Obama Out of Step on US Race Relations Status

Downtown Cleveland has been filled with protesters since black teenager Tamir Rice was shot by a white officer last month. While tensions between police and their communities are growing, there's a strong voice getting louder in support of police officers. The "Sea of Blue Rally" on Saturday drew a massive turnout. At last check, the groups Facebook page has almost 5,000 people who have accepted the invitation. Organizers say they're welcoming everyone : "You can't beat this blue line. There's no way you can beat it.Our family and our communities are really one hundred percent behind our officers, and I think the people for police are going to greatly outnumber the people that are against it." ~~~~~ In Philadelpia, in response to criticism of the December 15 killing of an armed black man by police, Philadelphia police union leader John McNesby called out demonstrators during a December 17 news conference at the Fraternal Order of Police hall. His speech followed a department awards ceremony where dozens of officers were honored for valor, bravery and other exceptional actions. “While it appears to enrage professional hate mongers, the fact is that police officers are covered by the same constitutional protections that they are risking their lives to provide everyone else,” McNesby said. “When our officers are confronted by a convicted, violent felon who should not be out of prison in possession of a stolen, loaded firearm, what else do you want us to do? We’re not going to call a timeout. We’re not going to call a news hot­line.” Then, last Friday, 500 people showed up for a peaceful rally in support of police and law enforcement. Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey acknowledged that the events in New York had escalated the recent debate over police behavior to a dangerous level. Ramsey is the co-chairman of President Obama’s newly created Task Force on 21st Cenrury Policing. Ramsey told CBS Monday : “Right now, everyone needs to lower the volume a little bit on the rhetoric because we’re just in a very, very volatile environment right now....With some of the people chanting, ‘We want dead cops,’ you just don’t know who that impacts, and now you have two officers dead, leaving behind families,” Ram­sey said. ~~~~~ Like New York, Philadelphia has been a center for demonstrations drawing attention to a perceived pattern of police brutality. Demonstrators have gathered throughout New York City and Philadelphia to conduct so-called “die-in” protests, using the “hands up, don’t shoot” and “I can’t breathe” slogans. Students at the University of Pennsylvania held an action at the home of the school president during a holiday party. One march began near City Hall on Sunday night and proceeded to the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Uniformed poice escorted the peaceful demonstrators, but blocked a group that split from the main march and tried to access the Expressway to stop traffic. ~~~~~ In Queens Borough in NYC, the wife and two sons of one of the two NYC policemen gunned down in a daylight ambush were joined at his wake Friday by hundreds of uniformed officers, saluting as his flag-draped casket was carried into the church. The daylong tribute to Officer Rafael Ramos took place at a Queens church where friends and colleagues eulogized him as selfless, compassionate and heroic - what the NYPD wants its finest officers to be. "He was studying to be a pastor. He had Bible study books in his locker, which is rare for a police officer, but that goes to show you the type of man he was," NYPD Captain Sergio Centa said. Vice President Joe Biden attended Ramos' funeral on Saturday, along with Mayor Bill de Blasio. Police union officials have criticized de Blasio, saying he contributed to a climate of mistrust of police that set the stage for the killings. But de Blasio has stood behind the NYPD since the December 20 slayings of Ramos and Officer Wenjian Liu. After the killings, de Blasio called for a temporary halt to demonstrations against police following the failure of grand juries in Missouri and on Staten Island to charge white police officers in the deaths of Brown and Garner. He denounced as "divisive" a demonstration that took place anyway and on Thursday tweeted a thank you to police for arresting a man accused of threatening to kill officers. Pastor Ralph Castillo said Ramos was a beloved member of the church : "Whether he was helping a mom with a carriage or bringing someone to their seats, he did it with so much love and so much vigor and so much joy." In the evening, hundreds of additional mourners were expected to fill the streets outside the church to hear speakers eulogize Ramos and to watch on giant video screens. Ramos was a long-standing, deeply committed member of the church, where he served as an usher, family and friends said. "We feel sorry for the family, and nobody deserves to die like this," said fellow churchgoer Hilda Kiefer as she waited to enter the wake. His compassion was in contrast to the disturbed loner who killed the officers. Investigators say Brinsley, who started his rampage by shooting and wounding an ex-girlfriend in Baltimore, also posted online threats to police and made references to high-profile cases of unarmed black men killed by white officers. Since Ramos and Liu were killed, police in New York say they have arrested seven people accused of threatening officers. Liu's funeral arrangements have yet to be announced because his family in China are awaiting the paperwork needed to travel to New York. Ramos celebrated his 40th birthday this month. He joined the NYPD in 2012 after working as a school security officer. The lifelong Brooklyn resident was married with two sons: one in middle school and one who attends Bowdoin College in Maine. The Silver Shield Foundation, a charity founded by the late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, has set aside $40,000 for the education of Ramos' sons. Bowdoin College said it will cover Ramos' older son's education costs as long as he remains a student there. The Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation, a charity created after 9/11, says it will pay off the home mortgages of the two slain officers. Meanwhile, officers at the 84th Precinct where Ramos and Liu worked have been told to be vigilant on patrol. NYPD Captain Centa said : "Things we took for granted maybe a week or two ago we can't take for granted anymore. You may be in your car and see someone walking up the street toward you. You have to be prepared. You never know. It's a scary time for the police department right now." ~~~~~ And in the midst of pro- and anti-police marches and heightened alert status for police in big cities all over America, President Obama says the nation is less racially divided today than it was six years ago. In an excerpt from a 40-minute interview the President gave National Public Radio on December 18, which was made available Friday, Obama stated that low morale about race relations is exaggerated by the reactions across the country to recent racially charged violence, including the deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of police and the revenge slayings of two New York City Police Department officers. Asked whether there's more racial division now than when he took office in 2009, Obama replied on NPR : "No, I actually think that it's probably, in its day-to-day interactions, less racially divided." he declared. The full interview will be available Monday. ~~~~~ Dear readers, as is so often the case, the President's position contradicts recent polls -- a December Bloomberg poll found that 53% of Americans think race relations have worsened under Obama, compared with 36% who say they have stayed the same and 9% who say they have improved. A more recent survey by CNN/ORC found that 57% of white Americans saying there's little or no prejudice by police against blacks, but only 25% of non-whites holding that view. The President's optimism on race relations came one day after first lady Michelle Obama and the President detailed racial prejudice they'd experienced. Michelle told People magazine : "I think people forget that we've lived in the White House for six years. Before that, Barack Obama was a black man that lived on the south side of Chicago, who had his share of troubles catching cabs." The President added : "There's no black male my age, who's a professional, who hasn't come out of a restaurant and is waiting for their car and somebody didn't hand them their car keys." Sometimes it seems like President Obama says what he thinks his audience of the moment wants to hear - and if that disagrees with what his next audience wants to hear, Obama seems to have no trouble, or sense of intellectual self-deception, when he contradicts his earlier remarks. Perhaps this is why he often seems so disconnected from reality. He has not learned that pleasing everybody ends in pleasing no one, probably not even himself.