After Political Failures, Trump Diverts To Race Issues
Cynthia Tucker
September 30, 2017 5:23 am
We are a nation at war with itself, cleaved in two by racial, ethnic and cultural differences, each side convinced of its own righteousness. These tumultuous times cry out for a leader of wisdom and maturity, patience and moderation, vision and moral clarity.
Instead, we have President Donald J. Trump. He misses no opportunity to widen the gulf between us, to pour fuel on the raging fires of social and racial conflict, to stoke the smoldering embers of historic tensions. He is the divider-in-chief.
Defying good judgment, Trump has continued the unfortunate tirade he started a few days ago, when he threw a hand grenade into the tinderbox of reaction to athletes’ sideline protests. In an interview that aired on Fox News on Thursday, Sept. 27, he said that National Football League owners are “afraid of their players.”
Let’s be clear: There is absolutely no reason for the president of the United States to comment on the decision of some football players to kneel during the national anthem. And Trump hasn’t just commented. He has railed. He has ranted. He has thrown verbal punches, using an expletive to insist that NFL owners fire any player who fails to stand.
It is no mere coincidence, of course, that most of the players who kneel are black. The social movement started last year, when Colin Kaepernick, then quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, sat while the “The Star-Spangled Banner” was played before a televised game. “I am not going to stand up to show pride in a flag for a country that oppresses black people and people of color. … There are bodies in the street and people getting paid leave and getting away with murder,” he later told reporters, referring to police shootings of unarmed black men.
more
http://www.nationalmemo.com/political-failures-trump-diverts-race-issues/
= new reply since forum marked as read
