Obama Spoke Stupidly

I don’t blame Oba­ma for what he said. For a very long time, to be black in Amer­i­ca was to be a tar­get for law enforce­ment (and I’m sure it still is occa­sion­al­ly at least).

But it is also true that for a very long time in Amer­i­ca (and, I sus­pect, any­where on the plan­et earth), even a white per­son can get him or her self arrest­ed for doing noth­ing more than argu­ing with a police officer.

Oba­ma admit­ted he did not have the facts and still offered up an opin­ion which was based on the past his­to­ry between police and African-Amer­i­cans. Oba­ma spoke stupidly.

Josh Mar­shall at TPM Media has an excel­lent post up about the posi­tion a police offi­cer is in every time he or she responds to a call. I rec­om­mend it.