Jesse Jackson blames Donald Trump, his supporters for Texas shooting of police
Rev. Jessie Jackson has pointed the finger at U.S. presidential hopeful Donald Trump and his followers for helping to creating the climate of fear in America and therefore, has contributed to the shocking deaths of five police officers in downtown Dallas.
In an interview with BBC Radio 4 in London, Jackson stated that the shooting of unarmed black men by police and the revenge attack in Dallas “It’s a kind of anti-black mood, anti-semitism, anti-Muslim bashing, immigrant bashing, female bashing, a kind of mean spirited division in the country.”
Trump is fueling an “anti-black mood” in America which also saw discrimination against immigrants, Muslims and women, said Jackson.
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“Threats to deport 15 million immigrants…threats to build a wall between Mexico who we share 2,000 miles of a border, there’s a permissiveness towards black people [which] is readily apparent and we have been used as scape goats for deeper and deeper economic and cultural fears.”
But it’s not just Trump, but also his supporters.
“He is a factor in that… It’s not just Trump, it’s the followers of Trump; the blacks, the browns, the Muslims – we’ve been losing rights in the cause of globalization. There is a scapegoating of those who are suffering.”
Asked about how all of this was happening under the first US black president and what Obama can do, he said: “My appeal to the President is let’s have a White House conference on violence, poverty, racial disparities and the plan to reconstruct – there is no plan to reconstruct.”
Speaking in Poland, where he is attending a NATO conference, President Obama described the events in Dallas as a “vicious, despicable and calculated attack.”
He said America is “horrified” over the shootings, claiming there is no justification for the attacks.
“When incidents like this occur, there’s a big chunk of our fellow citizenry that feels as if it’s because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same…And that hurts. And that should trouble all of us.”
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