There, Obama summoned facts about how the United States’ legal system discriminates against blacks and Latinos while also being reverential of the good work done by many police officers. He spoke directly about the reality of the color line and persistent racism in the United States. Obama embraced his identity as the United States’ first black president as opposed to a president who just happens to be black. Obama also signaled to how the repeated killings of African-Americans by the country’s police, and the loss of five officers in Dallas, are part of a cycle of violence that must end. [...]
It is problematic because Obama’s logic surrenders to an ethical framework and politics which rests up a basic assumption that people who live in poor and working class black and brown neighborhoods should not receive the same level of respect and fair treatment from the police as those who reside in wealthier white communities. Obama’s observation also plays dangerously close to the belief that poor black and brown people who are abused by the country’s police are somehow responsible for their own victimization.
President Obama’s observation is challenging because it is calls attention to how structural class inequality and systemic racism help to create and legitimate the very circumstances in which African-Americans (and Latinos) are subjected to excessive force, violence, and killing by police as compared to whites.
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