MSNBC Political Analyst Michael Eric Dyson criticized President Barack Obama’s statement on the events in Ferguson on Tuesday’s broadcast of “The Reid Report,” arguing it was “a low moment” for the president.
“He’s got the bully pulpit. Be a bully in the pulpit, but don’t bully black people. Yesterday was a low moment in the Obama presidency because he distracted attention away from the facts of the case. a white police officer armed to the teeth with a gun has killed an unarmed black youth. The president turned this into a referendum, if you will, on internal machinations of black criminality and the politics of black respectability as opposed to the facts at hand” he said. And “he failed us, not only us as black people, but he failed the nation.”
Dyson further urged the president to “talk about what led to Michael Brown. Tell us as a nation what happens when festering rage in a community then begins to ignite and then begins to consume, not only that community, but the people around the nation who are empathetic.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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