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.
PLLLLEEEAAAASSSE...come and give us more free stuff, please come here NOW and hold our hand!!!!
We can’t figure out our lives WITHOUT YOU!!!!
Has this guy been sleeping ?
His community?
That would be the community of Kenyans?
Or the community of Indonesians?
Or the community made up of those with upper middle-class white commies grandparents?
The community of closeted gays?
true
truly believe zer0 would not last two minutes, without protection, in that crowd after midnight.
The Dems have figured out that a lot of white votes are being lost because of this anti-whitey crap so Obama stays home. He should have shut his mouth....period.
Does Ferguson have any good snow cones, BBQ, clean beaches, golf course or at least can host a DemoRat fundraiser prime dinner?
Otherwise 1%er whitey with the blackey skin can’t be bothered.
I'd like to add something to your description of the much large issue.
My Adventures in Urban Substitute Teaching stopped just over a year ago. If only those who set policy and wanted reform had that kind of experience. Sometimes one real world encounter molds a vision that helps one develop a belief that gets to the core.
My vision is in an elementary school in a housing project neighborhood, where the school within sight was abandoned and a new one was opened, a short but dangerous walk down a busy street. I had AM and PM outside supervision duty for two weeks. Every day a young dad left off and picked up his first grade son, by bike, child riding on the handlebars. Every day, the dad checked that he had books and that the boy behaved. Dads don't come any better than that probably mid-20s dad. He's the kind of guy who'd be on our side if conservative pols would scavange the urban wasteland for hidden treasures.
I realized something; for me anyway it was profound. After that dad left his son off he rode home for the day. The school he rode away from is surrounded by abandoned factories and small businesses. The only way that anything is going to change is if dads like this leave their sons off and spend the day in those factories or somewhere else working.
So what's happening while the fake black Obama and Holder and the other race baiters blather on? Well, hordes of Central Americans along with others are overwhelming the US, taking away the already inadequate job opportunities, adding yet more instability to the schools and neighborhoods, and adding a new difficult dynamic to already challenged law and order.
It's either intentional, arrogant, or incredibly stupid, what's going on in the US and with situations we've created globally. I'd vote for all three.
I had to get that ramble out. I'm troubled and worried for the future. Except for during the worst of the riots of the 1960s over the war and busing, I don't think the situation seemed so irreversible and permanent. This time it just might be...irreversible and permanent.
“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.”
As I see it, being of two nationalities, Ferguson has a choice, he can take his 17 yo to Africa to live, where he can thrive. ( might want to wait for that pesky Ebola virus to go away)
The tribals have worked themselves into an emotional lather and have turned the town at night into one, big, riotous party free for all. Its their fun and entertainment—factual truth and reasoning be damned. The ferals got a bender of a party going on in their drab, crass, lowlife existence. No joke.
Obama’s entire life has been training him to STIR UP TROUBLE,
he doesn’t have a clue how to quell it.
Of course Obola doesn’t identify with them. He’s only half-rican and a 1% to boot.
Wait till they figure out that the democrats are going to toss them overboard for the new democrat underclass crossing our border by the millions.
It's true that Ferguson doesn't have any golf courses, but we do have golf courses here in the Greater St. Louis area!
MB got himself killed not because of his skin color but becuse of his content of character—criminal. Don’t celebrate MLK and then ignore his teachings. Racism is not the issue but stupidity mixed with bad character IS.
Sounds like Black Muslim?
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.
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