“We can not let the actions of a few define all of us”.
Advertisement
“I firmly believe that America is not as divided as some have suggested”, Obama said.
While Brexit had “created uncertainty” about European integration, the president said fears that it could destabilize the relationship between Europe and the United States were exaggerated.
On Friday, Obama insisted that Brexit would not undermine Britain’s role in North Atlantic Treaty Organisation but urged London and Brussels to avoid “protracted, adversarial negotiations” over their divorce.
His comments about race relations on Saturday were his third public remarks in Poland about domestic shootings – first the killings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana by white police officers, and then the killings of five white police officers by a black sniper in Dallas.
“Imagine if you are a police officer and you’re trying to sort out who is shooting at you, and there are a lot of people who have guns on them”, he said. On Friday police announced that, before he was killed, Johnson had said he was “upset about Black Lives Matter” and had expressed a desire to kill white officers.
Because groups like the Islamic State are “non-state actors, it’s very hard for us ever to get the satisfaction of MacArthur and the emperor meeting and a war being officially over”, Obama said, referring to the USA general and Japanese leader at the end of World War II.
He also repeatedly defended bringing up his quest for stronger gun control measures in the immediate aftermath of the Dallas shooting, saying it is impossible to separate the issues.
“I want to start moving on constructive actions that are actually going to make a difference”, he said during his evening press conference in Poland when he was asked about the Dallas attack. Obama said many Americans are “rightly saddened” by the deaths of black citizens at the hands of police and concerned over the “larger persistent problems” of racial discrimination in the criminal justice system.
But other politicians say the attack is connected to the growing tide of activism over controversial shootings by police. “But we can make it harder for them to do so” with gun control, the president added, citing the difficulty of policing the Dallas protests in the open carry state of Texas where numerous people in the crowd were holding firearms.
“That’s the spirit that we all need to embrace”, Obama said. “We are not going to be able to identify ahead of time and eliminate every madman or troubled individual who might want to do harm against innocent people”, he said.
Obama reprised a frustration he frequently expresses over lax gun laws in the United States, saying the country is unique among advanced countries in the scale of violence experienced.
Advertisement
Referencing last year’s attack on churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, Obama noted, “When some white kid walks into a church and shoots a bunch of worshipers who invite him to worship with them, we don’t assume that somehow he’s making a political statement”. “To recognize that, you know, the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow and discrimination didn’t suddenly vanish with the passage of the civil rights act or voting rights act or the election of Barack Obama”.
