There was a time, perhaps after the 2014 election, in which Democrats took a thorough beating at the polls and Republican obstructionism was officially the only game in Washington, DC, that President Obama said “f*** it” and stopped trying to play nice with Republicans.
This time, rather than buy into the politically chickens*it idea that #AllLivesMatter is somehow more all-encompassing than #BlackLivesMatter, Obama took to CNN to explain why we need the Black Lives Matter movement and it in no way says that other lives don’t matter.
Transcript via The New Civil Rights Movement:
I think the reason that the organizers used the phrase ‘black lives matter’ was not because they were suggesting nobody else’s lives matter,” the president explained. “What they were suggesting was, there is a specific problem that is 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.
It started being lifted up as ‘these folks are opposed to police, and they’re opposed to cops, and all lives matter.’ So the notion was somehow saying black lives matter was reverse racism, or suggesting other people’s lives didn’t matter or police officers’ lives didn’t matter.
I think everybody understands all lives matter. Everybody wants strong, effective law enforcement. Everybody wants their kids to be safe when they’re walking to school. Nobody wants to see police officers, who are doing their jobs fairly, hurt.
Here’s the video:
Of course, everything that Obama said is true and nothing should be offensive, but watch the right freak out.
Featured image via video screen capture.
