Barack Obama

That is a great line. This brilliant statement also from the OP:
I know that when the president stands up in his black male body and stands in as a character witness for a slain black boy, it matters. When the president argues that the nation has a duty to make black men feel valued and included as full citizens, it matters. And it matters, because no president has ever said it quite like that before. This is what American exceptionalism means for black people: that an extraordinary black citizen’s experiences must act as a guarantee of credit-worthiness, as a co-signer, if you will, for the experiences of the ordinary black citizen. This should not be.

Because Tavis Smiley ended up on PBS I was willing to give him a good try, but he long ago wore me out. He went from being "not quite to my taste," to "WTH is he on about with President Obama now?!" He's taken the respectable PBS platform and squandered it, imo, and as we can see he has taken his national platform and made it evident that he is really bitter about this president no matter what he does or says. Some venomous worm is twisting away in Smiley's soul.

Hekate