The Patriot Post® · The Heavy Price of Obama's Race-Bait Rhetoric

Two weeks ago in my column “Blame Racist Cops?” I published a detailed analysis of how Barack Obama, his Attorney General Eric Holder and their senior adviser on “race relations,” that raging racist Al Sharpton, launched the 21st Century Policing Task Force, a $265 million charade based on the assertion that most white cops hold racist views on “people of color.”

To distract attention from his cascading domestic and foreign policy failures, as affirmed by the resounding defeat of Democrats in the 2014 midterm elections, Obama and his race antagonizers seized upon a duo of emotive diversions – the deaths of two black men, Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York, as fodder for a national crusade against a political straw man: endemic racism in the ranks of law enforcement.

The underlying assumption of this folly is because “people of color” are arrested more often than white people, this must be a “racist cop problem” rather than an urban culture problem – the direct result of disastrous liberal social engineering programs beginning in the 1960s.

To further that assumption, Obama is repeating this claim nationwide: “I got into politics … so that the country understands [racism] … is an American problem. … A combination of bad training [and] departments that really are not trying to root out biases, or tolerate sloppy police work; a combination in some cases of folks just not knowing any better, and, in a lot of cases, subconscious fear of folks who look different – all of this contributes to a national problem that’s going to require a national solution.”

Holder is pushing his assessment of race relations between police and “people of color”: “We as a nation have failed. It’s as simple as that. We have failed.”

Meanwhile, Sharpton is leading the “What do we want? Dead cops!” protests in New York, and insists, “You thought you’d sweep [the Brown and Garner murders] under the rug. You thought there’d be no limelight. We are going to keep the light on Michael Brown, on Eric Garner, on all of these victims because … the only way you make roaches run – you got to cut the light on.”

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio doubled down on the Obama/Holder/Sharpton race-bait rhetoric with this claptrap: “We’re not just dealing with a problem in 2014. We’re not dealing with years of racism leading up to it – or decades of racism. We are dealing with centuries of racism that have brought us to this day. That is how profound the crisis is.”

This cast of race hustlers are propagating the lie that Brown and Garner were killed because cops are racist. In response, I concluded my “Blame Racist Cops?” column with a warning that Obama and Holder “have thrown cops under the bus with their diversionary race-bait rhetoric, and that will escalate violence against police officers.”

Responding to de Blasio’s racist rhetoric, the NYPD Officer’s Union launched a petition to inform the Mayor that he would not be welcome at police funerals. Tragically, on Saturday, two NYPD officers became the first murder victims of that rhetoric.

Officer Wenjian Liu was 32 years old and just married two months ago. Officer Rafael Ramos was 40 and the father of two sons. Both Liu and Ramos were minority officers – Asian and Hispanic, respectively.

They were murdered by a racist black man, Ismaaiyl Brinsley, possibly affiliated with Baltimore’s urban “Black Guerilla Family” gang. Brinsley posted a social media comment Saturday, proclaiming, “I’m Putting Wings on Pigs Today. They Take 1 Of Ours. Let’s Take 2 of Theirs.”

Though Brinsley pulled the trigger, a senior New York law enforcement investigator told me shortly after Liu and Ramos were murdered, “Obama, Holder, de Blasio, and that f—ing racist Sharpton are accessories to murder. Our brothers’ blood is on them all. Their racist rhetoric is totally inexcusable. This was totally predictable. We are going to hold them totally accountable.” He indicated his outrage is shared across the board – regardless of race, and noted that there is obviously no moral equivalence between the murders of Liu and Ramons, and the deaths of Brown and Garner.

Ed Mullins, president of the Sergeants Benevolent Association in New York, stated, “Mayor de Blasio, the blood of these two officers is clearly on your hands. It is your failed policies and actions that enabled this tragedy to occur. Ever since this mayor took office there has been a sense of lawlessness that is rampant in every borough. I only hope and pray that more of these ambushes and executions do not happen again.”

Similarly, Patrick Lynch, head of the NYPD Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association, said, “That blood on the hands starts on the steps of City Hall, in the office of the mayor. When these funerals are over, those responsible will be called on the carpet and held accountable.”

Chuck Canterbury, President of the national Fraternal Order of Police, had this to say about de Blasio: “This mayor ran on a platform of ‘police reform’ in a city that had reduce crime by 85%. … The bottom line is that respect is earned and this mayor has not earned the respect of the men and women in blue in the city of New York – or the 800,000 police officers across the country. Enough is enough. … He cannot hide from the remarks that he has made.”

Former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik added his assessment of Obama, de Blasio and the other race baiters: “It’s a war on police that is based on a lie. It’s a war on police that has been perpetrated by people who have said…there is pervasive racism in the NYPD and police across the country, and that police officers go into minority communities to harass and target minorities. Those are lies. Cops go into minority communities, where the crime is highest. In this city they went where the crime was and reduce violent crime by 85%. This whole pervasive racism thing – [it’s] over two incidents where there is not one shred of evidence that they were related to race. … This whole war on cops, the assassination of these two cops, is all based on lies.”

Saturday afternoon, when de Blasio and his entourage made their obligatory visit to Woodhull Hospital, where the bodies of Officers Liu and Ramos were taken, they passed down a hallway filled with NYPD officers, all of whom silently turned their backs to de Blasio in protest.

In response to that protest, de Blasio had the audacity to say, “It’s unfortunate that in a time of great tragedy, some would resort to irresponsible, overheated rhetoric that angers and divides people.” The primary source of irresponsible, overheated and divisive rhetoric here is de Blasio and his fellow race-baiters. Further, de Blasio called for a temporary cessation of protests and political debate about racist cops until after the funerals of Liu and Ramos. Then, the race rhetoric can resume.

Having spent the early years of my career as a uniformed patrolman, this assault on my brothers and sisters in blue is very personal. While there are instances of racial bias and abuse of power, the vast majority of police officers from municipal, state and federal agencies are endeavoring to “serve and protect” our fellow citizens against lawless sociopathic miscreants.

In reality, Brown and Garner did not die because of “racism.” They would be alive today had they obeyed lawful orders instead of making fatal choices. However, Obama, Holder and their race-baiting minions insist that these individuals were entitled to ignore lawful orders on the assumption of “black privilege” and the errant notion that “society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker.”

Predictably, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund issued a statement insisting, “These two killings … like so many other unfortunate incidences of gun violence, provide a stark example of the need for sensible gun control measures. While some may suggest a causal link between these killings and the recent protests and activism focused on the serious issue of police violence against unarmed African Americans, we caution against escalating an already tense national state through rumor and conjecture.”

Officers Liu and Ramos were not murdered by “gun violence.” Their murders were inspired by racist rhetoric.

It is time for Obama, Holder, Sharpton, de Blasio, et al., to stand down and shut up.

Fact is, the racial discord across our nation is not, as Obama insists, an “American problem.” It is a “Barack Obama problem.” Recall that he was indoctrinated by Marxist mentors from a young age, and had his radical racial views shaped by the Afrocentric hate theology of Jeremiah “God D— America” Wright for the 20 years prior to his first presidential campaign.

Former New York Gov. George Pataki posted that the officers’ deaths were a “predictable outcome of divisive anti-cop rhetoric of #ericholder & #mayordeblasio.” In a statement, he insisted that Obama “should be out there expressing his outrage and expressing his support for the police. … But the rhetoric from Obama Holder and de Blasio, it has all been anti-police. … I’ve been at too many police funerals, i’ve seen what they did on 9/11 … I’m going to have their backs as long as I live.”

Fact is, the Obama administration has fomented racial discord from day one. This toxic discord has been propagated unchallenged for the last six years, and consequently it has permeated deep into the pit of black urban culture where it has festered.

However, now with the blood of murdered police officers on their hands, as my law enforcement colleague in New York said, “We are going to hold them totally accountable.”

(Note: The Silver Shield Foundation, established by the late George Steinbrenner, former owner of the New York Yankees, to support the families of slain New York Officers, announced it will be funding the future education of Rafael Ramos’ children.)