On Supporting Obama and Nuclear Disarmament

As I listened to the President deliver a vintage Obama speech, I realized I was holding an article from the New York Times about Obama's plan to build/modernize (you choose the word) smaller, sleeker nuclear weapons.
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For the last seven years, I have supported President Obama. Not blindly. In fact, as progressives who lean far to the left, it became routine for my wife and I to read the morning papers and ask each other, "Are we speaking to Obama today?" (We spoke to Joe Biden every day).

But with my progressive friends with whom I usually agree on most everything, I somehow became the defender of Obama's legacy, which I must admit, has been exhausting. For them, most of Obama's accomplishments were either not enough, watered down, or negated because of drones and Snowden.

My response has always been the same: "wait and see." If the economy continues to grow, "Obamacare" gets tweaked and improves, Iran does not build a bomb, climate change is blunted, marriage equality remains the law of the land, and our prison in Guantanamo Bay is permanently closed, then I will be vindicated on most accounts. Indeed, as Michael Grunwald recently showed, Obama has accomplished an enormous amount that few celebrate, because in many cases, Obama refuses to "spike the football."

Funny thing is that throughout the years, as many of my friends fell out of love with Obama, at times, my defense of him only grew stronger. I will openly admit that this is in part, due to the overt racism and venom spewed from conservative talk radio, FOX News pundits, and the Tea Party that in many ways, pushed me into a defense mode. What some of my progressive friends still fail to appreciate is the extent to what Obama's presidency has meant for my students, most of whom are nonwhite, or my biracial niece who has never known a world without a black president. Put simply, it matters.

As I watched President Obama's last State of the Union address I found myself again proud of my president. I tweeted how much I will miss seeing Obama express hope for the future, a smiling Joe Biden behind him, and the First Lady looking fierce, stunning, and compassionate all at the same time. But I was also angered. As I listened to the President deliver a vintage Obama speech, I realized I was holding an article from the New York Times about Obama's plan to build/modernize (you choose the word) smaller, sleeker nuclear weapons.

For the last year, with the release of my book, African Americans Against the Bomb, I have been fortunate to travel around the country meeting individuals who care deeply about race and nuclear disarmament. The most frequent question I have received was what I thought of Obama. I explained to audiences that writing about Obama was the hardest part of the book. As a historian, the worst thing I could do was predict and be wrong. As I state in my book, from passing the new START treaty to the Iran Nuclear Deal, at times Obama has acted boldly and heroically. However, his decision to take money out of nonproliferation programs while dedicating $1 trillion over the next thirty years to our nuclear arsenal continues to leave this part of his legacy in doubt.

As W.E.B. Du Bois, Paul Robeson, Coretta Scott King, Bayard Rustin, and so many others before him have made clear, freedom, equality, and nuclear weapons are inextricably linked. There is no difference today. We cannot talk about our economy and improving the lives of our most downtrodden without discussing the amount of money we are spending on nuclear weapons.

According to the administration's soon-to-be-released budget, tens of billions of dollars will be allocated for the new nuclear cruise missile. Imagine what this money could do for parts of Baltimore, St. Louis, or other economically depressed cities.

I watched the State of the Union hoping to hear bold action on nuclear disarmament. However, I was disappointed when the President uttered only one sentence. Obama then stated that his biggest regret was not bringing the political parties together. But that is not his fault. We know that Republican leaders got together the night of his inauguration and agreed to obstruct him at every turn. President Obama's biggest regret should be supporting the largest build-up of nuclear weapons since the Cold War.

With all that said, somehow I remain hopeful. There is still time for Obama to act and he has proven over the last year he is willing to go at it alone on a number of issues. There are 11 months left for this president to bring us towards a more peaceful world and live up to his call in Prague to eliminate nuclear weapons.

The President often likes to quote Dr. King and ended his final State of the Union in such fashion. So as we honor King's life, I thought it appropriate to look back on an important question he asked all Americans in 1959: "What will be the ultimate value of having established social justice in a context where all people, Negro and white, are merely free to face destruction by atomic war?"

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