Opinion of Obama referring to the Baltimore protesters as "thugs"

[Velasco]

It's always better addressing the structural causes behind the violence than calling people "thugs". I'm not even to enter into the appropriateness of using one word or another, just say that statements of good intentions are not enough. You have a serious problem in certain police departments, I think. There is a huge gap between brownies and whiteys. Discuss that. 

[Velasco]

It's always better addressing the structural causes behind the violence than calling people "thugs". I'm not even to enter into the appropriateness of using one word or another, just say that statements of good intentions are not enough. You have a serious problem in certain police departments, I think. There is a huge gap between brownies and whiteys. Discuss that. 

Nobody wants to discuss that in Baltimore.  This isn't Ferguson.  You see, Baltimore has been run by Dems since 1967.  The police commissioner and deputy commissioner are both black.  67% of the PD is black.  Half of the officers arrested today were black.  It isn't a "race" thing in Baltimore, no matter how much you and others might want it to be.

I suspect that racial prejudice may be well entrenched in the Baltimore PD, in spite of its racial composition. Do you think is so strange that a brownie can be a racist for other brownie? Haven't you ever seen women who act as the worst of male chauvinists? The circumstances around the arrest and subsequent death of Freddie Gray due to wounds inflicted are not so different from other cases across the country. Don't get fooled by issues like the political leaning of certain place or the racial share of the local PD: recent events point to a long time unsolved problem which is related to an entrenched mentality in all levels of society, a huge level of inequality and a general lack of opportunities for racial minorities. 

[Velasco]

Dead0, I highly recommend you this article that I found in the NYT. It's not focused on race, but on the perceptions of the American public: "we vastly overestimate the amount of upward mobility in our society", says.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/03/opinion/sunday/american-dream-or-mirage.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1409232722000&bicmet=1419773522000&_r=0

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Then check the existing data which shows the great disadvantage faced by the racial minority known as "black".

[Velasco]

Yes, as your original post asserts, there is some large problems with the Baltimore PD, but it ain't racism.  Just like there are some huge problems with the Baltimore school district (one of the highest spending per pupil in the country, yet still a train wreck) and it ain't racism.  It's sh**tty management by the elected officials of the city.  That tends to happen when one party is in charge for half a century.

That's interesting and surely it's worthy of mentioning to understand the context. However, can you explain me the correlation between the problems in the Baltimore School District and the circumstances around the arrest of Freddy Gray?

Here's a timeline:

http://data.baltimoresun.com/news/freddie-gray/

On the other hand, I highly doubt that the "huge problems" in a certain school district can explain the general problem I was referring to ("inequality", "lack of opportunity", etc). It's more useful for that purpose checking statistical data than mentioning examples of successful individuals like President Obama.