The Price of Obama’s Exploitation of Race

Jimmy Kimmel and President Obama talk on Kimmel's talk show

On the Ferguson, Missouri police shooting, Obama gets to have his cake and eat it too (once again).

On “Jimmy Kimmel Live” Thursday night, Obama said, “I think that what had been happening in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable and was worthy of protest. But there was no excuse for criminal acts,” Obama said. “And whoever fired those shots shouldn’t detract from the issue. They’re criminals, they need to be arrested.”

Can’t argue with that, right?

What Obama fails to mention was the fact (reported throughout the media) that protesters showed up outside the Ferguson municipal building Wednesday night after Police Chief Thomas Jackson announced his resignation earlier in the day. The U.S. Justice Department issued a report earlier this month citing racism in the department, and said it unfairly targets blacks for minor traffic violations.

So let’s get this straight. Obama’s Justice Department cites the Ferguson police department as officially racist. Soon after, the Ferguson police chief resigns. Who knows what legal charges will yet follow.

Then protesters, undoubtedly charged up by the official statement of the federal government that their police are racist, get carried away and seriously injure two police officers, nearly killing them.

If Obama had responded by saying, “Well, those racist cops got what they deserved,” it would be deplorable — but at least consistent.

Instead, he gets to have it both ways. He gets to throttle the local Missouri police department, probably with no tangible or hard evidence, but as a matter of political advantage. When those political statements incite people to riot, then Obama says, “Why, they shouldn’t have done that.”

According to a Time.com report, Obama [in the Kimmel interview] “didn’t mince words about a recent Department of Justice report that showed patterns of racism within the Ferguson police department. ‘What happened in Ferguson was oppressive and objectionable,’ Obama told the late-night talk-show host.”

“There was a whole structure there that indicated both racism and just a disregard for what law enforcement was supposed to do,” Obama added.

What’s the proof of this? A politically motivated Justice Department report issued by a Justice Department not known for its objective detachment from the President.

Of course, as Obama and his Attorney General undoubtedly realize, it’s difficult if not impossible to prove the existence of the racist charges leveled against the Ferguson police, or just about anyone else for that matter. You can certainly dispatch federal officials — who work for the politically motivated Obama and his politically motivated top lawyer — and find people who were pulled over by police and feel that was the case, “Only because of my race.” These one-sided investigations don’t prove anything, other than the fact that the man in Washington DC has a point to prove, and Ferguson — because of the national attention it recently gained — is a convenient target.

I’m not suggesting that the people who shot the police officers were in any remote way not responsible for their actions. They cannot blame their actions on anyone but themselves. However, Obama is responsible for stirring things up in the first place. Why doesn’t he get held accountable for that? Instead, he glides on to Jimmy Kimmel’s entertainment program, currying favor with the masses by dropping the full factual context and counting on the (probable) fact that most people are not paying attention.

Commentator, author and vocal Obama critic Dinesh D’Souza points to a new report issued by the U.S. Department of Justice on the violence in Ferguson which depicts police in an ugly light but concedes that Police Officer Darren Wilson acted lawfully when he shot and killed Michael Brown last Aug. 9 — the event cited as the primary grievance of rioters in that town.

In its report, issued earlier this month, the Justice Department essentially portrays the police as “racist scum,” D’Souza argues. This is the report Obama referred to in his interview with Kimmel.

It wrongly makes police out to be people “who hate blacks, who target blacks,” D’Souza adds.

It would be one thing if the police were mistreating blacks in Ferguson, D’Souza says. But the Justice Department report acknowledges there’s no evidence that Wilson did anything wrong in using force against Brown — a suspect who Wilson says refused to obey a lawful order and tried to attack him.

On the surface, it might seem like Obama is on the side of the poor, self-evidently oppressed black people in Ferguson, Missouri, against the racist, apartheid-like white cops. But by weakening the police force there with the heavy hand of the federal government motivated purely by power politics, the people of Ferguson (black as well as white) are left with a weakened law enforcement force. Who would want to be a police officer there with Obama’s Justice Department breathing down your back? Perhaps it will take an all-black police force to satisfy the politically powerful in Washington, but until or unless that happens, the streets of Ferguson will be much less safe than they would have been. And this is a benefit for the law-abiding black people of Ferguson … how?

As with so many other issues, Obama’s biggest victims are never the ones he claims to help. In the service of his own political narrative that racism is still a dominant force in America, a narrative he exploits (like other progressives) as an excuse to acquire still more power in Washington, Obama will bring down anyone who serves as a useful tool. The shot and crippled police officers are simply his latest victims, along with the people of the town who could benefit from a functioning police force. Obama is nothing more than a glorified and exploitative shakedown artist, sitting in the Oval Office with little or no accountability for anything he says or does. He uses race as an issue when it suits him.

This is what happens when citizens of a free republic stop paying attention.

 

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