A Generational Divide

Barack Obama's relationship with politicians and activists from the so-called "civil rights generation" will receive a thorough airing in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine. In discussing the question of whether Obama has put too much distance between himself and those who have come before him, a troubling perception came up on my radio show, "Politics Plus".

A surprising number of people brought up their feeling that one good reason for Obama to avoid civil rights leaders was because that era is seen as violent. At first, when one person brought it up, I didn't take notice. Yet time and again people, in particular young people, talked about the movement for civil rights as being cloaked in violence. More than once the riots of the late '60s were mentioned. 

This took me by surprise. After all, the icons of the movement, the Kings, the Evers, etc. were committed to non violence. So many black people died, were beaten and hosed for simply attempting to assert basic American rights. It's mind boggling to think that's been translated a generation later to imply black folks were largely the perpetrators, rather than the victims of violence. 

Whether Barack Obama is paying sufficient respect to John Lewis and Jesse Jackson seems irrelevant when compared to this extraordinary distortion of history. Ironically, it's not the fault of the current generation that they see things this way. 

Sad to say, it's the fault of those who came up during the civil rights era, and didn't pass the history along.

It's our fault.