I lean conservative but have always liked president Obama as a person. I always appreciated how he articulated and explained his rationale behind things even if I didn’t always agree with him. As a role model to young black kids I would have thought his influence would have had more impact than it appears to have had, or is is just me not seeing it? I felt his value as a role model alone made his presidency worthwhile not taking anything away from his other accomplishments.
I don’t think these kinds of things can be evaluated in the short term; even in the long term how do you measure how influential a role model someone was? Perhaps in 20 years we could see how many prominent people say that Obama was one of their inspirations growing up.
I agree. And my only quibble with your OP is that I don’t see President Obama as a role model for just young black kids. I see him as a role model for us all.
I think Michelle Obama is a good role model, too.
I agree with you.
Pardon me if I’m misreading your OP, but it sounds like you’re asking why young black kids aren’t more articulate, like Obama. Can you clarify what, exactly, are you asking about young black kids?
No one person is going to be a role model for everyone. If a kid is interested in sports, their role model is probably going to be some sport star. If a kid is interested in science, their role model is probably going to be a famous scientist, and so on.
I see no reason that Obama can’t be a role model for everybody. That being said, he is also literally, an extraordinary person, and I think it may be difficult to find “Obama like” qualities in very many kids, black or white.
I don’t think articulate is the right word. I see black kids all the time who can turn it off an on at will. If they chose role models to emulate that spoke more articulately they might choose to turn on the proper speech and loose the street talk more often. Choosing an identity that one feels we can pull off and maintain is an important part of our persona. I believe Obama sent a strong message that kids can be cool and smart at the same time, or that smart is cool.
That’s certainly true, and we all can have more than one more role model. I’m another big fan of Michelle Obama, as pointed out by Anny Middon.
I was thinking of basic human decency, compassion, humility, deliberative thinking in the face of crises, grace, admitting and learning from mistakes, doing our very best, striving to keep the dialogue above the fray, looking out for others – particularly the less fortunate among us – and always pushing ourselves to be better than we are. I think both President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are terrific role models for all of those things.
I’m very curious to see what takes shape WRT his library on the S side of Chicago. As I understand, it is intended to be somewhat outside the mold of the average presidential library, with a focus on community activism and improvement. I think the Obamas are an astoundingly impressive couple, and I’m eager to see how they apply their talents in upcoming years.
One thing - however, that sorta bothers me. I know the unprecedented opposition he faced. But in some ways it seems he was less successful than he could have been. He tried too hard to reason and negotiate with folk who had no interest in reciprocating, he did not take advantage of his Congressional majority, many of his positions were less liberal than I would have hoped, and - well, to some extent Trump can be viewed as his legacy.
He was not flawless, but he sure was an impressive man. Incredibly intelligent, articulate, compassionate, forward-thinking and - to top it off - damn good looking and funny as hell. What’s NOT to be impressed about? And how could you build much of a better role model?
Obama for the most part seemed to be someone who wouldn’t dismiss the opposing side’s arguments outright without hearing them first (although there were times when he tried to ***promote ***partisanship with comments such as his Republicans-need-to-sit-in-the-back remark.)
Another related thing I admire about Obama was his willingness to abide by, and uphold, things that he didn’t necessarily agree with, out of duty. For instance, his NATO comments during a visit to Estonia: “Article Five is crystal clear: An attack on one is an attack on all.”
As President Obama failed young black kids.
Would you care to expand on this in any coherent form?