Former President Barack Obama on Wednesday addressed Americans peacefully protesting the death of George Floyd nationwide — saying he felt they were bringing genuine change within the us .
“There may be a change of mindset that’s happening , a greater recognition that we will do better,” Obama said, adding that the movement wasn’t being caused by politicians or by the media.
“That’s an immediate results of the activities and organization and mobilization and engagement of numerous children across the country who put themselves out on the road to form a difference,” he continued.
Without addressing President Trump by name, Obama also called on protesters to “make people in power uncomfortable” because the nation reels from every week of violent clashes, mass looting and large marches which have brought cities to a standstill.
The former president previously weighed in on the death of 46-year-old Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police last week, writing during a statement that differing treatment for many Americans was unacceptable.
“This shouldn’t be ‘normal’ in 2020 America. It can’t be ‘normal. If we would like our youngsters to get older during a nation that lives up to its highest ideals, we will and must be better,” he
n his latest address, the 44th president called on mayors and native elected officials to review their use of force policies and said the big demonstrations nationwide were the results of “structural problems within the us .”
“They are outcomes of not just immediate moments in time, but they’re the results of an extended history of slavery and Jim Crow and redlining and institutionalized racism that have too often been the plague, the first sin of our society,” he said.
Obama said the mass mobilization of children made him feel optimistic.
“In some ways, as tragic as these past few weeks are , as difficult and scary and unsure as they need been, they’ve also been a fantastic opportunity for people to be awakened to a number of these underlying trends,” he said.
The president also spoke of his My Brother’s Keeper Alliance, a nonprofit travel by the Obama Foundation which aims to assist opportunity-starved minority men, and called on cities across the country to align with them.
On Monday, he denounced those that went on violent rampages and looting sprees at the otherwise peaceful protests.
