Obama at memorial
"I understand how Americans are feeling. But Dallas, I’m here to say we must reject such despair. I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem."
DALLAS— U.S. President Barack Obama urged Americans to “stand in each others’ shoes and look at the world through each others’ eyes,” in a complex Dallas speech that tried, at once, to soothe and challenge a country riven by tensions over race, politics and violence.
“With an open heart, we can worry less about which side has been wronged and worry more about joining sides to do right,” Obama said.
“We see all this and it’s hard not to think, sometimes, that the centre won’t hold and that things could get worse. I understand.
“I understand how Americans are feeling.
“But Dallas, I’m here to say we must reject such despair. I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem.
“And I know that because I know America.”
Obama’s emotional call for empathy and unity, delivered at an interfaith memorial service for the five Dallas officers shot dead by a black gunman on Thursday, was reinforced by a rare and remarkable post-presidency speech by former U. S. president George W. Bush, who called for a “unity of hope,” rather than a “unity of fear.”
“Too often we judge other groups by their worst examples while judging ourselves by our best intentions,” said Bush, Obama’s predecessor, who lives in Dallas and served as governor of Texas.
Obama’s Tuesday task was fraught with complications even for a twoterm president now accustomed to serving as consoler-in-chief.
Accused by some police unions and Republicans of fomenting anti-cop anger, he had to simultaneously comfort a conservative state mourning five men in blue while also seeking to salve the fresh wounds of a black community grieving the police killings of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile earlier last week.
And he had to speak more broadly to a nation deeply polarized and anxious about what is next for race relations during an election summer that has some worrying similarities, and many comforting differences, to the explosive summer of 1968.
His visit came five days after the city was terrorized by what he called “an act, not just of demented violence, but of racial hatred.”
It was his 11th trip to the site of a mass shooting — and his second in only a month.
Acknowledging his inability to stop the killing, his typical yes-we-can message of harmony was tinged with rare flashes of pessimism.
“I have spoken at too many memorials during the course of this presi- dency. I’ve hugged too many families who have lost a loved one to senseless violence,” he said.
“I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been.”
As he has so often, Obama insisted on acts of mutual understanding; police officers, he said, are overwhelmingly fair and professional, and deserve “our respect and not our scorn.”
Black protesters critical of the police, he said, are fighting real injustices — “We know that bias remains. We know it” — and should not be dismissed as reverse-racist “troublemakers.”
“Even those who dislike the phrase Black Lives Matter . . . surely we should be able to hear the pain of Alton Sterling’s family,” he said.
“If we’re honest,” he added, “perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our own hearts.”
The Dallas officers sitting behind him provided a striking reminder of just how divisive the would-be uniter has become.
His praise for the bravery of the late officers was greeted with hearty applause, his warnings about lingering inequities in the criminal justice system with silence.
But the tableau in the concert hall at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center also offered a picture of solidarity.
The black Democratic president and first lady sat beside a white Republican former president and first lady, the white mayor beside the black police chief.
Bush, who has retreated from the public eye almost entirely since he left office, echoed Obama’s key themes.
Sounding strikingly different from the man seeking to become the next Republican president, Donald Trump, Bush decried argument that “turns too easily into animosity” and disagreement that “escalates too quickly into dehumanization.”
“At our best, we practice empathy, imagining ourselves in the lives and circumstances of others. This is the bridge across our nation’s deepest divisions,” he said.
“At our best, we know we have one country, one future, one destiny. We do not want the unity of grief. Nor do we want the unity of fear.
“We want the unity of hope, affection and high purpose.”
Obama spoke of the heroism of Dallas cops who survived, such as those who risked their lives to shield Black Lives Matter protester Shetamia Taylor.
“She also said to the Dallas PD, thank you for being heroes. And today her 12-year-old son wants to be a cop when he grows up,” Obama said. “That’s the America I know.”