If he had taken the high road, we'd not be here today. Some people fear he--and his acolytes in the media--have set race relations back decades.
So the high road was for him to say nothing? The black president commenting on the death of a young black man has set race relations back decades? Or could it be the FOX news reaction to such has set race relations back decades? Could this not be something that moved him, having been a young black man in America at one time? He didn't make accusations, he expressed condolences. This was not the only condolence he has offered in the course of his presidency. I realize that if he ever does anything that might suggest he is black, people will claim that he is starting a class war. But I just didn't see it. I didn't see anything in the comment until the right got hold of it.
And now we have a comparison to Jackson and Sharpton. These two men were fighting a very big battle, and doing so quietly was not going to work. Sharpton openly says he has regrets about some of the things he has said---but he wanted to be heard and made mistakes. Injustices were everywhere, and there was anger, but we don't think about that. We think about the things that might have offended us, completely disregarding the battle and the context. Fighting for rights gets noisy and messy. We still have a long way to go, obviously, since a black president can't express sadness over the death of a young black man without being accused of starting some kind of war.
It just baffles me how different brains work. It's crazy that we can all view the same thing and come to such radically different conclusions. I almost miss the days of political neutrality because I see that there simply may be no common ground and nothing but accusations and conflict. It's quite insane.
NC