On Wednesday, former President Barrack Obama tweeted that people should take time while grieving for the shooting victims in Uvalde to also remember the anniversary of George Floyd’s death.
“As we grieve the children of Uvalde today, we should take time to recognize that two years have passed since the murder of George Floyd under the knee of a police officer. His killing stays with us all to this day, especially those who loved him,” Obama tweeted.
Underneath it, he posted a link to an Obama.org post that asked for leaders to “change their world” in response to the “killings of young Black men like Trayvon Martin, Ahmaud Arbery, Tamir Rice, and too many others.”
The site then links to a series of resources for activists to find ways to confront America’s “original sin of racism and slavery in their own communities, while advancing equality in the face of injustice.”
The post includes a video containing Obama’s infamous line after the Trayvon Martin killing where he said, “Trayvon wasn’t so different from me.”
The website then tells people to get involved and take action with links to the Trayvon Martin Foundation, The National Museum of African American History and Culture, Movement for Black Lives, and Black Lives Matter.
One of the resources describes it’s mission as a way to help people commit to being antiracist. It then quotes that over 1,000 people are killed by police every year in America and says that “Black people are nearly three times more likely to be killed than White people – without mentioning a source for the statistic.
This followed the tweet from yesterday – where Obama described the anguish that many parents probably feel over the threat of school shootings in the wake of the massacre in Texas.
“Across the country, parents are putting their children to bed, reading stories, singing lullabies—and in the back of their minds, they’re worried about what might happen tomorrow after they drop their kids off at school, or take them to a grocery store or any other public space,” Obama tweeted. “Michelle and I grieve with the families in Uvalde, who are experiencing pain no one should have to bear. We’re also angry for them. Nearly ten years after Sandy Hook—and ten days after Buffalo—our country is paralyzed, not by fear, but by a gun lobby and a political party that have shown no willingness to act in any way that might help prevent these tragedies. It’s long past time for action, any kind of action. And it’s another tragedy—a quieter but no less tragic one—for families to wait another day. May God bless the memory of the victims, and in the words of Scripture, heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds.”
He was immediately met with condemnation from some on Twitter with one user talking about a drone strike that occurred under Obama that killed an American citizen named Abdulrahman al-Awlaki.
Other people pointed out more common sense solutions other than gun bans that politicians could enact.
Obama pushed several times for gun control laws while in office and was President during the deadly Sandy Hook Massacre that took the lives of 20 children and 6 adults.
Do you think Obama’s message was slightly tone deaf and obviously political pandering at a time when people are grieving?
