From the New York Times:

Obama Warns of Growing Mistrust Between Minorities and Police

By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS JULY 14, 2016

WASHINGTON — President Obama on Thursday defended the Black Lives Matter movement and said the legacy of racial conflict in the United States had driven dangerous mistrust between the police and minority communities.

Notice that Obama and the NYT are framing this as minorities — not just blacks — versus, implicitly, whites. You could at least as validly divvy it up as blacks vs. nonblacks (e.g., Minnesota shooter cop Jeronimo Yanez), but then where’s the KKKrazy Glue to hold together the Coalition of the Fringes?

In an hourlong televised event just days after a series of fatal confrontations between police officers and African-Americans, Mr. Obama grasped for solutions by promoting a broad dialogue on race and reconciliation. He said officers were being asked to do too much in disadvantaged communities and not thanked often enough. But he argued that they must do more to address implicit prejudice that can feed violent clashes.

Implicit prejudice is original sin. Everybody is guilty (if they are a cishet white male Republican. But due to intersectionality, you can catch Pokemon Points to stop being guilty by, say, becoming woke and voting for Hillary, who is a woman.)

“Because of the history of our country and because of the images we receive when we’re growing up, et cetera, oftentimes there’s a presumption that black men are dangerous, so that has to be worked through,” Mr. Obama said during the town hall-style conversation, which was aired by ABC.

I love the “et cetera” in that sentence. As I’ve often said, Obama takes a lawyerly pride in misleading while Not Quite Lying. Thus, the “et cetera” can cover things like:

– The fact that black men really do commit a wildly disproportionate number of dangerous crimes.

– The crime data collected and, reluctantly, published by the Obama Administration.

– Et cetera, et cetera …

While he insisted that protests must be peaceful, Mr. Obama countered criticism of activists in the Black Lives Matter movement, which has been accused by some of implying that the lives of African-Americans are more important than those of others.

“The phrase ‘Black Lives Matter’ simply refers to the notion that there’s a specific vulnerability for African-Americans that needs to be addressed,” Mr. Obama said. “It’s not meant to suggest that other lives don’t matter; it’s to suggest that other folks aren’t experiencing this particular vulnerability.”

Which is why they go insane with rage whenever anybody says “All lives matter.”

Even as Mr. Obama sought to encourage a civil conversation, the anger and frustration of activists and advocates on both sides was apparent.

After the taping ended, Erica Garner, the daughter of Eric Garner, who died in 2014 after a New York City police officer placed him in a chokehold, became angry inside the theater where it took place. After yelling that she had been deprived of a chance to question Mr. Obama, she demanded — and later received — a private audience with the president.

“I was railroaded!” Ms. Garner shouted, noting that the event fell two years after her father’s death. “That’s what I have to do? A black person has to yell to be heard?”

Later, Ms. Garner took to Twitter to complain that tough questions had been banned. She condemned the event as a “farce” that was “nothing short of full exploitation of black pain and grief.”

“They shut out ALL real and hard questions,” Ms. Garner added, calling the exchange “a sham.”

Reporters who had been allowed into the theater where the meeting was taped witnessed the outburst, which Mr. Obama’s staff swiftly tried to defuse. Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary, later said that the president had visited briefly with Ms. Garner, “who was upset that she didn’t get called on to ask a question.”

Earlier, during the event, Mr. Obama became visibly cross and responded tartly after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick of Texas questioned whether the president was doing enough to support law enforcement. Mr. Patrick admonished him to “consider being careful” with his words after police confrontations so that he does not reflexively blame the officers.

“Words matter — your words matter,” Mr. Patrick said. “Put on the blue lights,” he added, noting that the president had bathed the White House in colorful lights in the past to honor other groups.

“I have been unequivocal in condemning any rhetoric directed at police officers,” Mr. Obama said, offering to send Mr. Patrick copies of his comments on the subject. “I appreciate the sentiment; I think it’s already being expressed.”

In other words: No Blue Lights while Barack Obama is in the White House.

The meeting was the latest in a series of events Mr. Obama has participated in this week to respond to killings in Louisiana and Minnesota of black men by police officers, and an attack days later in Dallas in which a black assailant claiming he wanted to kill white officers fatally shot five.

Mr. Obama shared his experiences

I bet he did.

of growing up the black son of a single mother as he tried to model the kind of conversation that he has argued must take place throughout the country to defuse tensions.

“Conversation” increasingly mean I talk, you listen.

Those rifts, he conceded this week, are likely to worsen before they improve.

“There’s a greater presumption of dangerousness” when it comes to black men, the president said. “It’s not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still there.”

Indoctrinating the commoners in Reality Denialism must be our highest national priority.

[Comment at Unz.com]