From the LA Times:
Jackson said that there is a mistaken assumption in some corners of America that all racial problems went away with the election of President Obama. “There was this feeling that we were kind of beyond racism,” he said. “That’s not true. His victory has triggered tremendous backlash.”
He added: “Blacks are under attack.” African American families are facing record home foreclosures and unemployment. Their children are burdened with student loan debt. States, particularly conservative ones, are passing voter laws that leaders know will disenfranchise blacks and other minorities. Meanwhile, the nation’s prisons are brimming with black faces, he said, and their numbers that suggest that the legal system is quicker to send blacks to prison than whites.
Jackson said gunfire in America continues to be a problem for all Americans — not just blacks. Why, he asked, isn’t America outraged, that far more people die of gun violence in one year in America than the number of soldiers killed in the wars waged in Iraq and Afghanistan?
“Our disparities are great,” he said. “Targeting, arresting, convicting blacks and ultimately killing us is big business.”
Meanwhile, in Obama’s home town of Chicago:
https://twitter.com/#!/Suntimes/status/183290496708390913
Pounding the podium with emotion, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Friday he’s outraged by the bloodbath of violence that claimed the life of a 6-year-old playing on her porch in front of her parents and nearly killed a Chicago Police officer.
“What happened is unacceptable. Our streets are for our children and for our law-abiding parents. I cannot think of anything worse than if a family is hanging out on their front porch [enjoying] nice spring-like weather that that is violated by violence. Our streets do not belong to gang-bangers,” Emanuel said.
“While obviously 10 [murders] over a weekend is dramatic, it is too frequent and too normal. I will not allow a child in Chicago to not have — as long as I’m mayor and I have something to do about it — the most basic of rights, which is the ability to play in their neighborhood, play on their streets and grow up with that sense of normalcy.”
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