Despite racially-motivated protests and a police slaying linked to the killing of black teen Michael Brown by a white policeman in Ferguson, Mo., President Obama believes that race relations are improving — in part because of the Ferguson case.
In a National Public Radio News interview, Obama said that the case has put the spotlight on minority-police relations, which he called “healthy.”
He also said that debut of videos of police actions taken on mobile devices like phones in the Ferguson case, and that of killing by police of Eric Garner in New York, have helped to show a wider audience what minority communities see daily.
Asked if race relations have dived under his watch, the first African-American president of the United States said, “No, I actually think that it’s probably in its day-to-day interactions less racially divided. But I actually think that the issue has surfaced in a way that probably is healthy.
“I mean, the — the issue of police and communities of color being mistrustful of each other is hardly new; that dates back a long time. It’s just something that hasn’t been talked about — and for a variety of reasons.
“In some cases, something as simple as the fact that everybody has cellphones now so that you can record some of these events, you know, it’s gotten a lot of attention; I think that’s good. I think it then points to our ability to solve these problems.”
Obama also rejected polls which show they believe race relations have deteriorated in the past six years.
“It’s understandable the polls might say, you know, that race relations have gotten worse — because when it’s in the news and you see something like Ferguson or the Garner case in New York, then it attracts attention. But I — I assure you, from the perspective of African-Americans or Latinos in poor communities who have been dealing with this all their lives, they wouldn’t suggest somehow that it’s worse now than it was 10, 15 or 20 years ago,” said the president to NPR Morning Edition Host Steve Inskeep.
NPR plans to air snippets of the interview between Monday and New Year’s Eve.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
