News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Dec. 4, 2014: So now after all that celebrating for episode 200 last week, it’s time to get back to our serious work here in Obama’s America.
We just got a basic dose of it in Ferguson last week and now Staten Island this week. Two more African-American men murdered at the hands of the police. Just like in the bad old days before Obama was President.
No, no, no! Once again I am not blaming Barack Obama for the murders themselves of course but blaming him for the larger issue that America has not changed for the better because Barack Obama is President. Things have not changed at all and even more so for Black Americans.
The massive protests across America that have resulted from the fact that no one was indicted for the deaths of either Michael Brown or Eric Garner displays a far wider level of dissatisfaction with the character of our society today, and President Obama stands helpless to change this.
Right now as I write, outside my window on Broadway in Lower Manhattan, thousands and thousands are marching in the dark and they are Black and White, young and old and from every walk of life.
They are all displaying their revulsion against the Status Quo and the tragedy of Michael Brown and Eric Garner are symbols of our disquiet.
And there is nothing Barack Obama can do about it. Belatedly his Attorney General has announced that the Justice Department will investigate the death of Eric Garner. How is it even possible that Garner’s alleged selling of cigarettes became a death sentence when at most in any normal view of reality, he should have received a summons if bothered at all.
Instead Eric Garner is Dead!
What does it say about our criminal justice system when clear indisputable video evidence exists that Eric Garner was the victim of police brutality but the perpetrator goes completely unpunished? What is the real purpose of grand juries when they completely exonerate the police who are paid to protect us yet get to kill unarmed African Americans like Michael Brown and Eric Garner with no consequences to them – NOT even being charge with excessive use of force?
Absolutely nothing at all!
Barack Obama led us to believe in 2008 that if we elected him President he would bring change. What change has he brought to Black communities or any part of America? The only “change” is that the rich have become far richer than they have ever been since Barack Obama has been President.
Is Barack Obama specifically responsible for their riches? No. But what he is responsible for is the fact he has done nothing to change inequality in America, which has only gotten worse during the last 6 years under the Obama Presidency.
Has he shown any evidence of being willing to risk his Presidency for the Greater Good or for anything? His agenda was clear from Day One. It is Barack Obama and keeping him in The White House for two terms, and that meant being a very typical middle of the road Democratic President. That is exactly what Barack Obama has been making sure of – that he does not upset any group of Americans too much by taking very strong stands and certainly NOT on the conditions among Black Americans.
But Obama can pontificate with the best of them when tragedy strikes and when he must display his concern in the face of Michael Brown’s and Eric Garner’s death so the Talking Heads on CNN and elsewhere can sit around and discuss the eloquent heartfelt remarks President Obama delivered from The White House.
If we saw any signs at all of a fairer America, a less unequal America in the time Barack Obama has been President, we would not being seeing the size and scope of the demonstrations in the wake of the murders of Garner of Brown …
If we were seeing an improving America – Eric Brown and Eric Garner would be mourned just as much but their deaths would be viewed in the context of a rising hope for better. That is not what we are seeing!
We are witnessing large demonstrations driven by a sense of hopelessness that change will not come not only to Black neighborhoods or anywhere except for the super-rich who live lives of ever greater splendor in the midst of the growing concerns of middle class and poor Americans, and most of all so called Minority Americans and African Americans.
So when Barack Obama from the grandeur of The White House or riding in glory on Air Force One looks into the cameras and expresses his concerns about the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner and reminds us he is Black too, so what? Nothing is going to change!
Then two years from now when Obama finishes being President, he and Michelle will fully embrace the life styles of the super-rich private citizens, living in palatial elegance in a gated community far, far away from the Black neighborhoods Obama claims so much sympathy with in the aftermath of Eric Brown and Eric Garner’s deaths.
So what it means is nothing to either of them!
As thousands and thousands continue to march on Lower Broadway as I write, we need real change for the better.
We will not get it from Barack Obama … or Hillary Clinton.
We need real Change Masters not Status Quo junkies like these two.
