Is America ready for its first black President?
History says no, but in the wake of U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s official bid for the American presidency, many Southern University students, faculty and staff feel confident in the senator’s ability to occupy the oval office.
In a letter and video posted on his official website, the Democratic Illinois senator said, “I wanted to tell you first that I’ll be filing papers…to create a presidential exploratory committee. And on February 10, at the end of these decisions and in my home state of Illinois, I’ll share my plans with my friends, neighbors and fellow Americans.”
Many Americans have publicly said they believe after only two years in office, the freshman senator is too inexperienced to govern the nation, yet expectations of success are high at Southern.
“There’s no such thing as presidential training,” said Niiobli Armah, president of Southern’s Student Government Association. “Obama displays excellent leadership skills and sound decision making capabilities.
“If anything his inexperience is an advantage because he has had less time for corruption,” Armah said.
Adell Brown, vice-chancellor of administration for the SU Agricultural Research and Extension Center, shares the same similar positive sentiments on Obama as Armah.
“Unlike others who insist that his time is not now, he has to run while he has a high level of popularity,” Brown said. “He can recover from his inexperience by being a quick study and surrounding himself with key people who can bring him up to speed on the issues in which he is lagging.”
Since being sworn into office on January 4, 2005, Obama has been a strict advocate of economic growth and development for the state of Illinois. He has proclaimed himself to be a dedicated public servant through his roles as a community organizer and a civil rights attorney.
According to published reports, Obama has been an advocate of a more open and honest government after declaring publicly politics in America has become bitter and partisan.
In a previous interview with the Washington Post, Obama spoke out against the War on Terror saying the President’s recent call for increased troops in Iraq will not solve the political differences that lie at the heart of another country’s civil war.
Obama said he opposed giving the President the broad, open-ended authority to wage the war in 2002 partly because he feared “we would arrive at this point. A point where the ideological pursuit of an ill-defined victory would overwhelm the reality of the facts on the ground.”
Obama has continued to critique the administration’s mishandling of this war because he said, “while our troops have done an outstanding job in Iraq, this conflict is essentially a political variance that should be settled between Iraq’s military.”
During a press conference in January of 2006, Obama said the only hope to end the burgeoning civil war is for Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to come together and resolve their differences.
In a recent meeting, Rev. Jesse Jackson shared memories of his 1984 and 1988 presidential campaigns with Obama passing along memories of hate mail, racial slurs and death threats aimed at both the candidate and his family.
In his candidacy announcement, Obama affirmed his decision to run was not an easy one. According to reports, when Jackson ran for president, there were 5,700 black elected officials in the United States, now there are more than 9,500.
“Fortunately, Obama does not share the same deficit as Clinton,” said William Arp, a political science professor at Southern. “Our system is gender biased. It is their belief that this country can only be run by white males. However, Obama is not a traditional African-American, although his pigmentation may discourage white voters.”
Although he feels Obama should reduce his accessibility to the public until the campaign begins, Armah said Obama’s bid for presidency is a milestone for the new era of young black males with higher political ambitions.
Obama was born in August 1961, in Hawaii to Barack Obama, Sr. a native of Kenya and Ann Dunham a Caucasian woman from Kansas.
In 1983, Obama graduated from Columbia University and moved to Chicago in 1985 to work for a church-based group, which sought to improve living conditions in poor neighborhoods plagued with crime and unemployment.
In 1991, Obama graduated from Harvard Law School where he was the first African American president of the Harvard Law Review.
Obama’s rise to national prominence began with his keynote speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention and his election to the Senate the same year.
“While I appreciate the cultural and gender diversity that this upcoming election will display, I would really enjoy seeing Obama and Hillary on the same ticket,” said Erica Williams, a public administration graduate student.
Categories:
America’s first black president
January 26, 2007
0