When the protests against police shootings in Baton Rouge and Minnesota were shattered by the murder of five police officers in Dallas, Obama will return early from Europe to address the victims of yet another mass shooting. His eulogy for the Dallas policemen is an aspirational description of what the country can be. It is a speech that will be appreciated more in the years ahead than it is now, as Eugene Robinson observes.
The arc of history bends toward justice as Obama is wont to say. But it is a broken line. There has certainly been progress since 1901 when Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington for lunch at the White House - a first for an African American leader. Perhaps the most important thing that Barack Obama has done in this and each of the eleven eulogies for the victims of mass murders is to demonstrate that a Black man can be the voice and conscience of the nation. - gwc
The arc of history bends toward justice as Obama is wont to say. But it is a broken line. There has certainly been progress since 1901 when Theodore Roosevelt invited Booker T. Washington for lunch at the White House - a first for an African American leader. Perhaps the most important thing that Barack Obama has done in this and each of the eleven eulogies for the victims of mass murders is to demonstrate that a Black man can be the voice and conscience of the nation. - gwc
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