Posted on 08/20/2014 5:00:05 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
FERGUSON, Mo. — Protestors clashing with police over the shooting death of an unarmed African-American teenager say President Obama needs to do more to solve the racially charged conflict.
Obama has already dispatched Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate why Michael Brown died at the hands of a police officer who shot him six times. Obama also addressed the issue in careful language on Monday.
This has not satisfied protesters who see the shooting as symptomatic of a broader culture of intimidation and civil rights violations by law enforcement. They want the president to make a personal visit to give national recognition what they see as a grievous incident of racial injustice and to rein in the police’s combative tactics in response to the protests.
Steven Wash, a 26-year-old from Ferguson, said Obama needs to come to his community “ASAP.”
“He needs to come down here and stop all this and bring all this to justice,” he said early Wednesday morning after a standoff with police, who waved riot batons and shot tear gas to shoo protesters away from the commercial strip where they had marched for hours.
As the police became more aggressive in their tactics, some of the protesters, who are predominantly African-American, began to voice more frustration with Obama.
“F--k the White House. I’m never voting again. Another disenfranchised black male,” said Tef Poe, 27.
“He needs to touch down and calm this s--t down,” he said about what he wants Obama to do.
Some protesters said they saw a disconnect between Obama’s concern over Israel’s aggressive response to the restive Palestinian population in Gaza and what they see as his relative cool response to the street battles in Ferguson.
“Y’all don’t need Gaza when you got Ferguson,” said Malik Rhasaan as he watched riot police charge and fire tear gas at a group of young black male protesters. “Obama won’t visit this s--t.
“They bump their toe with Israel, they send them $1 billion,” he said of Palestinians, who have received $5 billion in U.S. assistance since the mid 1990s, according to the Congressional Research Service.
The scene at West Florissant Avenue, where angry residents of Ferguson have gathered for ten nights in a row, at times resembles a military offensive.
Police equipped with assault rifles and wearing military helmets and fatigues were escorted by a green armored personnel carrier and a helicopter that hovered overhead. On at least one occasion they charged the crowd, pointing their weapons at the chests of reporters and protesters, after a few plastic water bottles were launched in their direction.
Rhasaan said Obama needs to get more personally involved.
“He says something about everything else. If this was happening in any other country, we’d be occupying this country right now,” he said. “I think most people feel that way.”
Carey Jenkins said he would like Obama to “come on the ground” in Ferguson, give voice to the protesters’ grievances, and push for federal charges against Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown.
He said the president should press local and state officials “to allow us to have free assembly without the fear and intimidation of a police presence and National Guard with rifles out.”
Jenkins said he traveled to Ferguson from Milwaukee because of concern about what kind of future his 17-year-old son would have as an African-American male in the United States.
Richard B. Muhammad, editor-in-chief of The Final Call, the official paper of the Nation of Islam, said Obama could do more to draw the nation’s attention to racial injustice.
“The more that the president can use his leadership ability, the more he can use his role as the father of the house, so to speak of the nation, the more he can help people understand the deep-rooted causes for what we are seeing,” he said.
Obama interrupted his two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard to address the civil unrest sparked by Brown’s death. But he was careful not to take sides in the conflict and did not condemn what many protesters in Ferguson are calling police brutality.
"I have to be very careful about not prejudging these events before investigations are completed," he said. "When they're conducting an investigation, I've got to make sure that I don't look like I'm putting my thumb on the scales one way or the other."
A senior White House aide told The Los Angeles Times that nothing Obama could say would heal “centuries of racial history” and warned careless words might “inflame the situation.”
Holder is due to arrive in Missouri Wednesday. He pledged in an op-ed to conduct a full, fair and independent investigation and to find out “exactly what happened” in the shooting.
Brown’s grandfather, Les McSpadden, has requested a meeting with Obama and said on MSNBC that the time has come for “my president to step forward.”
Protests over Brown’s death have spread to cities across the country, including New York and Washington.
they don’t get it, no drama obama doesn’t identify with them
Exactly. Obama DOES need to go to Feguson to show his support. I wonder why he has not done so? He is abandoning is supporters. Treason.
Even sending Holder was a mistake.
The democrats have created a situation that can only end in violence.
Sorry, guys. No golf courses, no fancy restaurants, no deal.
Yo
Homeies!
He NOT BE part of your commuunnitteee!
He NEVER WAS!!!
You been snuckered AGAIN (and again, and again...........)
Jus’ like all dem white folks.
> “F—k the White House. I’m never voting again. Another disenfranchised black male,” said Tef Poe, 27
See some good did come out of all of this...
I suspect that the “justice” they want is to punish the white man, no matter what the facts are.
He got come here, now! The Prezedent gots to come her now and help us overcome Whitey, er, I mean da Prezident gots to showe hiz support for duh community and make things right! Yeah, dat be it,weez a waitin’ for da man.
Good luck Obama, amybe you can be a community organizer down there after your term is up?
“Obama has already dispatched Attorney General Eric Holder to investigate why Michael Brown died at the hands of a police officer who shot him six times.”
I’m a white middle aged guy with no criminal record. I live in a nice little community and have a friendly relationship with the local chief of police (also white, since race is clearly the only important factor in this sort of thing.) If today I go out and shove this chief of police into his car, try to steal his gun and then start charging him I have no doubt that I won’t be posting on FreeR tonight as I will be in the morgue.
I hope Holder can figure this mystery out.
these protests are not related to racism but rather to a much larger issue. They are symptomatic of the breakdown of the black family. They are the consequence of years when over 70% of black births have been to single mothers, guaranteeing a substandard lifestyle. It is the consequence of generations in which the black community has preferred to life a parasitic life sucking blood from the government.
“F--k the White House. I’m never voting again. Another disenfranchised black male,” said Tef Poe, 27.
“Ferguson protesters say Obama needs to take charge - needs to come to his community “ASAP.”........
How are the golf courses there?
Ever since baraq has been a celebrity, he only frequents wealthy white locations. College campi, Martha’s vineyard, Hollywood and wealthy donor’s homes.
He is not going to Missouri. It’s beneath him.
“Not even mass corruption -- not even a smidgen of corruption.”--Barack Obama, re: IRS targeting of Tea Party groups, February 2014
"I don’t know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts...the Cambridge police acted stupidly..."--Barack Obama, re: some racist professor getting rolled up at his home by Cambridge PD, July 2009
"You know, if I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."--Barack Obama, re: the Zimmerman/Martin assault/shooting, March 2012
I'm sure I'm missing several more. Didn't he pre-judge the outcome of the Bergdahl investigation, too? Anyway, you can see where I'm going with this.
He doesn’t actually want to be near his “if I had a son, he’d look a lot like the looters.” bunch of gangbangers. Send the outsiders and tourist looters back where they came from. Including eric “the red” holder.
He must choose between his "community," the non-working class, or the tyrannical "police state" that he has built up and is aching to use against Americans.
Obama will remain indecisive as long as he possibly can. My prediction is that he will go with the police state (i.e. send in the tanks like he did in Boston), betraying his own community.
This is the obligatory militarized police meme. All kinds of detail about the cops trying to make it sound like Iraq but the rioter's actions are minimized to a "few" little water bottles [which were most certainly not full of water, but rather something else, and which when full weigh about the same as a brick.]
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