Barack Obama has recovered his drive. He should use it to take on the residual problems of race in America
“FEARLESS” is how Barack Obama now describes his mood. A series of triumphs has suddenly given him a second wind. On June 29th he at last won “fast-track” authority to negotiate foreign-trade deals, paving the way for deeper economic engagement with Asia and Europe. On June 25th the Supreme Court rejected a conservative attempt to disembowel the Affordable Care Act, Mr Obama’s flagship health-care law. A day later the justices declared gay marriage a fundamental right in all 50 states, and the White House spent the next night bathed in rainbow lights (see article).
Mr Obama cannot claim all the credit. The Supreme Court is not part of his administration, though he nominated two of its nine justices. And his free-trade victory owed much to Republicans in Congress, who beat back a revolt by populist Democrats intent on blocking the Democrat in the White House. But a win is a win, and the president now has momentum to deal with another cause close to his heart: racial justice.
After a racist massacre by a white gunman in a church in Charleston, South Carolina, Mr Obama has comforted black America as no other president could, notably in his eulogy for Clementa Pinckney, the murdered pastor. And he has been a voice of reason. America, he has reminded people, has come a long way on race; those who think it has not (see article) should listen to blacks who lived through the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s. But in Charleston, in the cadences of a preacher, even singing “Amazing Grace”—so unlike the cool, buttoned-up Obama of old—he also noted that striking inequalities remain. He is right. The median white household in 2013 had net assets of $142,000; the median black one had a paltry $11,000. A third of black men have spent time in jail, and panicky shootings of blacks by police have led to rioting in several cities. Black and Hispanic young men are more than six times as likely to be murdered as their white peers. At the age of nine 86% of black boys and 82% of Hispanic boys cannot read proficiently. Studies have found that people with black-sounding names must send 50% more applications to win a job interview.
Blind, but now I see
Mr Obama first soared to fame, more than a decade ago, with a speech decrying those who would divide the country into black and white Americas. He was right to do so, but that is not the end of the matter. It should not be divisive to note that black Americans face unique problems, nor to seek to alleviate them. In general the state should be colour-blind, but the police cannot do their job well unless they make extra efforts to forge links of trust with minority communities, and schools should pay extra attention to groups who flounder.
One nation, or two?: An interactive comparison of black and white America
Sensibly, Mr Obama does not talk about financial reparations for past injustices, and is not interested in assigning blame for racial gaps. Instead he talks of promoting equality of opportunity, through such painstaking but vital things as early-childhood education, reading schemes, apprenticeships at private companies and mentoring to spot young men when they are first drifting into trouble. His most immediate answer to persistent poverty is a proposal to expand the earned-income tax credit (a negative income tax), doubling the maximum credit for a childless worker to $1,000 a year and increasing the income level at which it is phased out. This is a good idea: such wage subsidies not only lift people (of all races) out of poverty (see Free exchange); they also encourage them to work, which is the key to social mobility.
Racial ills that built up over centuries will not be cured in the last 18 months of Mr Obama’s presidency. He knows this, of course, and plans to use his bully pulpit long after he leaves the White House. In 2014 he launched “My Brother’s Keeper”, the nucleus of a network of schemes he will promote after he leaves office, explicitly to increase opportunities for young black and Latino men and foster more sensitive policing.
Meanwhile, Americans can draw comfort from the shift in public opinion that the Charleston massacre revealed. It is worth recalling that when Klansmen bombed black churches in the deep South in the 1960s, the police barely bothered to investigate. This time the killer was swiftly caught and universal outrage at his crime jolted southern states to stop flying the Confederate flag over public buildings. As with gay marriage, attitudes have changed profoundly, and for the better. Mr Obama’s presidency is both a reminder of that progress and an opportunity to accelerate it.
This article appeared in the Leaders section of the print edition under the headline "Lost, but now found"
