What the Next Black President Can Learn from Obama's Example

I remember overhearing a few black friends joke late in 2008 that Barack Obama was being set up the way up-and-coming black college football coaches too often have been. After a talented black coach shows promise, he is often given the opportunity to take over a program that would be nearly impossible to turn around. Pass up the offer, he may never get another chance. Take it and fail, his bright future is instantly diminished.

That light-hearted, if morbid, joke is built on an old saw in the black community, that black people must work twice as hard to get half as far. Considering this country's history, and that white Americans with high school diplomas or less often have more wealth and income than black Americans with four-year degrees, it's fair to say that this belief is grounded in reality. Still, I've been teaching my two kids to ignore it. I want them to work hard and smart and let the chips fall where they may. Besides, there are plenty of examples of black people overcoming incredible odds to live out their dreams.

In some ways, Obama's tenure as president reinforces what I've been teaching my kids—but also undercuts my message.

Obama is a two-term president, the only modern Democrat to have garnered more than 51 percent of the vote twice, and is leaving office with an approval rating hovering in Ronald Reagan territory. Because of those markers alone, no matter how hard he worked, it would be insane to claim he was only allowed to get half as far as a white person.

Yet when you compare the way Obama has been treated to the reception Donald Trump has received in the weeks since the election, it's hard to ignore the plain truth that all of Obama's efforts didn't stop his critics from disrespecting him and minimizing his achievements.

Let's look at the area where Obama had the most tangible success: the economy. Obama took over a country with an economy that had just experienced an 8.9 percent contraction; the US lost roughly 800,000 jobs the month he was sworn in after losing more than 2.5 million the prior year. By his first full month in office, the jobless rate would hit a 25-year high—and would only get higher.

Though the recovery has not lifted all Americans equally, a recovery undeniably has occurred. The unemployment rate was 8.1 percent during Obama's first full month in office and stands at 4.7 percent now. The national deficit has shrunk, the Dow has risen, more than 20 million people gained health insurance thanks to the Affordable Care Act, and median household income jumped 5.2 percent in 2015 alone.

And yet, the people who spent most of the past eight years denying any Obama accomplishments are among the first to credit Trump's election with the recent rise in the stock market, even though the markets surged under Obama. They praise his personal intervention that saved maybe 800 jobs from being moved by the Carrier corporation, though they never acknowledged that policies enacted by the Obama administration likely saved the domestic auto industry.

The hypocrisy of many Obama critics who supported Trump is evident in other areas, too. Christian conservatives who say they support marriage and fidelity backed a man who publicly cheated on his wife and bragged about being able to grab women "by the pussy"; Republicans who previously condemned Obama for being soft on Russia fell in line behind a candidate who continues to praise Russian president Vladimir Putin.

There was nothing Obama could have done to satisfy such critics, no achievement that would have earned even their grudging respect. Instead, he was falsely branded a Muslim, and the place of his birth was questioned by the man who has become his successor.

If nothing else, at least the black men and women who will follow Obama's path to the White House in the future will be freed from trying to please the people who would deny them credit no matter what. The lesson from the Obama presidency is that it's fruitless to appease the people who will hate you anyway—and that you don't need their approval to succeed anyway. And that is going to be what I tell my kids. I've already begun applying that lesson to my own life.