President Obama speaks in Dallas
Current Events –
Dallas, Police, Protesters
and The President
President Obama visited Dallas on Tuesday to mourn, honor and pay tribute to the 5 police officers innocently gunned down last Thursday by a former military man.
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Current Events
Joined by First Lady Michelle Obama, Vice-President Joe Biden, as well as former President George W. Bush and Laura Bush, Mr. Obama became emotional over the scourge of gun violence that has marked his presidency.
“I’ve spoken at too many memorials during the course of this presidency,” Mr. Obama said to a crowd of 2,000 during the interfaith memorial service. “I’ve hugged too many families. I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been.”
However, Mr. Obama did not bite his tongue when he spoke honestly to both protesters and police.
First, he admonished police departments as a whole for not understanding the legitimate grievances of African-Americans, who feel as though they are perpetual victims of systemic racial bias.
“We cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protest as troublemakers or paranoid,” the president said to generous applause (although the police sitting behind him did not applaud). “We can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and co-workers and fellow church members again and again and again — it hurts.”
Then the president chastised members of the Black Lives Matter movement for frequently being too quick to condemn the police.
“Protesters, you know it. You know how dangerous some of the communities where these police officers serve are, and you pretend as if there’s no context,” Mr. Obama said. “These things we know to be true.”
“When the bullets started flying, the men and women of the Dallas police, they did not flinch and they did not react recklessly,” the president continued. “They showed incredible restraint. Helped in some cases by protesters, they evacuated the injured, isolated the shooter and saved more lives than we will ever know. We mourn fewer people today because of your brave actions. ‘Everyone was helping each other,’ one witness said. ‘It wasn’t about black or white. Everyone was picking each other up and moving them away.’”
“See, that’s the America I know,” Mr. Obama said to thunderous applause, including the attending police.
It was the poignant speech of a man who is not only near the end of his presidency, but near the end of his patience.
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I am going to miss my boy in January. I wish he could stay another eight years.