There are plenty of legitimate things to critique Barack and Michelle Obama about. Plenty. Harping on race makes race and racism the issue and overwhelms the rest of the message. It's foolish and counter productive. And it begs the question as to why people do it.
First of all, I have read over these two posts carefully. I feel free without any ad hominem on your part to reply. Yes, it does beg the question about these posts about black violence- especially toward white people. In Canada without the first amendment to the constitution, much of the general public and media have to live a lie. They dare not inveigh about the wicked goings on in Toronto regarding race. It would be professional and political suicide for anyone to decry the crime and deterioration of certain districts- alluding to racial make up. They have to make fools of themselves on multi-culture days.
I have driven from Ontario down through Michigan, to take a quick route to Detroit/Windsor. I also drove through Flint, Michigan. It was there that three silly white teens hopped on a freight and jumped off in Flint. It was near a "neighbourhood". Only about five years ago. One was killed by blacks and the girl raped, the other lad beaten.
Do you think I stopped in Flint? True, a large black truck driver was said to have intervened. How would people know about the vile hatred of certain people for others, because of the colour of their skin? Unpleasant though it may be, Free Republic posters let us know about the situation. That in certain areas, white people are simply fools to go there.
Now let me concur with you on Michelle Obama. Photo shots of her earlier showing anger have been put on the internet. A puzzle to me that she could thus be angry. That aside, this lady is looking after her two nice little kids in the best possible way. Given a classy dress and that dazzling smile, I think she is a bit of a looker. (Oh fire away folks).
Just an old working class lad here with a shot of Crown Royal to boot.
My mistake, I used the word critique.
According to Department of Justice statistics on homicides, 86% of white victims were killed by whites and 94% of black victims were killed by blacks. Yes, blacks committed 52% of homicides during that period but they were mostly killing other black people and the percentage of whites killed by blacks (14%) is only a percentage point higher than the percentage of blacks in the general population (13%), meaning that if all of the white people killed in a year were killed by a random member of the population, you'd expect 13% of white people to be killed by a black person. My point here is that while it's unrealistic to pretend that black-on-white violence doesn't exist and that only white-on-black violence is a problem, it's equally incorrect to portray black-on-white crime as a particularly acute problem. And just as the James Byrd slaying was hardly characteristic of the way most white people treat black people, the slaying of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom is hardly characteristic of the way most black people treat white people.
Let me give you a particular experience that I had to prove the point. Some friends lived just down the road from a particularly rough black neighborhood in New Jersey that saw race riots in the 1960s. I decided to stop in the McDonalds in that rough neighborhood before heading over to their house one night. A group of cocky young black men there that night decided to play "Let's stop whitey from getting served" and kept cutting in front of me to talk to the cashier or order something (as one would finish up, another would step in). I simply patiently waited there and finally the black woman behind the counter said to one of them, "I think he's next," and took my order. If I wanted to, I could focus on the racist young black men who were hassling me, sure, but that ignores the fact that the young black woman behind the counter, seeing how unfairly they were treating me, put an end to it, too. You mentioned a black truck driver intervening to help a white victim in Flint. Blacks also intervened to help white victims during the LA Riots and in other instances of black on white violence. There are good and bad black people. There are good and bad white people. And if you can't look past race, you won't see the good.
Yes, it makes sense to use stereotypes to assess risk. Young black men who look and act like thugs should be avoided, not because they are black but because they look and act like thugs. You should avoid white and Asians who look and act like that, too. And elderly black man, and elderly black woman, a young black man dressed in a suit carrying himself like a professional, and so on don't pose a threat any more than the ubiquitous Swedish old lady or Amish teenager does. And if you don't look at more than race, you can and will miss a great deal that's far more important than race in assessing threats.