Obama praises Black Lives Matter movement for raising policing issues

[Eugene]

Source: The Guardian

Obama praises Black Lives Matter movement for raising policing issues

Ciara McCarthy in New York
Thursday 22 October 2015 22.30 BST

Barack Obama defended the Black Lives Matter movement from its critics on Thursday, saying the campaigners had raised genuine problems that should be tackled as part of criminal justice reform.

During remarks that included his personal experiences of racially biased policing, Obama tried to rebut what he said were mischaracterizations of the contemporary civil rights movement, and he pushed back against the “All Lives Matter” slogan that is sometimes used to critique it.

“I think everybody understands all lives matter,” Obama said during a panel discussion at the White House. “I think the reason that the organizers use the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ was not because they were suggesting nobody else’s lives mattered. Rather, what they were suggesting was there is a specific problem that is 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.”

Urging skeptics to take allegations of unfair policing seriously, the president said: “The African American community is not just making this up.” He stressed, however, that those who claim that black people are disproportionately subject to excessive force by police “back it up with data, not anecdote”.

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Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/22/obama-black-lives-matter-movement-policing

[Number23]

1. Oh this is fabulous. Thanks for posting this, Eugene.

And here's a pic of Charlie Beck who when responding to Obama's comment about having been stopped "and not knowing why" said "I was stopped and I always knew why." I'm not quite sure what that's supposed to mean.

[Cha]

2. Yes, thank you for posting this, Eugene! I saw that earlier.. Mahalo!

“I think everybody understands all lives matter,” Obama said during a panel discussion at the White House. “I think the reason that the organizers use the phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ was not because they were suggesting nobody else’s lives mattered. Rather, what they were suggesting was there is a specific problem that is 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.”

Yeah!

[Starry Messenger]

3. I saw the President on a clip on MSNBC

He was trying to make the room understand what Black Lives Matter means, very very patiently.

You could kind of feel him thinking, ok, let me put this the way a three year old might get this. I felt for him.