. Divided we stand
Obama may have broken racial barriers when he became the first African-American president of the U.S., but his election did nothing to improve race relations. In fact, a majority of Americans (54%) say that race relations deteriorated under Obama, according to a recent CNN/ORC poll.
Obama’s efforts on behalf of African-Americans often backfired. Before he had the facts in hand, the president accused Cambridge, Mass., police officers of acting “stupidly” when they arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his own home in 2009. The police were responding to a report of a potential burglary, which turned out to be Gates trying to pry open his front door.
The incident divided the country: blacks supported Obama’s accusations of racial profiling; whites said he had played the race card. Obama’s response was to bring the parties together for a “beer summit” at the White House.
Obama has promoted the idea of a police force biased against blacks. He vehemently denied FBI Director James Comey’s explanation for the surge in violent crime and homicide rates last year as a result of the “Ferguson effect,” with law-enforcement officers pulling back from proactive policing following the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
Chicago, Obama’s hometown, witnessed 762 homicides last year, the most in two decades, and 1,100 more shootings than in 2015. Obama’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, the reason is the Ferguson effect, according to the Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald. What’s more, statistics show that police are three times less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than white ones.
Obama is not entitled to his own facts. If he doesn’t want to talk to those on the front line, he should listen to those who do.
“As killings rose, police activity fell,” CBS’s 60 Minutes reported in its investigation of the “Crisis in Chicago,” which aired on Jan. 1
Obama may have broken racial barriers when he became the first African-American president of the U.S., but his election did nothing to improve race relations. In fact, a majority of Americans (54%) say that race relations deteriorated under Obama, according to a recent CNN/ORC poll.
Obama’s efforts on behalf of African-Americans often backfired. Before he had the facts in hand, the president accused Cambridge, Mass., police officers of acting “stupidly” when they arrested Henry Louis Gates Jr. in his own home in 2009. The police were responding to a report of a potential burglary, which turned out to be Gates trying to pry open his front door.
The incident divided the country: blacks supported Obama’s accusations of racial profiling; whites said he had played the race card. Obama’s response was to bring the parties together for a “beer summit” at the White House.
Obama has promoted the idea of a police force biased against blacks. He vehemently denied FBI Director James Comey’s explanation for the surge in violent crime and homicide rates last year as a result of the “Ferguson effect,” with law-enforcement officers pulling back from proactive policing following the 2014 fatal shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo.
Chicago, Obama’s hometown, witnessed 762 homicides last year, the most in two decades, and 1,100 more shootings than in 2015. Obama’s protestations to the contrary notwithstanding, the reason is the Ferguson effect, according to the Manhattan Institute’s Heather MacDonald. What’s more, statistics show that police are three times less likely to shoot unarmed black suspects than white ones.
Obama is not entitled to his own facts. If he doesn’t want to talk to those on the front line, he should listen to those who do.
“As killings rose, police activity fell,” CBS’s 60 Minutes reported in its investigation of the “Crisis in Chicago,” which aired on Jan. 1