/28/2009 12:00:00 AM
The day my ninth-grade english teacher, Mr. Buzzell, assigned my class "To Kill a Mockingbird" still sticks in my mind, mainly because I remember being the only one in the room excited to tackle the Harper Lee classic. Unlike most of my classmates, I'd already read the book about a white lawyer representing a black man accused of rape during the Great Depression. I'd also seen the movie twice (my mother loved Gregory Peck). Mr. Buzzell was a British-born white teacher attempting to explain the complexities of racism and injustice at a mixed-race school in Augusta, Ga., so the class discussions were pretty lively.
DRIVING FORCES
Friends Like These
Keith Naughton 9/5/2008 12:00:00 AM
Long before sex, lies and texting caused Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick to plead guilty to two felonies and resign on Thursday, he and Barack Obama shared a warm man-hug before a huge Motown crowd. It came 16 months ago, as Obama was launching his campaign for president with a scalding speech to the Detroit Economic Club upbraiding Detroit's automakers for not building more fuel-efficient cars. But while that speech gave Obama "green" street-cred, his praise of Kilpatrick as a "great mayor" who will do "astounding things for many years to come" backfired. As Kilpatrick now heads to jail for four months, for obstruction of justice, two attack ads have already appeared on the Web replaying Obama's Kwame moment. One, produced by the conservative Freedom's Defense Fund, shows Kilpatrick's mug shot, as the 10 felonies he faced scroll down the screen while Obama says, "I'm grateful to call him a friend." The ad ends ominously with the line: "You should know who Obama's friends are."