'Let's Get to Work': Obama Pens Essay About Turning Protests Into Real Change

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

”Meanwhile, President Trump reportedly has “nothing to say”

While President Trump reportedly has “nothing to say” to a nation protesting the death of George Floyd and other black victims of police brutality, former President Barack Obama penned an essay Monday about “how to make this moment a real turning point to bring about real change.”

Link to tweet

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In the essay, which he posted to Medium, Obama lays out three “basic lessons” the new generation of activists can draw from the past.

The first is to not resort to violence. Obama acknowledges that the protests “represent a genuine and legitimate frustration” over the nation’s failure to reform policing practices and the criminal justice system, but notes that the small portion of protesters inciting violence are putting innocent people at risk and bringing ruin to vulnerable neighborhoods. “If we want our criminal justice system, and American society at large, to operate on a higher ethical code, then we have to model that code ourselves,” Obama writes.

The former president then notes that Americans shouldn’t have to choose between protest and politics, and that he “couldn’t disagree more” with the idea that only direct action can cure the criminal justice system of racial bias and that voting in new elected officials is futile. Particularly, Obama stresses the importance of state and local elections. “Eventually, aspirations have to be translated into specific laws and institutional practices,” he writes, “and in a democracy, that only happens when we elect government officials who are responsive to our demands.”

-more-

https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/obama-essay-george-floyd-protests-1008362/

[luvs2sing]

1. Because this is what leaders do.

[marble falls]

2. It will be so nice to an adult in charge again.