President Barack Obama has not been in the good books of many people lately. The legalisation of gay marriages across all states of America seem to have done him in with conservative America, and his ‘not using his office’ to stop the injustices done to and indiscriminate killing of Blacks, even by law enforcement agencies, have gotten him a lot of flaks in recent times.
Now Obama seem to have ‘woken up’ with a pet project he intends to pursue after he leaves office in 2016 that will remain a mission for him and for his wife Michelle, not just for the rest of his presidency but for the rest of his life.
In February last year, Obama announced My Brother’s Keeper to join with philanthropy and the private sector to launch an initiative to address persistent opportunity gaps faced by boys and young men of colour and ensure that all young people who are willing to do the hard work to get ahead can reach their full potential — using proven tools and focusing on key moments in their lives where they can help make a difference.
Previously, Obama has been accused of not doing enough to advance the cause of the Black race, especially in America where he is president. The Charleston shooting seem to have given him a new vim and has brought it to the front burner.
The disparity in opportunity between whites and people of colour in America is alarming, hence Obama wanting to play the big brother.
An average white household in 2013 had a net asset of $142,000; the average black one had a paltry $11,000. A third of black men spent time in jail and panicky shootings of blacks by police have led to rioting in cities, reports the Economist of UK.
Blacks and Hispanic young men are six times more likely to be murdered as their white counterparts. At the age of nine, 86 per cent of black boys and 82 per cent of Hispanic boys cannot read proficiently. People with black sounding names must send 50 per cent more applications to win job interviews, the paper reported.
And this is what Obama’s project intends to tackle.
Six goals of My Brother’s Keeper:
• Ensuring all children enter school cognitively, physically, socially and emotionally ready;
• Ensuring all children read at grade level by 3rd grade;
• Ensuring all youth graduate from high school;
• Ensuring all youth complete post-secondary education or training;
• Ensuring all youth out of school are employed’
• Ensuring all youth remain safe from violent crime.
“Too many African-American and Latino men “experience being treated differently by law enforcement,” Obama said at an event promoting the initiative that will help men of colour overcome barriers to education and education opportunity.
Protests and even violence are fueled by a “sense of unfairness and powerlessness,” Obama said.
Obama, the nation’s first African-American president, turned personal in talking about the mission of the My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, part of a project he launched in the wake of the 2012 death of Florida teenager Trayvon Martin.
He said he could easily have gone the wrong way, and that “the only difference” between him and other young people of colour is that “I grew up in an environment that was a little more forgiving.”
He said: “I was lucky.”
But the programme itself has been railed as falling short. Critics accuse the president of gender bias.
Kimberly Williams Crenshaw said in an opinion page in New York Times that:
“Obama has told us why men of colour are his focus. His moving story of the Kenyan father he knew for a month and the Kansan mother who went on to raise a president speaks volumes about his passion. But My Brother’s Keeper highlights one of the most significant contradictions of his efforts to remain a friend to women while navigating the tricky terrain of race. It also amounts to an abandonment of women of colour, who have been among his most loyal supporters.
“Perhaps the exclusion of women and girls is the price to be paid for any race-focused initiative in this era. “Fixing” men of colour — particularly young black men — hits a political sweet spot among populations that both love and fear them. Judging from the defense of My Brother’s Keeper by many progressives and the awkward silence of their allies, the consequent erasure of females of colour is regarded as neither politically nor morally significant.
“Gender exclusivity isn’t new, but it hasn’t been so starkly articulated as public policy in generations. It arises from the common belief that black men are exceptionally endangered by racism, occupying the bottom of every metric: especially school performance, work force participation and involvement with the criminal justice system. Black women are better off, the argument goes, and are thus less in need of targeted efforts to improve their lives. The White House is not the author of this myth, but is now its most influential promoter,” Crenshaw said.