I was not surprised when Michelle Obama said that she was “really proud of” her country for the first time in her adult life. I am surprised, however, that her comments astonished so many white Americans. I am an African American woman with a law degree, and even though I share these things in common with Michelle Obama, I will not attempt to explain what I think she meant by her statement. I mention Michelle Obama’s remarks because I am stunned that so many white Americans are bewildered and disconcerted when African Americans express sentiments that reveal disappointment, and sometimes even anger, about our nation, its history, and the status of African Americans today.

      In the middle of March, the entire nation was introduced to Reverend Jeremiah Wright, Barack Obama’s pastor. More than two weeks later, television pundits and citizens are still talking about video clips and church bulletins revealing parts of Reverend Wright’s incendiary statements about the United States, Israel and white Americans. Few have seen the entire texts from the bulletins, or heard any of Wright’s sermons in their entirety. Some have observed that his statements may be distorted by a lack of context. For example, one frequently played clip shows Wright damning America without including his explanation that America will be damned if it continues to follow domestic and foreign policies that Wright sees as racist. In any event, some of what I have heard from Wright is alarming, and it is clear that he is angry.

      Several days after the dissemination of the Wright video snippets, Obama delivered a speech about his church, his pastor, and racial reconciliation. Obama forcefully condemned Reverend Wright’s incendiary statements, but at the same time, Obama acknowledged Wright’s anger. In his speech, Obama spoke of the humiliation that African American men and women of Wright’s generation suffered, and observed that this humiliation has not “dissipated”. Most white Americans do not seem to understand the depths of black anger and the reasons why many African Americans of all generations and at every socioeconomic level are enraged, even in the twenty-first century. Many white Americans are especially stunned that middle-class, well-educated African Americans share in the rage of their less privileged brothers and sisters.

      Well-educated, professional African Americans, despite their privilege, have much about which to be angry. In 1993, in his book, The Rage of a Privileged Class, Ellis Cose described the anger with which many privileged African Americans live, attributing a significant portion of that anger to the sophisticated and subtle discrimination that occurs in the workplace. It is distressing that almost all of the grim statistics and anecdotes that Cose described persist in this first decade of the twenty-first century. In 2008, middle-class African Americans face employment discrimination that impedes their climb up the corporate ladder. Many professional African Americans are stuck in middle management while white men occupy the ranks of senior management at the very top of workplace hierarchies. Disparities in wealth and income between professional black Americans and similarly educated white Americans persist in 2008. Employment decisions about promotion and pay involve subjective decision making on the part of white managers and executives who may be inevitably burdened with unconscious assumptions about black achievement based on our nation’s history of racism. 

      It is interesting that some of the dynamics of race relations in the workplace have been replicated in the 2008 race for the nation’s top job. Geraldine Ferraro and others have claimed that Obama is some sort of affirmative action beneficiary. According to them, his status as an African American does not disadvantage him. Ferraro and others argue that Obama’s race, not his message or talent, explains his success. Many African Americans interviewed for books about workplace discrimination describe similar experiences with white colleagues who conclude that the success of black professionals is attributed to some imagined affirmative action efforts, rather than the black employee’s talent.

      It is certainly true that white women face significant impediments to their advancement up the corporate ladder, or into the white house. But white women, including Hillary Clinton, are free to talk about the difficulties they face as women attempting to break through a glass ceiling. Some observers call the barriers that people of color face in the employment context a concrete ceiling, but minority employees are reluctant to talk about the discrimination they face. The reasons for the hesitancy to talk about these racial realties are varied and complex. Some people of color want to avoid claiming victim status. Others realize that their white colleagues think that racism is a thing of the past that no longer affects the lives of African Americans, especially those who are well-educated professionals. In his quest for the nation’s top job, Obama tried to avoid the quagmire of racial discourse in the interest of racial reconciliation and coalition building.

      But Obama was not allowed to continue with his race-neutral campaign. He was forced to make a speech about race. In this speech, Obama referred to a long list of items that demarcate the boundaries between the experiences of black and white Americans. Some of his references were historical. But some of his speech chronicled the present-day disparities between black and white Americans: the unfair treatment of some black Americans in the criminal justice system; a lack of basic services in some black neighborhoods; economic discrimination that precludes black Americans’ accumulation of wealth; the inferior schools that black children attend. Most of these injustices infect the lives of poor black Americans. 

      Many middle-class and affluent African Americans are angry about the injustices that plague the lives of poor black citizens, but their anger is exacerbated by what one observer called the “daily murders” that African Americans face, regardless of class or gender. There are many examples of these daily murders. I will provide just one. Near the entrance of the Central Park Conservancy garden, there is a statue and monument paying tribute to J. Marion Sims. The tribute reads as follows: “Surgeon and Philanthropist....His brilliant achievement carried the fame of American Surgery throughout the entire world. In recognition of his services in the cause of science and mankind....” In her book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome, Joy DeGruy Leary explained that J. Marion Sims performed surgical experiments on enslaved African women and infants in the middle of the nineteenth century. The women and infants were not anesthetized because Sims concluded that they were able to endure the pain because of their “race”. One of his experiments included attempts to realign the skulls of infants with a tool used by shoemakers. Most of the infants died, providing Sims with the opportunity to experiment with the corpses of his small victims. Well-educated African American professionals, the ones most likely to read Leary’s book, pay taxes to, and contribute to the success of a nation that has not atoned for the atrocities committed against our foremothers and forefathers. In twenty-first century America, we thrive even while we walk in the shadows of monuments constructed in honor of the men who enslaved and tortured our ancestors. And, we are expected to do so without being angry.

      Many middle-class African Americans are angered by the implicit racism that is part of the feminist movement supporting Clinton’s candidacy. Again, I will provide one example of this racism. When I told my friend, a white woman, that I supported Obama she asked me this question: “How are you able to get past Obama’s sexism?” I told her that I considered Obama a feminist, not a sexist. My friend responded by saying that she heard a report that Obama’s campaign played a rap song at one of his rallies as the Senator and his family walked onto the stage. The rap song was misogynist, she explained. The rapper used the word “bitch” repeatedly. Another white woman who was with us at dinner confirmed the report stating that the sexist epithet seemed to have been directed against Hillary Clinton. She even told me the name of the rap song. None of the Obama supporters to whom I spoke after this exchange had heard this report. Another colleague, a white woman, with whom I discussed the conversation, found an article describing the numerous reports of this rumor, explaining that it was completely false. Obama’s campaign had never played rap music at any rally. I was stunned that the two white women who heard the reports believed them so easily. They, like me, are law professors, but they were quick to believe this implicitly racist account of one of Obama’s rallies. They were quick to believe in the “reports” that tainted Obama with the stain of misogynist rap music. The “logic” of the false reports and the feminists who so easily believed them is as follows: some rappers are misogynist; most rappers are black; Obama is black, so it is easy to believe that he used misogynist rap lyrics against Clinton at one of his rallies.

      Middle-class, well-educated African Americans are more likely than poor African Americans to read Leary’s book, or have a conversation similar to the one that I had about Obama and rap music with white Americans who are also well-educated and relatively affluent. Each of us will react to instances like this differently. Some of us will seethe with rage like Obama’s pastor. Some of us will feel no anger at all. Most of us will fall somewhere between these two extremes.

      I am astounded that many white Americans do not understand the anger of middle-class African Americans and its pervasiveness. I am even more baffled about the expectations that some white citizens have for “well-adjusted” black Americans who either feel no anger, or who refuse to allow their anger to play a central role in their interaction with others. These black citizens are expected to live in this nation without having some aspect of their lives touch some other black American who is wounded, and whose views regarding race and politics are extreme. Most astounding about the recent discourse about Obama and Reverend Wright is that some dare to question Obama’s patriotism, not because Obama is angry or bitter, but because his pastor is.