The Reverse Obama Effect

Will Obama's success hurt Black Men?

Some say a rising tide raises all ships, but not when some of the ships are stuck in the muddy bottom, have been for years and refuse to rise. The ship that has risen only tends to exacerbate the vast difference between the ships.

Barack Obama's rise to President-Elect of the United States is unquestionably without equal in history.

Blacks all over the world are proud of Barack's win and rightfully so. His intellect, coolness under fire, ability to choose the right people, direct and run a near-perfect campaign is unparallelled in American history.

He's dispelled or at least ameliorated to some degree the image of the angry black man etched into the American psyche by many of America's high profile blacks such as Louis Farrakhan, Al Sharpton, Reverend Jeremiah Wright and historically speaking Tommie Smith and John Carlos in the 1968 Summer Olympics.

The image of the modern black man has been constantly tarnished by the portrayal of the majority of adult black men as rappers, drug dealers, absentee fathers, prison inmates, gang-bangers and bolstered by black-on-black crime statistics and the high percentage of black prison inmates.

The indictment of the likes of ex-mayor Kwame Kilpatrick in Detroit and United States Congressman William Jefferson has not helped their cause either, so Obama's success is a breath of fresh air for those that have been holding their collective breaths waiting for this moment.

The real downside (or upside) to Barack Obama's success is that he has now demonstrated in an unequivocal fashion that a Black man can achieve this nations highest office and the undisputed position of the most powerful man on earth.

So where does this leave all other black men? Will we now cast an even more critical eye on every black man? The bar has been raised for all black men and without real cultural change the lot of the average black man in the United States will remain the same and most likely with diminished returns for any degree of measurable success.

In effect Barack Obama's success will make it more difficult for all Black men to be judged as successful.

No doubt that phrases such as "he's no Barack Obama" will emerge in the American discourse to diminish the success of Black men who strive to succeed by those who desire this result.

The Reverse Obama Effect has arrived. How we as a nation judge Black men from this day on as compared to Barack Obama will be very interesting to observe.

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