|
Hume: Racial tensions have grown worse under Obama admin |
WASHINGTON – The son of the Louisiana
man shot dead by police wants President Barack Obama to help end world
racism. The mother of a policeman pleads for ways to keep her son safe. A
single mom who has sent her son away from a rough Baltimore
neighborhood worries over how to keep him safe when he's home on the
weekends.
America's fraught debate about tensions between
blacks and police spilled over Thursday into hang-wringing about
societal problems beyond any one person's capacity to fix — even the
president. At a town hall meeting recorded to be broadcast in prime
time, Obama cautiously offered suggestions, but no surefire solutions.
The good news, Obama said, is at least people are
finally talking about the problems. Calling for "open hearts," he urged
Americans not to cloister themselves in separate corners.
"Because of the history of this country and the
legacy of race, and all the complications that are involved with that,
working through these issues so that things can continue to get better
will take some time," Obama said.
More time than Obama has left in office, he readily conceded.
As 32-year-old Philando Castile's funeral was
underway in St. Paul, Minnesota, Obama took a question remotely from
Diamond Reynolds, Castile's girlfriend, who livestreamed the aftermath
of his shooting bypolice on Facebook. She said she's scared for her
daughter's future and asked the president, "What do we do?"
Choosing his words carefully, Obama said it's key for
officers to get to know the community they're protecting. Also
critical, he said, was to better train police to avoid "implicit
biases."
"We all carry around with us some assumptions about
other people," Obama said. If people are honest with themselves, he
added, "oftentimes there is a presumption that black men are dangerous."
He offered a rare reflection on how he felt racism
had affected him personally, recalling how as a young boy in Hawaii, a
female neighbor didn't recognize him and refused to ride in the same
elevator. "In that sense, what is true for me is true for a lot of
African-American men," he said.
Another questioner, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, came
with a different viewpoint. He implored Obama to more strongly condemn
those who call for killing police, and to grant a national law
enforcement group's request that the White House be lit up with blue
lights in solidarity.
The White House has declined that request, and Obama insisted he's condemned anti-police rhetoric plenty already.
In a particularly tense moment at the end of
the town hall, the daughter of a man who died in
apolice confrontation started screaming after being denied a chance to
question the president. Erica Garner, daughter of Eric Garner, later met
briefly with Obama in private, the White House said.
The question-and-answer session at a Washington
theater capped a dizzying week for the president as he sought to connect
with the public in a series of hastily arranged appearances: a meeting
with police, a summit with law enforcement leaders and Black Lives
Matter activists, a trip to Dallas to honor five white officers killed
in a revenge attack.
In each instance, Obama has said he's trying to shift
the conversation away from talking points and entrenched accusations of
blame, while acknowledging the U.S. is "not even close to being there
yet."
Obama, who cut short a Europe trip after the Dallas
killings, has found himself squarely in the middle of the crisis. A
reluctant mediator between blacks and the police, he's avoided
explicitly taking sides.
Even still, some law enforcement leaders have
accused Obama of scapegoating police. Some of Obama'scritics have even
suggested he's partially to blame for attacks on police.
Obama has long been wary of the expectation that, as
the first black president, he's uniquely qualified to play peacemaker.
After George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing unarmed black teenager
Trayvon Martin in Florida, Obama called for national soul-searching but
suggested he needn't be the referee.
Instead, he's tried to encourage more places to
adopt policing recommendations developed earlier by his administration.
He's called for assigning police officers to the communities where they
live, improving training on how to avoid confrontation, expanding access
to statistics about police interactions, and ensuring transparent
investigations and due process after deadly incidents.
Yet in a reflection of how the policing issue has
unmasked broader inequalities, Obama has also insisted that the problem
can't be solved while African-Americans still struggle
disproportionately with joblessness, drugs, poverty, and lack of access
to education, health care and healthy food.
"We expect police to solve a whole range of societal
problems that we ourselves have neglected," Obamasaid. He said prominent
incidents sometimes "the catalyst for all the other stuff that may not
even have to do with policing coming out."
Obama has been blunt about the limitations of
presidential words or pat policy proposals. Acknowledging "deep
divisions" about the right solutions, he predicted this week there would
be more tensions "this month, next month, next year, for quite some
time."
To that end, the National League of Cities and U.S.
Conference of Mayors called for local officials to hold "100 community
conversations race relations, justice, policing and equality." And in
Congress, lawmakers were forming a task force to
examine police accountability and aggression toward police.
"I think we need to listen and learn, instead of just
starting to throw bombs at each other," said House Speaker Paul Ryan,
R-Wis.