President Obama’s perceived role as racial healer-in-chief came under renewed fire Thursday with complaints that he still hasn’t visited Baltimore.
The White House responded by defending Mr. Obama for devoting far more energy to poor communities and struggling families than the media does.
Since Baltimore erupted in rioting Monday over the death of Freddie Gray, there have been persistent calls for Mr. Obama to visit the city, and reminders that he never visited Ferguson, Missouri, after riots there last year.
The president said he’ll travel to Baltimore eventually, but his spokesman said Thursday that visiting Baltimore “is not the current plan” because Mr. Obama doesn’t want to burden local law enforcement while police are busy restoring order.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said the president is treating Baltimore no differently than a community struck by a natural disaster. He said Mr. Obama may want to visit such a place, but “not the day after the tornado.”
But the president’s spokesman said Mr. Obama does inject himself into racially tinged issues, from the “beer summit” with black educator Henry Louis Gates and a white Boston cop who arrested him, to the shooting death of Trayvon Martin in 2012, to Baltimore, because he understands the role of his bully pulpit.
“The president has been very visible in talking about these incidents when they’ve cropped up in ways that have been very powerful and resonated deeply within these communities, even if the president himself hasn’t set foot in them,” Mr. Earnest said. “That is an indication of the power of the presidency.”
He also noted that the president visited Baltimore in May 2013 to highlight low-income working fathers “as they tried to do the right thing and do right by their families.” The president visited an elementary school, a local business and a center for urban families on that trip.
But the White House press corps peppered Mr. Earnest with several questions Thursday about why Mr. Obama hadn’t visited Baltimore or Ferguson, Missouri, where riots broke out last year after a black teenager was fatally shot by a white police officer. Reporters asked if Mr. Obama has “a reluctance to wade deeper into the race issue” or if he is concerned about being viewed as “an angry black man” when he speaks passionately about racial disparities.
“What is undeniable is that the president is focused on these issues even when you guys aren’t,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters. “I don’t say that as a criticism, I just say it as a fact.”
The White House also came under renewed questioning about whether Mr. Obama regretted using the word “thugs” while referring to people who looted and burned buildings in Baltimore this week. Mr. Earnest said again that Mr. Obama was trying to make a distinction between the large majority of peaceful protesters in Baltimore and the relatively small group who were bent on destruction and violence.
The questions over Mr. Obama’s role came as Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Republican and a candidate for president in 2016, accused the president this week of dividing the nation on questions of race.
“He has not used his role as president to bring us together,” Mr. Cruz said Wednesday at a forum in Texas. “He has exacerbated racial misunderstandings, racial tensions. Dividing us over and over and over again is a dangerous approach for a president. It’s an irresponsible approach for a president.”
Mr. Earnest said that Mr. Obama’s “powerful message” about devoting more resources to communities such as Baltimore this week “was received and … has resonated across the country.”
On Tuesday, after the worst night of violence in Baltimore, Mr. Obama urged Americans to “do some soul-searching” and work harder to end what he called the “slow-rolling crisis” of black men dying at the hands of police officers.
“This is not new. It’s been going on for decades,” Mr. Obama said. “We have seen too many instances of what appears to be police officers interacting with individuals, primarily African-American, often poor, in ways that raise troubling questions. It comes up, it seems like, once a week now.”
He said Americans must do more than “feign concern” over the death of 25-year-old Freddie Gray and others who have died in police confrontations.
“It’s too easy to ignore those problems or to treat them just as a law-and-order issue as opposed to a broader social issue,” Mr. Obama said.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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