OPINION:
President Obama has been exposed as a hypocrite. Christopher Lane, a white Australian student, was killed in Oklahoma last week, shot in the back while he was jogging. Two of the perpetrators were black teenagers, who admitted they were “bored” and decided to kill Mr. Lane for “the fun of it.” The case has garnered massive international media attention. Mr. Obama’s response: silence. He refuses to speak out on the issue.
Contrast this with the Trayvon Martin case. The president publicly denounced the killing of the 17-year-old black teenager prior to the trial of the shooter, George Zimmerman. In fact, Mr. Obama claimed that, if he had a son, he would have “looked just like Trayvon.” The implication was clear: By shooting Trayvon, Mr. Zimmerman had also targeted the president. The liberal media pounced on the story, relentlessly portraying Mr. Zimmerman as a “white Hispanic,” who had supposedly committed a hate crime upon an innocent black victim. It was 1964 in Mississippi all over again. The liberal narrative was as false as it was preposterous: Blacks are being gunned down by racist, gun-toting whites.
Following Mr. Zimmerman’s acquittal, Mr. Obama held an impromptu news conference. He addressed the nation, admonishing white America to look into its collective soul, and purge itself of lingering bigotry. The president claimed he “could have been Trayvon” — a teen shot dead simply for being black and wearing a hoodie. Mr. Obama said he had suffered discrimination throughout his life. Frightened white women allegedly clutched their purses when he was in elevators. Whites supposedly locked their car doors and raised their windows as he walked by. In short, the president complained that he, too, had been profiled.
Think about this: The most powerful man in the world, elected not once but twice, used the Trayvon Martin case to argue he — like many blacks — is the victim of racism. His speech was not only racially polarizing, it was insulting. Mr. Zimmerman shot Trayvon not because of his skin color, but out of self-defense: The teen was in the process of smashing his head against the pavement. If Mr. Zimmerman had not used his gun, he would likely be dead today. The incident was never about race — until our liberal elites hijacked the story.
By contrast, Mr. Lane never pounced on any of the black teens. He never attacked, punched or hit them. He was gunned down simply because he was an easy, white target. Yet, when asked if Mr. Obama had any comment on the heinous hate crime, White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest responded that he was “not familiar” with the Oklahoma case. When pressed by a Fox News reporter to explain why the president remains silent about Mr. Lane while lecturing America on Trayvon Martin, Mr. Earnest said that Mr. Obama had never “extensively” spoken about the Trayvon shooting.
The administration is engaging in Orwellian obfuscation of the obvious truth: Mr. Obama will not denounce Mr. Lane’s killing because the victim was white and two of the perpetrators were black. For liberals, blacks are always victims, and whites can only be aggressors. This is the great — and pernicious — hypocrisy of our time.
The reality is very different. Contrary to media spin, white-on-black crime is rare. In fact, black-on-white crime occurs eight times as frequently. Moreover, blacks commit the overwhelming majority of killings against fellow blacks. For example, Mr. Obama’s hometown of Chicago is a bloodbath for young, urban black males. Killings take place on a daily basis. Yet, race-hustlers such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson seldom denounce or protest the slaughter of blacks by other blacks — much less the targeting of whites by black gangsters.
For decades, urban black America has been suffering from a severe crisis. Drugs, gangs, crime, family breakdown, soaring rates of out-of-wedlock births, and a profanity-laden hip hop culture that demonizes whites and glorifies violence have created a pathological social order, which has destroyed countless innocent lives (both black and white). Mr. Lane is merely its latest victim.
Instead of blaming capitalism, “racism” or America, it’s time civil rights leaders focused on the real problem: the black community itself. Rampant drug use and fatherless homes must be condemned. Rappers who glorify the gangster lifestyle such as 50 Cent should be ostracized. Growing anti-Semitism and anti-white bigotry must be rejected. The increasing number of hate crimes perpetrated by blacks on non-blacks, such as the atrocity in Oklahoma, must be denounced.
By refusing to speak out on Mr. Lane’s death, Mr. Obama has shown conclusively that he is a demagogue who plays the race card in order to inflame racial tensions, thereby galvanizing the minority electorate. He is our race-hustler-in-chief.
Jeffrey T. Kuhner is a radio host on AM-680 WRKO in Boston.
