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By:
Earl Ofari Hutchinson | |||||||||
| Posted:
Jul,15-2016 14:44:08
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President Obama announced that he would cut short his state visit to Spain to attend an interfaith service for the 5 slain Dallas police officers and give aid and comfort to their families. This is the right thing to do. The slaying of the officers was, just as Obama called it, vicious and despicable. They are public servants, guardians of the law, and the killing was a brutal and frontal challenge to state authority. No president could ignore that threat. In the wanton police murders of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge police and Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, there is no special duty or obligation for a president to take time to give personal reassurance of support to their families. But their murders do represent a major public crisis and challenge to the president just as if they were public servants. The crisis and challenge is first and foremost to tackle the endless issue of race and whether black lives are less valued than those of others. Obama has certainly not ignored the horrendous killings of Sterling and Castile, as he has other slayings of young blacks, such as Trayvon Martin. He has expressed agony over their deaths and the polarization and insensitivity to the lives of blacks. But this is not the same as personally visiting the scene of the tragedy to address this issue. Obama has established a precedent for personally flying to memorials, and tributes, and giving aid and comfort to the victims and families of those slain in Aurora, Colorado, Newtown, Connecticut, San Bernardino, and Orlando. He was applauded for that and it was the right thing to do. However, police violence against unarmed young blacks is a relentless and horrific plague. He has pled, cajoled, and prodded the nation and even law enforcement to take proactive, reform steps to curb that violence. A stop in either Baton Rouge or Minnesota is the perfect opportunity for Obama todrive home the message that the pain and anguish black victims of police violence is a legitimate national concern. Obama, like many sitting presidents, almost always avoids on the scene involvement in controversial local issues. Yet, police violence in Baton Rouge and Falcon Heights and dozens of other cities is not a garden variety local issue. It is a national crisis for the very reason that the perpetrators act under the authority of the state and law. This is not a lose-lose political minefield for him to step into. The deaths are crucial public policy concern and there is a need to provide redress for a situation that has gone badly awry. His visit would bridge the traditional firewall between federal and state powers. It's true that presidential statements on a controversial issue have at times polarized and fueled political backlash. In fact, the Sterling and Castile slayings are a near textbook example of the fury and passion that occur when race is involved. Obama is African-American and there's rarely been a moment during his tenure in the White House that he hasn't been reminded of that. The one time that he gingerly ventured into a racially charged local issue was his mild rebuke of the white officer that cuffed Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates in 2009. The reaction was instant and rabid. Polls after his mild rebuke showed that a majority of whites condemned Obama for backing Gates and, even more ominously, expressed big doubts about his policies. The police murders in Falcon Heights and Baton Rouge do have profound racial implications. They raise painful questions. Why do so many police officers wantonly slay young blacks? Why do police and public officials often seem helpless to stop the killings? Why are black males so relentlessly typecast as violent prone, criminals that make them even greater sitting ducks for police violence? Why is it the rarest of rare case where prosecutors bring charges against police officers that wantonly kill? The Sterling and Castile murders cast another horrific glare on the gaping racial disparities in how the lives of young blacks are publicly viewed and treated. They burst open even wider the perilous divisions, polarization, and seeds of violence that the Dallas police slayings horrifically shown exist. No president can afford to ignore that peril. That is the exact reason why President Obama should go to Baton Rouge and/or Minnesota Too. | |||||||||
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