As the first black president, Obama had a great opportunity to prove that racial divisions in the country have greatly receded. It is no longer the 1960s and the era of Jim Crow, instead we have the opposite situation; minorities are now given affirmative action to make sure they end up in equal positions in education and jobs as whites — oftentimes regardless of their academic qualifications This may be unfair to whites, especially whites who never had ancestors in the South who were slave owners, and worked their way up from poverty to get where they’re at today. In fact, it could be argued that race relations have changed to where things are reversely discriminating against whites.
But instead of acknowledging this progress, Obama has done the exact opposite, hyping up incidents where blacks encounter law enforcement in negative situations and claiming there was racism involved. As a result, anytime a black man dies due to an encounter with law enforcement anymore, there is now a large segment within the black population — as well as sympathetic left-wing activists — who get vocally upset and claim it must be due to racism. He has blown up these encounters to the point where black activists are now rioting and looting.
The first major incident during Obama’s tenure as president involved the arrest of Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates at his home in 2009. He couldn’t get his house door open and tried to force it open, and a neighbor called the police. The police thought he was a burglar and arrested him. Even though there was no evidence of racism, Obama said afterward,
“I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home, and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately.”
Next, there was the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012 by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, a Hispanic who got into a scuffle with him late at night. There had been a string of burglaries in the neighborhood and Zimmerman suspected Martin was behind them. Although it turned out Martin had a history of burglaries, Obama chose to blow up the incident and portray him as someone innocent who was targeted because of his race. He gave a speech where he went on and on about how blacks are targeted and followed around by the police. He also held Martin up as someone wonderful, saying if he had a son he would look like Martin.
In 2014, white police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. Wilson attempted to arrest Brown after he robbed a convenience store, and when Brown resisted arrest, assaulted him, and fled, he shot him. By now, Obama had successfully radicalized many blacks, who clamored for the prosecution of Wilson and began rioting in the streets of Ferguson, looting and vandalizing businesses. Obama said during a speech shortly after the shooting that the racial divide in the American justice system “stains the heart of black children.” He went on, “Too many young men of color feel targeted by law enforcement — guilty of walking while black or driving while black, judged by stereotypes that fuel fear and resentment and hopelessness.”
Clearly pressured, prosecutors attempted to bring charges against Wilson, but a grand jury refused to indict him. Obama gave another divisive speech after the decision was announced, as usual implying there was racism involved, “The fact is, in too many parts of this country, a deep distrust exists between law enforcement and communities of color. Some of this is the result of the legacy of racial discrimination in this country.”
Finally, last year Freddie Gray was arrested in Baltimore, and died from injuries to his neck and spine while being transported in a police van. While it is not clear whether or not the police improperly transported him, causing the injuries, there is no evidence it was due to racism. Six officers are being criminally prosecuted — and three of them are black. The driver of the van, who would have been the one responsible for allegedly driving roughly, was black. Their trials have been set for later this year.
After Gray’s death, there was massive rioting in the streets of Baltimore. Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Black encouraged the destructive rioting, saying, “we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well.” Obama responded by not only claiming it was racism by law enforcement, but implying that it is a chronic, huge problem.
“This has been going on for a long time,” he said. “This is not new, and we shouldn’t pretend that it’s new. The good news is that perhaps there’s some newfound awareness, because of social media and video cameras and so forth, that there are problems and challenges when it comes to how policing and our laws are applied in certain communities and we have to pay attention to it.”
Obama could have healed race relations by stating after each of these incidents that he did not believe racism played a role. But he is devious and he has a twofold agenda: 1) Keep blacks and sympathetic left-wing activists voting Democrat by asserting that racism still exists and the Democratic Party is the one that will help them with its politically correct diversity policies, and 2) turn people against law enforcement.
Obama’s legacy as president is that anytime a black person suffers injuries at the hands of the police, there will be rioting and the police will be vigorously prosecuted in highly publicized, devastating trials. The only way they will be able to avoid it will be to stop arresting blacks, creating a two-tier justice system. America is one of the most colorblind nations in the world; it is sad to see how Obama has falsely labeled these incidents as racist and hyped them up, needlessly causing racial conflict as well as destroying the lives of the officers involved.