For the first time in American history, a sitting President will be visiting a U.S. Federal Prison.
On Thursday, the president will visit with inmates and officials at the Federal Correctional Institution El Reno near Oklahoma City, the White House announced Friday, and will be interviewed for the HBO newsmagazine series “Vice” on the issue. When President Obama first ran, his rallies were festooned with banners that told us that CHANGE was coming. A lot of people interpreted that in different ways. The right assumed the worst, that he would be a marxist stripping private ownership over the means of production and instituting sharia law while sending massive reparations payments to black Americans. On the left, change optimistically meant that Obama would turn the US into Sweden overnight, and heal old racial wounds.For me, "change" was more about his approach to politics. I supported him early because I thought his presidency might be willing to go to places others had not, might be willing to challenge conventional assumptions and unwritten rules that too often govern the way we do politics in this country.
We've been fortunate that he has done that, by and large. He opened relations with Cuba, and will likely be the first President to visit the island since Calvin Coolidge. He was the first President to acknowledge that LGBT Americans should have the same right to marriage has every other couple (and he did so before he ran for re-election). He was the first President that could or would say that the young black male victim of an unspeakable vigilante murder "might have been my son". He has been willing to confront longstanding issues in American culture and policy that many Presidents have stayed away from because they were concerned about the image it would present.
Our criminal justice system is an abomination. More and more politicians on both sides of the aisle are realizing that there is a crucial need for reform. And yet, there is tremendous risk for any politician, particularly an African-American Democrat, in looking soft on crime. More, there is tremendous risk for a politician in even acknowledging the core humanity of the incarcerated.
He knows whats coming by doing this: Easy right wing jokes about how he should be the one going to prison, the angry denunciations of people who will say that he is disrespecting the victims of crime by showing up at a prison, the imagery of a black president near cell blocks.
But make no mistake; he also knows why this matters. He knows that a high profile presidential visit will shine a bright light on the issue of criminal justice reform. He knows that the time is ripe for us to be having this conversation. He knows that his visit can put this on the agenda for the fall campaign, and soften the ground for the Democratic nominee to make this a campaign issue.
And yet, for me at least, I can't imagine another President (read, someone who could get elected as President) having the political courage to do this. We all know that Democrats have been painted with the soft on crime level for decades, but it is even harder for a black politician with a majority white constituency. The attacks write themselves.
For those who may say this isn't substantive, I think you underestimate the importance of symbolism and the power of the presidency. But he is also taking action:
Obama is expected to reveal his ideas for revising the nation’s sentencing rules on Tuesday, two days before his visit. The President will be accompanied by Federal Bureau of Prisons Director Charles E. Samuels Jr. during his time at El Reno.The visit comes on the heels of Obama’s decision to commute the sentences of 22 drug offenders in March, and he is expected to add to that tally next week.
This is Change. Large and small. And this is why he continues to be a deeply progressive president on important issues.