Former President Obama does not have the luxury of being Bruce Fischer
Why it's annoying to hear social media users complain about Obama and Trump chatting
When I got the calendar alert saying I was required to be in a six-hour meeting in a conference room, my shoulders slumped. Any meeting that lasts that long and does not involve layoffs or major business rearrangements of the company is 99% going to be counterproductive. My boss at the time had at least 20 different stacks of paper in which we were all supposed to walk in a row, grab a page and staple them when we got to the end. (The environmentalist in me was screaming for all those trees.)
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I believe I ended up with over 150 pages of text to read by the time I was done stapling. Once all 20 or so of us got our stack of paper, that boss started a PowerPoint presentation, proceeded to grab her stack of paper and read the entire thing to us. She did not have one original thought that wasn’t already on these dead trees.
White, Black, Asian, Native or Other, we’ve all had to sit next to an annoying colleague
The only way to get through these painfully boring presentations was to have someone nearby to help you pass the time. And that boss clearly knew I was going to think this. When two co-workers entered, who I was very chummy with and often were my lunch buddies, she demanded one guy sit next to her and the other guy sit a few seats away from me. She then directed a coworker I do not like to sit next to me. It was like watching a kindergarten teacher give assigned seating — even though we’d never had assigned seating in any other meeting. All I could do for six hours was sigh and bear it.
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She also banned laptops and cell phones from the meeting, so I couldn’t even act like I was taking notes when I could’ve really been checking off my work to-do list. The irony is I was on deadline for several articles, and this meeting was slowing down work I could’ve been turning in to her.
While this boss read off every page and while I politely smiled and gave short answers to the co-worker I had no desire to sit next to, I daydreamed and hoped for this entire meeting to be over. No one sprung up faster than me to go to lunch and restroom breaks. If I could do a backflip, I would’ve pulled a Simon Biles. But when you’re on the job, sometimes you just have to deal with being in rooms you don’t want to be in.
President Obama may have been the commander in chief, but he was a black man in Corporate America first
While the six-hour meeting was an extreme case of boredom, the assigned seating and tolerating people I don’t care for is not. Black people in Corporate America deal with microaggressions, blatant racism, sexism and general disrespect nonstop. While we could’ve gone without the worldwide pandemic, the only highlight of it was how peaceful it is/was to work from home and to stop the madness of office politics.
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But we’ve nailed the fine art of being polite and have thickened our skin when it comes to condescending, racist co-workers — including when they’re sitting in the seat next to us or creating six-hour meetings. (The reasons for my racism accusations are long, not included in this post but a few are listed here.)
Even excluding Trump, if you think that former President Barack H. Obama didn’t have to deal with nonstop racism during his eight years living in the White House — even before his years as an attorney or grassroots organizer — then you would have to be a maximum of 9 years old. It’s the only way you could ignore the antics of MAGA and Mitch McConnell. Through the birther comments, the “You lie” comments and insults about his wife, this is a black man who (like every other black person) has had to sit in a room and deal with people he doesn’t care for.
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Obama is not going to be your next viral moment
There have been one too many snarky comments about Obama in this video and this video laughing and chit-chatting with Donald Trump. I’ve lost count of the number of people who wanted the 44th president to smack, dropkick, punch, scream, knock out or even switch seats to get away from the 45th president. I’m baffled by the amount of people equating Trump to Obama. And every time I read one of these comments, I wonder if I’m reading the thoughts of a 9-year-old again.
First, Obama has never been the type to flip out in public. Second, he’s established a 63-year brand of being easy breezy and diplomatic. Don’t believe me? FLOTUS Michelle Obama, who is noticeably absent while the other wives are there, has talked about his peaceful nature on many occasions.
Third, Michelle, who even had a peculiar camaraderie with former President W. Bush, stayed in Hawaii instead of going to former President Jimmy Carter’s funeral because of a “scheduling conflict.” Yeah. OK. My suspicion is she knew she’d never make it through his banter. January 20, 2016 was enough for her. She was polite enough to shake Trump’s hand at former President George H.W. Bush’s funeral in December 2018 — with two people in between her — and that was the extent of it.
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Fourth, shaking hands and small talk does not mean everybody’s BFFs now. (If that were the case, I’d be the “one black friend” for at least a handful of startlingly racist co-workers who I talked to for as little time as I possibly could but occasionally ended up near them at a meeting.)
Fifth, if Michelle can’t get Barack to be a viral moment after being repeatedly mistreated by Trump from 2008 to 2016 (and then rambling about him from 2016 to 2020), why do social media users at home think they’re entitled to change Obama’s whole personality now?
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This was a funeral, not your TikTok video session
Would it have been memorable and cool to see Obama flip out on Trump, doing his own Hawaiian version of New Zealand politician Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke on the Parliament floor? Sure.
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But this wasn’t a meeting in Congress. Obama is no longer the acting president. Most importantly, they were at a funeral for Carter. You’ve got to be a Reddit AITA to cause a scene at a funeral! Even black people in church have sat next to someone and thought, “Ugh, is there anywhere else I can sit?” But like being at work (or church), this is neither the time nor the place to cause a scene.
For the same reason you didn’t see Vice President Kamala Harris rolling her neck, letting an array of curse words fly and snapping her fingers at Trump, you’re not going to see Obama do it. Black people — including these two biracial black people — know better than to play this game. She does know how to carefully crop a photo though. She also knows the subtle way of getting someone to switch seats. (Salute to Second Gentleman Douglas Craig Emhoff.)
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We’ve been in situations like this our whole lives. We know that even if we justifiably stand up to an unapologetic bigot, we’ll end up looking like the bad guy — while this same delusional crowd will make excuses for the behavior of Bruce Fischer.
Obama is not Fischer. He doesn’t have that luxury. He also has a considerable amount of class. Stop trying to make him what he is not. You don’t see not one word of congratulations for Trump on his social media or coming out of his mouth. Still, everything doesn’t have to be your next viral video. In the real world, and especially in the working world, sometimes you just have to be pissed for hours next to people you don’t like and in a place you don’t want to be — and then you go back to living your life when the meeting is over.
Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out my Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “BlackTechLogy,” “Homegrown Tales,” “I Do See Color,” “One Black Woman’s Vote” and “Window Shopping” too. Subscribe to this newsletter for the weekly posts every Wednesday.
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