Permissible Generalizations, Part II

Obama referred to the murderer of the five Dallas police officers as a "demented individual." That individual had said that he wanted to kill white people, especially white officers. When asked if that attack might be considered a "hate crime," Obama opined "it's very hard to interpret the motives of this shooter, as we have seen in a host of mass shootings." Very hard? He said he wanted to kill white cops. How is it "very hard" to figure out his motives? He wanted to kill white cops. He said so.

Obama continued in his feigned confusion regarding the shooter's motives: "What triggers that, what feeds it, what sets it off, I'll leave that to psychologists and people who study these kinds of incidents." Obama then compared the Dallas shooter to the young white man who shot and killed parishioners in their church: "we don't assume that somehow he's making a political statement that's relevant to the attitudes of the rest of America." But that's exactly what happened. Because that murderer was seen in an online post with a Confederate flag, much of the country (especially the left) jumped to the conclusion that any reference to the Confederacy motivated whites to kill blacks.

Recall that the Confederate flag was not only banned from flying on government buildings (which I had no problem with) but also dropped from retail outlets. Schools named after Robert E. Lee scrambled to change their names. Why the uproar? Because of a generalization that equated anything to do with the Confederate States of America with motivating whites to kill blacks. That was, of course, nonsense.

Obama: "And we shouldn't make those assumptions around a troubled Muslim individual (in Orlando) who is acting on their own in that same way." There you have it. No generalizations may be made about radical Islam - a phrase Obama refuses to utter. It matters not that these Muslim terrorists shout "Allahu Akbar," or say that they are killing in the name of Islam. No, each radical Islamic attack is carried out by a "troubled" individual "acting on their own." All of the thousands of terrorist attacks around the world can be attributed to "troubled" individuals "acting on their own." It is strictly coincidental that there are so many of these perpetrators who all happen to be Muslim.

So, Obama claims that no generalizations can be made about Islamic terror. He says no generalizations may be made about the white man shooting blacks in their church (although the left had no problem doing just that). No generalization may be made about a black man killing white cops. But there is one generalization that Obama feels confident about making: our police departments and criminal justice system are populated by a bunch of racists. Again, "these are not isolated incidents." These are not troubled officers acting on their own. That description is reserved for Muslim terrorists.

When asked what his legacy might be with regards to race relations, Obama said that he "tried to get all of us Americans to understand the difficult legacy of race...to recognize that the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and discrimination didn't suddenly vanish with the passage of the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act, or the election of Barack Obama..."

No right thinking person can think that slavery was anything but abhorrent. Every right thinking American acknowledges that some still hold racist attitudes. That includes blacks, such as the black shooter of the Dallas police officers, who said he wanted to kill whites. I disagree with the proposition put forth by some on the left that only whites can be racists. But if Obama wants to make generalizations, he should do so about his community - the black community.

He should be concerned about all the blacks killed mostly by other blacks; 263 blacks killed in Chicago alone so far this year. If blacks are committing most of those murders, he should be willing to make the generalization and ask what is going on in the black community, in black families. There are far too many single black moms. Boys and young men need a father. A father sets limits, teaches self-discipline. And a father teaches values. Here's a thought. I believe Obama could do far more good by giving uplifting speeches, instead of speeches that attack the police. One place to start would be talking about values. And a good place to start talking about values would be with the Ten Commandments. Look at the July 4th post, and you will see that our Founders were religious men; men who understood that the foundation of our democracy would have to be based on religious and moral values. We see what happens when that is lacking.