Clashes between law enforcement and the Black Lives Matter movement are making headlines on an almost daily basis. Not everyone is sipping the Obamanian Kool Aid on cause and effect. In fact, Fox News contributor and Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley provided a powerful rebuttal to Obama’s recent rhetoric on the subject.
Riley was asked about Obama’s speech at the memorial service for fallen Dallas police officers in a July 13 Fox News segment. He didn’t mince words. “I think we’ve heard it all before” he replied. Noting that the president is trotting out the old Potomac Two-step on the subject, Riley continued:
“The president seems to want to have it both ways. He wants on one hand, to explain to the country that this anti-cop violence is inexcusable, and he’s right about that. How difficult a job they have… But then he pivots and he winks at the Black Lives Matter movement, whose irresponsible rhetoric, I think, has created an environment that led to what happened in Dallas…. He wants to indulge this blatantly false narrative that there’s some epidemic in this country of racist cops hunting black men. And that is just simply untrue.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykHA1cPdeYw
Riley added:
“We are – the Black Lives Matter movement – is scapegoating cops for all kinds of anti-social behavior and pathology going on in our inner city ghettos. It isn’t helping these black communities … they end up with less effective policing, these are the communities that need it most.”
He points that “nine out of close to 2,100” fatal shootings in Chicago this year involved police officers.
“The problem is not the cops” asserted Riley. “The problem in these neighborhoods is, frankly, other violent young men killing one another.”
Riley’s comments echo his remarks from an August 2014 appearance on the Michael Medved radio show. Riley’s appearance came during the Ferguson firestorm. He said:
“It’s easy for a black male to keep himself from being shot by a white cop. It’s much harder to keep from getting shot by other black men.”
Wrote Medved:
Riley’s point is that if you defer and don’t try to challenge a police officer he may insult you but he won’t kill you. In fact, an African-American is 60 times more likely to be killed by a fellow African American than he is by a white cop, and more whites than blacks are victims of deadly police shootings. These tragic numbers make media obsession with Ferguson, Missouri even less defensible. Police risk their lives daily to try to stop black-on-black crime that afflicts every big city. When it comes to keeping black youths from violent death, police aren’t the problem – in fact, they’re a crucial part of any solution.
Are Riley and Medved on track or have they jumped the rails? What say you?
A senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, Jason Riley is also a columnist for the Wall Street Journal. He’s the author of ‘Please Stop Helping Us: How Liberals Make It Harder for Blacks to Succeed.’
H/T: Conservative Video
Image credit: Fox News