Seems like Barack Obama’s 100% behind the controversial Black Lives Matter.
Speaking about the often-violent riots that have destroyed neighborhoods in inner-city nationwide during a White House forum on criminal justice reform, Obama blithely explained that: “We, as a society, particularly given our history, have to take this seriously.”
The Black Lives Matter sprung up after a few high profile shootings, where white police officers killed young African-American men. The recent deaths of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Eric Garner in New York, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri—and, in retrospect, the shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012—are widely seen as the catalysts for the movement.
However, the movement has been controversial—especially as it began shouting down politicians on both sides of the aisle for using the phrase “All Lives Matter,” crying racism.
Obama defended that, too.
“I think everybody understands all lives matter,” Obama explained. “I think the reason that the organizers used the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ was not because they were suggesting nobody else’s lives matter. Rather, what they were suggesting was there is a specific problem that’s happening in the African-American community that’s not happening in other communities. And that is a legitimate issue that we’ve got to address.”
He added that everyone needs to be “stepping back for a second and understanding that the African-American community is not just making this up.”
While any unjustified police killing is a travesty that rightly should have the American people up in arms, it’s worth noting that young African-American men are far more likely to be murdered by other African-American men than by white police officers.
