XPost: austin.general, ba.politics, rec.arts.disney.merchandise   
   XPost: alt.business   
   From: calle@sdsu.edu   
      
   WASHINGTON — Defending the Black Lives Matter movement,   
   President Barack Obama said Thursday the protests are giving   
   voice to a problem happening only in African-American   
   communities, adding, “We, as a society, particularly given our   
   history, have to take this seriously.”   
      
   Obama said the movement, which sprung up after the deaths of   
   unarmed black men in Florida, Missouri and elsewhere, quickly   
   came to be viewed as being opposed to police and suggesting that   
   other people’s lives don’t matter. Opponents have countered that   
   “all lives matter.”   
      
   At the conclusion of a White House forum on criminal justice,   
   Obama said he wanted to make a final point about the nexus of   
   race and the criminal justice system before launching into his   
   defense of the movement.   
      
   “I think everybody understands all lives matter,” Obama said. “I   
   think the reason that the organizers used the phrase ‘Black   
   Lives Matter’ was not because they were suggesting nobody else’s   
   lives matter. Rather, what they were suggesting was there is a   
   specific problem that’s happening in the African-American   
   community that’s not happening in other communities.   
      
   “And that is a legitimate issue that we’ve got to address.”   
      
   Police relations with minority communities and the deaths of   
   unarmed black men have been topics of great interest since the   
   shootings of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in 2012 in Florida and   
   18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014 in Ferguson, Missouri. Those   
   deaths, and others of black women, have inspired protests around   
   the country under the “Black Lives Matter” moniker.   
      
   Obama paired his defense of the Black Lives Matter movement with   
   praise for police and other law enforcement officials. Some   
   police groups have been unhappy with Obama’s response to the   
   deaths of the unarmed black men. The president lately seems to   
   be making the extra effort to publicly praise police officers   
   for willingly taking on a dangerous assignment.   
      
   He did so while participating in a forum on drug abuse Wednesday   
   in Charleston, West Virginia, and next week he’s scheduled to   
   address the International Association of Chiefs of Police.   
      
   At the White House, Obama said there are specific concerns about   
   whether blacks in certain areas are treated unfairly or are more   
   frequently subjected to excessive force by police.   
      
   But the president said people should also “understand the   
   overwhelming majority of law enforcement’s doing the right thing   
   and wants to do the right thing” and “recognize that police   
   officers have a really tough job and we’re sending them into   
   really tough neighborhoods that sometimes are really dangerous   
   and they’ve got to make split-second decisions.”   
      
   He said people shouldn’t be “too sanctimonious” about situations   
   that can sometimes be ambiguous.   
      
   “But having said all that, we as a society, particularly given   
   our history, have to take this seriously,” Obama said. “And one   
   of the ways of avoiding the politics of this and losing the   
   moment is everybody just stepping back for a second and   
   understanding that the African-American community is not just   
   making this up.”   
      
   “It’s not just something being politicized. It’s real and   
   there’s a history behind it and we have to take it seriously,”   
   he said.   
      
   In a separate development, the Black Lives Matter organization   
   on Thursday rejected a town hall-style forum it had been offered   
   by the Democratic National Committee, in lieu of a sanctioned   
   debate it had requested. The group said a town hall wouldn’t   
   “sufficiently respond to the concerns raised by our members.”   
   The DNC said it has approved only six debates, and all have been   
   scheduled.   
      
   http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/obama-defends-black-lives-   
   matter-movement/   
      
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