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Compare and Contrast
Stillframe from the Youtube of the presidents’ remarks earlier this week.
According to President Obama, it is unhelpful, paranoid, and (he implies) stupid for Americans to believe we are being deliberately targeted by persons motivated by a radical version of Islam. It is, however, perfectly rational for black Americans to believe that they are being deliberately targeted for wholesale persecution and execution by racist American police officers. Here’s the president speaking a few days after the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson:
Of course, it’s important to remember how this started. We lost a young man, Michael Brown, in heartbreaking and tragic circumstances. He was 18 years old. His family will never hold Michael in their arms again. And when something like this happens, the local authorities—including the police—have a responsibility to be open and transparent about how they are investigating that death, and how they are protecting the people in their communities.
Speaking at the commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Selma, the president said:
Of course, a more common mistake is to suggest that Ferguson is an isolated incident; that racism is banished; that the work that drew men and women to Selma is now complete, and that whatever racial tensions remain are a consequence of those seeking to play the “race card” for their own purposes. We don’t need the Ferguson report to know that’s not true. We just need to open our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow upon us.
Why isn’t “opening our eyes and our ears and our hearts” also a reasonable way to gather evidence about the intentions of radicalized Islamists? Why does the attorney general fret about those who might be inspired by Islamophobia to attack innocent Muslims, but not about the murder of police officers inspired by #BlackLivesMatter rhetoric? Why are the motivations so obvious, apparent, and simple when it comes to racism, but so complicated when it comes to Islam?
“We are still learning all the facts,” he reported coolly, even as Orlando police officers were processing the scene of this horrendous crime.
This is an open investigation. We’ve reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer. The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism. And I’ve directed that we must spare no effort to determine what — if any — inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups.
And then there’s this, from his angry statement blasting Trump’s call to name the “inspiration or association” of the killer, radical Islam :
And let me make a final point. For a while now, the main contribution of some of my friends on the other side of the aisle have made in the fight against ISIL is to criticize this administration and me for not using the phrase “radical Islam.” That’s the key, they tell us — we can’t beat ISIL unless we call them “radical Islamists.” What exactly would using this label accomplish? What exactly would it change? Would it make ISIL less committed to trying to kill Americans? Would it bring in more allies? Is there a military strategy that is served by this? The answer is none of the above. Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away.
… [T]here’s no magic to the phrase “radical Islam.” It’s a political talking point; it’s not a strategy.
“Racism” is a political talking point. It is not a strategy, at least, not one used to improve the lives of black Americans. Instead, it is a weaponized insult, strategically deployed against people who — for the most part — have done nothing whatsoever to deserve it. In particular, it has been used against police officers, including Darren Wilson, who have risked their lives in defense of the proposition that black lives and all lives matter.
Like Mona Charon, I ask “Whose side is he on?”
Published in Islamist Terrorism, Policing
Yes. Well said and deserved saying.
I don’t usually get angry at Obama any more but his speech against Trump really gave me heartburn. He says that we should not blame any “class of people” yet his entire administration has gone out of his way to blame a whole class of people. He even asked all Americans to look into their hearts and change because of this crime.
He holds today’s Christians responsible for the Crusades and says that we should not get on a “high horse” about the violence of others.
The entire White Privilege movement is based on the very idea that you blame race and a class of people for all kinds of evil. Yet he pretends it is all otherwise. It drives me batty and in my weaker moments to rage. I really hate this kind of pandering.
Besides Americans don’t want to blame and do not blame “all muslims” for these crimes. We all would just like Obama to show he knows who the actual enemy is, but that is too much to ask I guess.
You can tell by his comparative tone that he knows who the real enemy is and he’s upset that Islamist terrorists are diverting attention from them. Could you ever imagine him characterizing Moslems as people bitterly clinging to guns or religion?
‘It’s all about politics and the man keeping the little guy down’. No need for actual facts or reason from our president. He’s a very skilled manipulator who was taught by some hate filled radicals along the way.
There will be a reckoning.
He’s not going to get away with any of this. Of this I am sure.
Yeah, I gave up that belief while watching Bill Clinton. Now his wife is the candidate for president….
Yup. This goes for the whole left. But if you start pointing this sort of thing out, your brain will explode, because it involves virtually every topic upon which the left opines (and that is every topic). Or, you can just find a new occurrence of it every day, make jokes about it, and call that “The Andrew Klavan Show.”
Islam is not a religion of peace. No where does it truly co exist with other religions. It is a much bigger faction than a “small percentage ” that believe as did Mateen.
The amount of trust and hope that was foolishly but hopefully given to Barak Obama and is responsible for his rise to power puts the nature of his comeuppance in a completely different category than Clinton’s.
Obama’s whole political persona is built around race. This is what’s going to be his end.
You have no reason to believe me but that is what’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen when he’s still in office.
Screenshot this so that you may justly give me my well deserved glory when that time comes.
Kate,
You have brought out the extreme political warp of Obama’s whole Presidency. We are in danger of taking this extreme ideologue seriously and allowing his twisted views to be taken as the truth.
What this incident requires is the restatement of our basic values without the spin of Obama’s cultural Marxist interpretation. Here is an example of that. It’s not that Bebe is the greatest speaker ever but that he is doing the job that should be done. Too bad we have a demagogue instead of a President.
Regards,
Jim
Powerful, powerful, Kate.
I need a drink.
Sadly true. Obama probably is intellectually incapable of understanding who the real enemy is. I am reminded of a book I read by a liberal pointing out that Conservative birthrates among religious people doom the liberal political project. To try and scare Liberals he tried to equate Fundamental Christians and their occasional attacks on abortion clinics with Radical Jihad. He tried really hard but he was forced to admit in his own book that in 40 years “Christian” violence had killed under 20 people but radical Muslims had killed something like 250,000 people in ten years. The threat level is not equate able yet in Obama is not intellectually capable of recognizing that. Sure there is the mass shooting at the Pulse this week but who can forget the siege of Antioch?
It’s unreal – I had an email tif with a good friend over the bathroom issue – I had gotten used to being talked down to when I disagree with something – you know – the lecture (from Obama, Clinton, anyone on the left) where we’re not as intelligent, compassionate, modern, and if we could just come up to speed and see it the “correct”way, all would be well. I was even scolded as to how intelligent O was, and how he “waits” and thinks things through carefully before he acts, and how its amazing that he was able to achieve anything with the “pig-headed” Republicans – yes – I lost it – yes we are still friends –
I’ll remember, G.R.
Have you read Shelby Steele’s A Bound Man? Published before the 2008 election, it bore the serious handicap of a subtitle that said something like “why we’re excited about Obama and why we can’t win” which pretty much doomed it to apparent irrelevance, but I found it really interesting on the subject of why Obama is so peculiar and slippery when it comes to race.
In order to keep blacks voting 90% for Democrats the left has to convince them that their biggest problem is white racism. If the main focus is on how to improve their own lives as per Booker T. Washington’s suggestion than the need for leftism dies.
Well, and the criterion for whether a given administration has done a good job becomes “has my life improved” rather than “does the administration reassure me that my problems are due to white racism?”
Well that’s how it should be.
But Hillary Clinton is betting that isn’t how it works. She continues with the argument, “I’m historic because I’m a woman” spiel. I find this argument surprising because after seven years of a bi-racial President (who is considered black for some reason) Obama’s color has not helped black-Americans.
Still, the pull of identity politics seem as permanent as it is misguided.
Chaplain Kate, for someone who is new to conservatism you have done a fine job of discerning the duplicity of our Community Organizer in Chief.
It is good for you to have a forum at Ricochet where you can rant on the cognitive dissonances of the Left. That will help you hold your tongue as you continue to move in social circles dominated by the Left.
It is also worth noting that the police have a good reason for profiling young black men. Though young black men make up about five percent of the U.S. population, they were 37 % of the group of persons who killed police officers.
Profiling may not be desirable, but cops are not evil villians because they do it. They are just coping the best they can in difficult circumstances, and trying to get home alive at the end of the day.
Thank you, MJBubba! You’re right. At least, I hope you’re right. Sometimes I think all I’ve done is develop a vague, nagging discontent into full-on alienation… and the tongue-holding is easier in some moments than in others.
I think the “I am a woman” thing is lame, but maybe I’d be more excited about it if I actually liked the woman involved?
A “perfect” thread in two ways. It is a classic illustration of the hypocrisy of the community organizer of #OccupyOvalOffice. He is the very definition of duplicity. If you like your ___, you can keep your __. Not.
Secondly, and equally a public service, it dropped the the picture of Fauxcahontas off the top splash screen. #PTSD!
He may, in fact, just be on his own side, but to paraphrase George Orwell about pacifists objectively being fascists, he’s objectively on the side of the enemy.
It might be lame but it is going to pull enough voters to her side to get her elected.
“I am woman … hear me roar!!!
Every. Single. Time. This President suffers from academia ignoraminus. Every time he pontificates from his bull, er, umm…bully pulpit on some aspect of American culture, it’s like walking into your local community college, or even stupider, a ‘respected’ university, to hear some truly infantile professor’s rant on why America sucks this time. Truly sad….
All the time. It is equivalent to people who like to say “but I’m not to judge” or some form of a qualifier just before or after judging someone. Those type of statements mean they have an opinion, but they themselves do not want to be judged. Everybody judges, we are not animals that act on instinct alone.
Great post, Kate!
I have only one thing to say in response to the Left’s incoherence and duplicity:
Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrgggggghhhhh!!!!
This president (sic) has so inflamed and deepened the divisions in this country that it is becoming more and more difficult to envision their peaceful resolution. Even the possibility of rational discourse is currently being destroyed in the academy. Its ideological theoreticians label as “hate speech” any disagreement with the left’s received wisdom on campuses and the MSM is completely indifferent. This latter begs, as well, to be compared and contrasted with how the MSM views objections to “expressions” like flag burning. How dare anyone on the right even dream of disapproving! “Threats” to freedom of speech from the right requires eternal media vigilance; from the left, none at all.