by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder bestowed impunity on the killers of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, and then journeyed to Selma, Alabama, to explain how great it is to have Black faces in such high places. Half a century has passed since “Bloody Sunday,” yet Black people’s life prospects remain irrelevant to the powers-that-be.
Freedom Rider: Obama’s Final Insult to Michael Brown
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
“Obama ought to be reviled for letting 21st century lynch mobs act with impunity.”
“Michael Brown’s family and the people of Ferguson, Missouri, had better prepare themselves. At some point in the near future the Obama justice department will announce that there will be no federal prosecution of his killer.”
The “near future” was sooner than this columnist knew. The Justice Department made the predicted announcement on the same day that those words appeared in Black Agenda Report.
On August 9, 2014, police officer Darren Wilson shot unarmed Michael Brown in his eye and in the top of his skull and the Barack Obama Justice Department (*link DOJ) thinks that is not a problem, having officially stated that the shooting was justified. They also designated as “not credible” the people who witnessed the killing and stated for the record that Brown posed no danger to Wilson. The only witness they felt worthy of regard was the killer cop.
As BAR has said many times, Obama is not the lesser of two evils, he is just the more effective evil. His handling of the investigation of Michael Brown’s murder is Exhibit A. The undeserved love that the president still receives gives him political Teflon. He doesn’t have to do anything for black people, he can in fact act against their interests and suffer no political consequence whatsoever.
The effectively evil president and his minion Attorney General Eric Holder knew how to time the announcement. One week earlier they announced that George Zimmerman would not be punished for killing Trayvon Martin in cold blood. In doing so they lowered the level of expectations for justice. Black people were being prepared for the same outcome for Michael Brown and every other victim of police violence.
“Obama used the event to repeat the same lies which helped get him elected to the presidency.”
Darren Wilson will go free but the DOJ used distraction to let themselves off the hook. While the killer goes unpunished Holder made a big show of reporting the obvious. Police in Ferguson profile black residents and use traffic summonses as a source of revenue. This is practice not just in Ferguson but in communities all over the country. It seems this easily proven fact was good enough to keep Obama in black America’s good graces when he ought to be reviled for letting 21st century lynch mobs act with impunity.
The 50th anniversary of the Selma, Alabama, Bloody Sunday march was an occasion tailor made for the non-black black man. His presence is enough to satisfy people who can’t think very much beyond sentiment and misplaced racial pride. Obama was true to form at the commemoration. By inviting George W. Bush to share the podium, he insures that white people won’t feel too threatened by an event commemorating black political action. Obama used the event to repeat the same lies which helped get him elected to the presidency. He says the civil rights movement was as important to white people as it was to black people, which of course is untrue. He utters banalities such as “we have come far but still have work to do” or other trite words to that effect.
It was the movement exemplified by the Selma protests which sparked the rise of the mass incarceration state, the new Jim Crow, which has been perfected in all of its evil against black people. Selma ought to be honored by people who truly respect what took place there and can ask hard questions about its significance in 2015. Obama is certainly not the person for that job.
“Mass action becomes irrelevant without a clear demand.”
Meanwhile back in Ferguson, Michael Brown’s parents are left with nothing but their grief. They will never receive justice for their child. The people who marched there, who sparked the nationwide Black Lives Matter movement, know that their actions were for naught. The first black president ignored them in favor of paying his brand of dubious homage to a 50-year old event. They asked for justice not in 1965 but in 2015 and all they got was a visit from King Rat Al Sharpton.
There are always reasons to condemn a president of the United States and Obama is surely no exception. But there are important lessons to be learned from the Ferguson experience. First and foremost, mass action becomes irrelevant without a clear demand. The demand should have been for federal prosecution and community control of the police. Righteous indignation is a means to an end, and not the end itself.
A president is the friend of the 1% and the war makers. He is not an ally of anyone seeking justice and must be kept at arms’ length. In 1965 young people knew the importance of criticizing leadership and sometimes did so publicly. The Ferguson protesters acceptance of an invitation to a White House meeting was a clear sign of failure. Abandon all hope, you who enter 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
Obama and Holder have already forgotten Michael Brown. Actually he never meant very much to them. If they were angry about his death it was only because it inconvenienced them and forced them to spend time thinking about black people. Not only did Darren Wilson get away with murder but his enablers got away too. They are lionized when they ought to be rejected. The injustice never seems to end and that is the final insult to all of black America.
Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR, and is widely reprinted elsewhere. She maintains a frequently updated blog as well as at http://freedomrider.blogspot.com. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley(at)BlackAgendaReport.com.
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