Thursday, President Barrack Obama will meet with Black Lives Matter (BLM) activists including DeRay McKesson.
DeRay McKesson joined the race for the Mayor’s post in Baltimore this month.
Other black leaders, including Al Sharpton attending this meeting in the White house. The event honoring the Black History Month will be hosted by President Obama and his wife, Michelle Obama. The meeting will also include other human rights activists.
This meeting is part of President Obama’s vast criminal justice reform campaign. Earlier one on a visit to a prison, Obama said he was looking forward to have a criminal justice system that is more fair, more even handed, smarter about how to reduce crime and is more proportionate.
At the meeting, president Obama will discuss criminal justice reforms, building trust between communities and the law enforcement and the president’s priorities during his last year in office. President Obama is not seen as a defender of black people’s rights, but he did defend the usefulness of “Black Life Matter” saying that it is employed show the African-Americans problems in the United States of America since they have systemic problems not found in other communities.
However, Aislynn Pulley, one of the founders of Black Lives Matter Chicago, Declined the White House Invitation.
She went as far to write an op-ed piece for TruthOut where she explains:
As the cofounder of Black Lives Matter Chicago, I was issued an invitation to this event, and various news outlets have already listed me as an attendee. But as a radical, Black organizer, living and working in a city that is now widely recognized as a symbol of corruption and police violence, I do not feel that a handshake with the president is the best way for me to honor Black History Month or the Black freedom fighters whose labor laid the groundwork for the historic moment we are living in.
I was under the impression that a meeting was being organized to facilitate a genuine exchange on the matters facing millions of Black and Brown people in the United States. Instead, what was arranged was basically a photo opportunity and a 90-second sound bite for the president. I could not, with any integrity, participate in such a sham that would only serve to legitimize the false narrative that the government is working to end police brutality and the institutional racism that fuels it. For the increasing number of families fighting for justice and dignity for their kin slain by police, I refuse to give its perpetrators and enablers political cover by making an appearance among them.
Read full piece here: TruthOut
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