The Patriot Post® · As Ferguson Burns, Obama Calls Anger 'Understandable'
In his statement following the St. Louis County grand jury announcement that officer Darren Wilson will not be indicted for the death of Michael Brown, Barack Obama accepted the ruling of the grand jury and made calls for peaceful protest and action, even as some television networks showed pictures of an erupting riot in Ferguson. “First and foremost, we are a nation built on the Rule of Law,” Obama said. “And so we need to accept that this decision was the grand jury’s to make. There are Americans who agree with it, and there are Americans who are deeply disappointed, even angry. It’s an understandable reaction.” Obama continued, saying Ferguson highlighted the problems in race relations and policing strategies: “So, to those in Ferguson, there are ways of channeling your concerns constructively and there are ways of channeling your concerns destructively.” As Martin Luther King once said, rioting and violence are used by people who feel they have no other ways to redress their grievances: “A riot is the language of the unheard.” Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have fomented racial grievances all along, both in Ferguson and in the case of Trayvon Martin. To call for calm now is a bit disingenuous.