BY SOUMANOU SALIFOU

To mark President Biden’s first year in office, The African interviewed dozens of African Americans of various backgrounds about their assessment of the president’s performance. The overwhelming majority of the respondents gave the president a failing grade, primarily because, though his administration has ushered in GDP growth not seen in decades, record job gains and unprecedented wage gains for low-income Americans, the efforts have been offset by a high inflation rate not seen since 1982, when Ronald Reagan was president.

As far as the bites of the challenging economic times go, African Americans are no different from the larger society. The skyrocketing prices of food, rent, mortgage, and gas are the same for everyone, all things that have absolutely nothing to do with the Biden administration. The opposition party members who know so all-too-well, however squarely blame the new administration. And they are not to blame, for that’s how it goes in politics. Hypocrisy is a handy tool.

Quite often, economic downturns of upturns have nothing to do with the president who is at the White House—although it takes the right set of approaches, like those taken by President Obama in 2009 over the objection of the opposition party to get us out of President George W. Bush’s recession born out of the 2008 housing market crisis.

Economic down turns and outright economic crises are bound to happen in the future, long after President Biden leaves office. But one thing will outlive the president’s tenure at the White House: his trailblazing policies and actions to right the wrongs that have been done to minorities over the ages. In this regard, the president’s appointment of a 47-year-old openly gay African American daughter of Haitian immigrants, Karine Jean-Pierre, as White House spokeswoman, speaks volumes. In my 40 years of watching the White House briefings, it’s only my third time seeing a woman serve in this visible position since President Bill Clinton’s appointment of Dee Dee Myers for this job in 1992.

Jean-Pierre stated during her first briefing on Monday: “I am a Black gay immigrant woman—the first of all three of those to hold this position. I would not be here today if not for generations of barrier-breaking people before me. I stand on their shoulders.”

She relayed the inspiration that students at the suburban New York elementary school she attended said they felt at seeing her in her new position: “What I hope is that young people get to dream big and dream bigger than they have before by seeing me stand here and answer all of your questions.”

This is absolutely a big deal, way bigger than the tough current economic challenges that may not even amount to a footnote in the history of our nation. Arguably, Jean-Pierre’s appointment will go down in the history book to the same degree as General Colin Powell’s appointment as National Security Advisor by President Reagan, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President George H.W. Bush, and later Secretary of State by President George W. Bush.

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