RE: 4 Officers Shot Dead By Snipers, 7 Wounded in Dallas Protest Against Police Violence
July 9, 2016 at 5:24 pm
(This post was last modified: July 9, 2016 at 5:28 pm by Seraphina.)
(July 9, 2016 at 9:38 am)thool Wrote:(July 8, 2016 at 11:45 pm)Tres Leches Wrote: I was just thinking the same thing today - I don't blame President Obama for any of this; I'm thinking more like a leader to lead peaceful marches and galvanize people to come together. We need revolutionary ways of thinking to get rid of our race problems in the US. Where's Martin Luther King when you need him?
The word "blame" is wrong to assign to Obama regarding the violence, but I am completely comfortable using that word when it comes to motivating congress to do the right thing. He's had 8 years and things have gotten worse with respect to race relations and police violence. Maybe he just lacks the leadership juice to get everyone united behind a common goal.
My vision for an effective president is one who transcends politics and delivers a clear message to everyone to rally behind. Those politicians who defy this and instead ally themselves with their lobbyists rather than their constituents will find themselves out of a job the next election cycle.
So the president sets the foundation for this to occur.
Bold is mine.
I wasn't alive in the 60s but I've seen the videos of blacks being hosed by the authorities with water cannons and set upon by police dogs merely for peacefully protesting. And much of that was when President Lyndon Johnson was in office -- he signed the Civil Rights Act and initiated the War on Poverty. Yet race relations still weren't that great.
What about Governor George Wallace who physically stood in a doorway for hours to block 2 black students from attending the University of Alabama? That was 53 years ago. And all the lynchings back in the bad old days? Race relations today are just as bad as they ever were, the only difference now is everybody has a smartphone to record incidents.
Will race relations ever improve? I'm not sure but probably not. We all have, at one point or another, looked down our noses at someone who looks different than us and then acted on this belief.
But The Man - any authority or government figures including the police - must always be held accountable and questioned, including in matters of police brutality.
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