A Deficit of Dignity

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/05/opinion/a-deficit-of-dignity.html?ribbon-ad-idx=5&rref=opinion&module=Ribbon&version=context&region=Header&action=click&contentCollection=Opinion&pgtype=article&_r=1

A Deficit of Dignity
DEC. 4, 2014
Timothy Egan


We know President Obama wants a lasting deal on immigration, something to make taxes fairer, a little help from a caveman Congress on climate change. If he’s lucky, he might get some of the above. But one thing his worst opponents have never given him, and probably never will, is respect. R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

From the day he took office, his legitimacy has been challenged, his American birth has been suspect, and he’s been personally insulted, lectured, yelled at and disrespected in public, by public figures, in a way that few if any American presidents have ever faced.

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No one can know for sure what goes on behind closed doors in a family. But within the bubble that we can see, the Obamas have been an impressive unit, projecting an image worthy of emulation. Michelle Obama has tried to get Americans to exercise more and eat healthy, and has reached out to the families of veterans. In public, she and her husband are a feisty, often playful and complementary couple. The kids have hardly ruffled a feather, something almost no parent of a teenager can claim of their own.

One of the things that President Obama has started is an effort to connect young men of color to mentors — the My Brother’s Keeper initiative. Family breakdown touches all races, whites increasingly. My Brother’s Keeper tries to find role models for young men coming of age at a time when two-thirds of African-American families are single-parent.

Many of the people who dwell in the uglier recesses of social media, or make casual conversation among the like-minded, will not grant Obama the family man the respect he has earned, or Obama the president the dignity that comes with the office.

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The disrespect continues to this day. Representative Paul C. Broun, Republican of Georgia, has suggested that Speaker John A. Boehner not invite the president to give his annual State of the Union speech before Congress next month.

You can call Obama a weak leader. You say he’s too aloof. You can disagree with his policies. You can suggest he’s acting like a king — thankfully, still an impressive insult in a country born in a bloody revolution against the British crown. But, for those who can’t even see the humanity in the man because of his race, try to respect the title that comes before his name. It’s there forevermore.