“And I know if I were a family member, I’m not sure I would want to be spending a lot of time with him”. They’re also words from a man who could say, as Dallas Police Chief David Brown did this week, “I’ve been black a long time”. “I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem”, Obama said before launching into a defense of police and the sacrifices they make.
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For Obama, the moment was a chance to try to defuse what some have described as a national powder keg of emotions over race, justice, gun violence and policing. That attack unfolded during a peaceful protest of the killings just days earlier of two black men, in Baton Rouge, La., and outside St. Paul, Minn., at the hands of the police.
“Can we do this?”
“With an open heart, we can worry less about which side has been wronged and worry more about joining sides to do what is right”, Obama said at an interfaith service honoring Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Michael Smith and Lorne Ahrens.
Obama made a poignant appeal for fellow Americans to rise to the occasion and transform shock and grief into a determination to act – to recognize the dangers inherent to police work on the one hand, and the reality of racial bias on the other. “Weeping may endure for a night but I’m convinced joy comes in the morning”, the President said. And I think that is what you see politicians do, and this president has done it.
Soon after Obama took office, police said, they sensed they wouldn’t get the same appreciation as shown by his two predecessors, who seemed to have officers’ backs.
“What’s been apparent is that it’s not enough just for us to have a task force, a report and then follow up through our departments, we have to push this out to communities so that they feel ownership for some of the good ideas that have been floating around this table”, he said. No one expressed his appreciation for the men more memorably than Brown, who has emerged as the steady and charismatic face of the Dallas police.
The funerals of three of the Dallas officers are being held later.
Bush along with President Barack Obama spoke during Tuesday’s memorial.
“Very constructive discussion. President moderated the entire four hours”, Georgia Attorney General Sam Olens said in a brief email exchange as he was flying home to Atlanta.
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As a choir sings a solemn take on “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”, with most of the attendees heads bowed respectfully, President Bush can be seen nodding his head and sporting a half-grin as he bops rhythmically. Disturbing videos of the events have “left us wounded and angry and hurt”, he said. If we’re to sustain the unity we need to get through these hard times, if we are to honor these five outstanding officers who we’ve lost, then we will need to act on the truths that we know. “Despite the fact that there must have been signs or slogans or chants with which they profoundly disagreed”, Obama said.
