according to aides), the president has set in motion a process both to discuss issues of minorities and policing more explicitly and to enact some policy changes. Obama and his aides organized a White House meeting with some of the protesters from Ferguson. He conducted an interview on race with BETs 106 & Park, a program with a large audience of young African-Americans, the group the White House wanted to reach. His administration also formed a task force on policing in the wake of the deaths of Garner and Brown, and the president has embraced having more officers wear body cameras. He seemed very intent that future conversations would be about progress we make and not us spinning our wheels, said Brittany Packnett, one of the young activists in Ferguson who met with the president last month and is now serving on the task force. And with polls showing that Americans feel race relations are at their lowest point in more than a decade —and blacks in particular expressing concerns — Obama has tried to reframe those perceptions. The focus should be on policing, not stewing in the hopelessness of race relations in this country, he told NPR in an interview. He has argued emphatically that no matter what Americans say in polls, race relations are in fact improving. The task force that I formed is supposed to report back to me in 90 days — not with a bunch of abstract musings about race relations, but some really concrete, practical things that police departments and law enforcement agencies can begin implementing right now to rebuild trust between communities of color and the police, Obama said at a recent press conference. In part, the president seems to be reacting to the protest movement on policing around the country, and he is not the only prominent figure who has embraced some of its ideas. In a recent speech, Hillary Clinton, Obamas potential successor, declared black lives matter, one of the phrases that the protesters in Ferguson and New York often invoke. Obama has praised NBA player Lebron James and other athletes who have worn shirts that say I cant breathe, the phrase Garner used as New York police had him in a chokehold. With the presidents attention on these issues now, civil rights advocates are now trying to push him to adopt policies beyond the body cameras. The NAACP Legal Fund is urging the Department of Justice to require police departments that get federal funding to have all of their officers undergo racial bias training. Other activists, including Packnett, say the federal government should stop sending excess military equipment like armored vehicles to local police departments, a proposal Obamas team has so far rejected. ... - nbcnews/politics/barack-obama/wake-police-shootings-obama-speaks-more-bluntly-about-race-n278616
Posted on: Mon, 05 Jan 2015 07:49:24 +0000
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