ARE THERE CONSEQUENCES TO RACIAL POLITICS AT THE WHITE HOUSE?

THE BEER SUMMIT

Over a lifetime during which eleven separate presidents have occupied the White House, I cannot remember a time, such as now, when a chief executive directly inserted himself into local events having the potential of inflaming racial passions. And this seems to dovetail with the fact that I cannot recall an era when there was such a racial divide in the United States.

In 2009, rather than allow local procedures to run their course toward the corroboration of Professor Gates and his  version of an encounter with Officer Crowley and representatives of the Cambridge, Massachusetts, P.D., President Obama chose to make statements concerning racial profiling and followed that up with a media event that became known as the "Beer Summit."

At the time of the shooting of Treyvon Martin by George Zimmerman, the country was regaled through the media with stories implying that Zimmerman was a would-be vigilante whose actions were likely motivated by racism.  Rather than to remain presidential in tone and bearing, President Obama once again included himself in what would become a media circus by stating that if he had a son, that son would probably look like Treyvon Martin.

Simultaneous with the presidential statements on the case, African American nationalist groups, such as the Black Panthers, were issuing provocative statements about Zimmerman, which led to random attacks on white citizens across the country, supposedly in revenge for the death of Treyvon Martin.  Now, as the Zimmerman trial runs its course, evidence is pointing in the direction of an acquittal for  George Zimmerman.


By once again wheedling himself into what should have remained a legal matter in Florida, our president has made it more and more likely that a local incident turned into a national cause will have the potential, in the event of Zimmerman's exoneration, to further widen an already tremendous racial chasm and to  lead to mayhem and violence in various locales.  And, as this post is being written, officials in Broward County are encouraging their citizens to be calm and not to riot, regardless of the outcome of the trial.

A RACIST POSTER DIRECTED AGAINST ZIMMERMAN

Presidential attention at this point should be focusing on how the occupant of the White House can amend his previous inappropriate and prejudicial statements about Treyvon Martin and George Zimmerman and present himself as a wise and judicious leader intent on calming passions.  Surely, that is not too much to expect from our president.  The United States is too great a nation to be held hostage by racial politics.