Even as the United States is worst affected by the Coronavirus outbreak, former President of United States Barack Obama indirectly criticized his successor Donald Trump for his government’s handling of the pandemic, during a virtual graduation ceremony on Saturday.
In a rare public judgment Obama, who has kept a low profile since leaving office in January 2017 and rarely speaks out publicly said, “A lot of them aren’t even pretending to be in charge,” he said as he discussed the implications of the pandemic during the online event, without naming any specific leaders.
“More than anything this pandemic has fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing,” Obama told graduates from several dozen historically black colleges and universities.
He also spoke about how the health crisis has underscored racial inequality in America, and expressed outrage at the killing of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery, who was shot dead on February 23 while out for a jog in Georgia.
“A disease like this just spotlights the underlying inequalities and extra burdens that black communities have historically had to deal with in this country,”said the former president.
“We see it in the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on our communities. Just as we see it when a black man goes for a jog and some folks feel like they can stop and question, and shoot him, if he doesn’t submit to their question,” he continued, without naming Arbery.
Obama will speak at a second ceremony later Saturday, this one a star-studded prime-time event for high school students who are missing out on graduation pomp because of the lockdown. The ceremony will feature an array of artists, athletes and musicians, and is being carried by major American TV networks.
Because of the global health crisis, traditional American high school and university graduation ceremonies, a popular rite of passage, are out of the question.So virtual ceremonies are taking their place.
“I’ve always loved joining commencements — the culmination of years of hard work and sacrifice,” Obama wrote on Twitter earlier this month.
As this year’s graduates enter a new chapter in life, they face a grim reality: the US unemployment rate has suddenly shot up to nearly 15 percent and more than 36 million people have filed for unemployment benefits as America grapples with the fallout from months of lockdown and business closings.
America’s first black president will keeping up the tradition, has up until now avoided publicly criticizing his successor, despite frequently being attacked by Trump.
But on a rare occasion Obama had slammed the incumbent administration of President Donald Trump for its response to the COVID-19 pandemic as an “absolute chaotic disaster”.
A tape recording of Obama’s remarks, rendered during a chat with members of the Obama Alumni Association on May 10, revealed that the former President said that Trump has made selfishness, tribalism, division and animosity “a stronger impulse in American life”, which has impeded the containment of the coronavirus pandemic globally.
“What we’re fighting against is these long-term trends in which being tribal, being divided, and seeing others as an enemy – that has become a stronger impulse in American life,” Obama had said.
“It would have been bad even with the best of governments. It has been an absolute chaotic disaster when that mindset — of ‘what’s in it for me’ and ‘to heck with everybody else’ — when that mindset is operationalized in our government,” he said in that call.
Obama has criticized his successor over the COVID-19 pandemic in the past, but seemed to have shown more restraint, saying the current administration lacked a “coherent national plan” to address the crisis.
“While we continue to wait for a coherent national plan to navigate this pandemic, states like Massachusetts are beginning to adopt their own public health plans to combat this virus — before it’s too late,” the former President had tweeted last month.
America is bearing the brunt of Coronavirus crisis with 1.4 million positive cases of COVID-19 and nearly 90,000 fatalities so far.
(With agency inputs)