Everyone is mad at the president. One side is disappointed that Obama is not making more of a stand against racism in the face of recent grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers for killing unarmed black men. The other side is disappointed that he is not doing more to squash the violence and protests that have erupted around the country. The president just cannot win, but one must really ask what he is supposed to do.

Expectations are high for the first African-American U.S. president. Everyone seems to think that racial tensions in the country should be lessened, now that the chief executive is black. Nothing could be further from the truth. A Bloomberg Politics poll shows that 53 percent of Americans believe race interactions have deteriorated since Obama took office. Perhaps the black community thinks he should be siding with them and using his office to put down white oppression, while the white community thinks he should be able to communicate with blacks in order to keep protests to a minimum. Each side is American and Obama has equal responsibility to both.

The president has learned. Early in his presidency he criticized police for arresting Skip Gates, who is a professor at Harvard University who happens to be black, on the front porch of his own home, saying the officers “acted stupidly.” The backlash was fearsome and resulted in Obama’s “beer summit” at the White House as he tried to sooth relations between Gates and the arresting officer and the rest of the country who took sides over the issue. He may have mollified the black community with his condemnation of the police in this incidence, but his remarks inflamed the law enforcement community and other factions.

This time Obama cannot afford to make polarizing remarks about either the police community or the two men who died during the arrest attempts. However, his attempts to keep to middle ground have in themselves become polarizing.

The White House is trying to control the conversation because they believe that what the president says on politically charged topics is likely to make things worse rather than better. Obama cannot afford to make either side more angry in the current tensions. The country is being torn apart as it is.

Picture what would happen if Obama sided with those who are vilifying the police. Law enforcement is already feeling betrayed and demonized in the face of protests with shouts of “f*** the police.” With feelings running high everywhere, the country could descend into anarchy if law enforcement decided they had had enough and walked off the job. America has a higher homicide rate than other developed nations, and more guns per capita. Police risk their lives every day, even from unarmed perpetrators, and currently feel very little appreciation for taking that risk.

Then there is the other side, many of whom point out the fact that both Eric Garner and Michael Brown were breaking the law when the disastrous arrest attempts occurred. This is not to say that either man deserved to die, but for the president to side solely with Garner and Brown would send the message that he is the black president, not an impartial leader.

Impartiality, however, is being seen as insensitivity and weakness by many, particularly in the black community, who expected more from Obama. He has announced that he is “not going to let up” in his efforts to ease racial tensions between minorities and police, but reminds the nation that racism is “deeply rooted” in our history, and that progress occurs in steps.

The country wants bigger steps. Demonstrators on both sides, both black and white, are protesting across the nation. The president said that he believes the nation will eventually solve its racism problem, and that progress on civil rights has definitely been made in the past 50 years. However, right now there are many factions making their voices heard on what they see as failure.

In refusing to visit Ferguson, the president is attempting to keep above the fray, but offending both sides. However, if he goes to Ferguson there is little he could say that would not just make matters worse, because he truly cannot win.