An Open Letter to President Obama President Obama, I am compelled to write you after your speech on the Zimmerman/Martin verdict. I must say that I am very disappointed in you as the leader of our great nation. You missed an outstanding opportunity to rise above petty racism and bring our nation together (one of your campaign promises) - instead you became part of the problem. The essence of the problem is that a black person is 6.5 times more likely to commit a crime in America than a white person (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008 - down from 2000). Instead of addressing this issue as a half black person (an ideal spokesperson to bridge race divide) and focusing on this fact, discussing the problem of crime and violence in young (predominantly black) America, you focused on obliquely calling white Americans racist. You said, “There are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars.” This is not racism, Mr. President, this is human nature and logic. If a black person is 6.5 times more likely to commit a crime, then that person in the car is 6.5 times more likely to feel threatened. That may be prejudice, but it’s well founded in facts. Also, and this is the other half of the matter, that same person in the car locking their door is not necessarily responding to the color of the man’s skin, but the external indications of the content of his character (in the spirit of one of our nation’s great leaders, Dr. King). If a well-groomed black man in a suit and tie walks by, I doubt the person in the car would think about locking the door. But if a white man dressed as a gangsta, strutting around looking like trouble walks by, that same person in the car would immediately lock their doors. But you, Mr. President, only see racism, and only as a function of white racism against black. The next time you have an opportunity like this Mr. President, I hope you can rise above your own racist views and concentrate on the real problems at hand. Sincerely, Andy Rhude, American Citizen
Posted on: Sun, 21 Jul 2013 06:57:10 +0000
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