US: Obama asks protesters to make the powerful uneasy

Obama asked protesters to turn the protest into one demanding systemic change

obama-reuters Barack Obama | Reuters

As protests in the US continue over a white police officer’s killing of an African-American man while kneeling on his neck; former president Barack Obama is taking on an increasingly public role.

As the elections  in November loom near, Obama is signalling a willingness to sharply critique his successor, President Donald Trump, and fill what many Democrats see as a national leadership void.

At a virtual town hall event on Wednesday, where he discussed the civil unrest that has followed the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, he said, "We both have to highlight a problem and make people in power uncomfortable, but we also have to translate that into practical solutions and laws that could be implemented and monitored and make sure we’re following upon."

The event was hosted by Obama’s foundation, My Brother's Keeper Alliance, which supports young men of colour.

“For those who have been talking about the protest, just remember that this country was founded on protest — it is called the American Revolution,” Obama said at the event where he was joined by his former attorney general Eric H Holder Jr.

Obama, who said the unrest he saw after Floyd’s death was unrest “unlike anything I have seen in my lifetime,” spoke about issues of policing and racial disparities in health care during the pandemic, that caused more African-Americans to die in proportion to white Americans. He expressed condemnation of the use of a chemical spray on protestors outside the White House.

Obama, who seemed to have emerged from political hibernation after endorsing the Democratic candidate for president Joe Biden said the protests over Floyd’s death should turn into one for policy change to ensure safer policing and increased trust between communities and law enforcement. He urged “every mayor in the country to review your use of force policies” with their communities and “commit to reporting on planned reforms” before prioritizing their implementation.

Last month, Obama, while addressing graduates of historically black colleges and universities said the coronavirus pandemic had “fully, finally torn back the curtain on the idea that so many of the folks in charge know what they’re doing.”

In a nationally televised broadcast address celebrating graduating high school seniors, Obama said many “so-called grown-ups, including some with fancy titles and important jobs,” do only what’s convenient and feels good.

Floyd’s death, however, has drawn a more visceral and personal reaction from the nation’s first black president. In a lengthy written statement last week, Obama said that given the pandemic, he understood that millions of Americans were eager to get back to normal. But, black people being treated differently in the US cannot be normal in 2020 America.

The town hall on Wednesday marks his first in-person comments since law enforcement officers aggressively cleared peaceful protesters from a park outside the White House so Trump could walk across to a nearby church, to honour Saint John Paul II, a gesture which is being called out by critics to be a manipulative move.

Post Obama’s comments on the protests, former president Jimmy Carter issued a statement calling for peaceful protest and systemic change. “As a white male of the South, I know all too well the impact of segregation and injustice to African-Americans.” Forms president George W Bush too, expressed solidarity with the protesters. Neither Obama nor the other two former leaders named the current holder of the office— Trump or spoke about any of his recent remarks.