When Barack Obama was elected President of the United States this country was losing over 800,000 jobs per month. During the seven years of the Obama administration over 14 million jobs have been created. Employment opportunities have appeared in a range of industries and in the process a new and unique set of jobs have become available, jobs that are almost exclusively reserved for black intellectuals, black academics and black commentators. The job title – Black Obama Bashers.

It should be noted that there are jobs available for White Obama Bashers, but they are not as plentiful and certainly not as lucrative. White Obama Bashers fall into the “dog bites man” category, to use a phrase employed by journalists. A significant portion of white Americans believe that President Obama is (a) the anti-Christ, (b) a Muslim terrorist, (c) a Kenyan version of the Manchurian Candidate, or all of the above. For many white Americans, hating Barack Obama is as American as apple pie. As a result, White Obama Bashers are simply not news.

But Black Obama Bashers are the quintessential “man bites dog” story. Over 90% of black Americans voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. As the first black President of the United States, Barack Obama is virtually revered in the national black community, if only for this singular and heretofore seemingly impossible achievement.

Further, as president, Barack Obama and his family have carried themselves with polish, class and dignity. There has never been a hint of a whiff of a scent of scandal in the Obama narrative. As president Barack Obama has obliterated prevailing stereotypes and stubborn prejudices regarding black people. And as president he has personally opened an entire universe of aspiration for young black boys and girls and young black men and women who now understand in real time that “hope” and “change” can be more than just slogans, they can be a way of life.

In this landscape, the Black Obama Bashers or BOBs have had to find a way to sell books, demand five and six figure speaking fees and maintain their presence on television and radio so that they can sell those books and get those lucrative speaking gigs. And so the BOBs have settled on a successful formula, if success is to be judged by how much attention they get and how much money they make.

It is not particularly useful to name this murder of BOBs, this will only give them more attention, but they know who they are, and we know who they are. And they gain attention by calling the first black President of the United States a “lap dog” or a “nigger” (as in “nigger please”) or someone does not love black people as much as we love him. Others have accused Barack Obama of pimping black people and who is afraid of white people and therefore refuses to confront the issues of race and racism in America.

We read and hear bizarre and contorted logic disguised as serious commentary when Barack Obama is deemed not sufficiently black because neither of his parents (or their forebears) experienced American slavery. Presumably we are to assume that these blacker than thou BOBs grew up listening to the rattle of grandma’s shackles and learned field songs at the knee of Uncle Mose.

Claiming that criticizing Barack Obama is right and just and necessary is a gossamer thin shield for the true motives of the BOBs. President Obama and every president should be scrutinized and criticized. But it is hard to remember the times that the BOBs aimed their rhetorical poisoned arrows at George W. Bush or Bill Clinton. Indeed, one will be hard pressed to find BOBs spending much of their time attacking the Teapublicans, Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell or any of the countless domestic terrorists who actually pose a real danger to the national black community.

The BOBs know on which side their croissants are buttered and as they barely conceal their own envy at the fact that a black man has done something that they will never do, they totally ignore the potential damage that their moneymaking scheme can cause.
BOBs have eschewed the path of legitimate and useful critique and have chosen to put a shirt and tie on the “dozens”. But while they spew vitriol and nonsense at Barack Obama, they run the very real danger of demeaning and tarnishing the legacy of this man’s real achievement the consequence of which could be leaving black Americans with the bitter taste of disappointment and dismay.

And meanwhile, the BOBs will settle into a first class seat as they jet off to their next speaking engagement or TV appearance. And one wonders, what will happen to the BOBs in February of 2017 when they will no longer have any dogs to bite. That is when they will lose the jobs that they have created for themselves and then they will truly miss Barack Obama.

And that’s just sad.