{"id":807920,"date":"2020-05-29T11:50:27","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T17:50:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=1007383"},"modified":"2020-05-29T11:50:27","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T17:50:27","slug":"barack-obama-on-george-floyd-killing-this-shouldnt-be-normal-in-2020-america","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/music-news\/barack-obama-on-george-floyd-killing-this-shouldnt-be-normal-in-2020-america\/","title":{"rendered":"Barack Obama on George Floyd Killing: \u2018This Shouldn\u2019t Be \u2018Normal\u2019 in 2020 America\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Barack Obama<\/a> shared an emotional letter on Twitter<\/a> in response to the killing of George Floyd<\/a> in Minneapolis on May 25th.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to share parts of the conversations I\u2019ve had with friends over the past couple days about the footage of George Floyd<\/a> dying face down on the street under the knee of a police officer in Minnesota,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\n

My statement on the death of George Floyd: pic.twitter.com\/Hg1k9JHT6R<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Barack Obama (@BarackObama) May 29, 2020<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The former president shared an excerpt from an email written by a middle-aged African American businessman: \u201cI cried when I saw that video,\u201d he told Obama. \u201cIt broke me down. The \u2018knee on the neck\u2019 is a metaphor for how the system so cavalierly holds black folks down, ignoring the cries for help. People don\u2019t care. Truly tragic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obama also cited a song posted by Keedron Bryant, a 12-year-old gospel singer currently competing on the fourth season of NBC\u2019s Little Big Shots<\/em>. Bryant posted a video on Instagram<\/a> of the song, with the gut-wrenching final line, \u201cI just want to live.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe circumstances of my friend and Keedron may be different, but their anguish is the same,\u201d Obama said. \u201cIt\u2019s shared by me and millions of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s natural to wish for life \u2018to just get back to normal\u2019 as a pandemic and economic crisis upend everything around us,\u201d he continued. \u201cBut we have to remember that for millions of Americans, being treated differently on account of race is tragically, painfully, maddeningly \u2018normal,\u2019 \u2014 whether it\u2019s while dealing with the health care system, or interacting with the criminal justice system, or jogging down the street, or just watching birds in a park.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis shouldn\u2019t be \u2018normal\u2019 in 2020 America,\u201d he wrote. \u201cIt can\u2019t be \u2018normal.\u2019 If we want our children to grow up in a nation that lives up to its highest ideals, we can and must be better.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Popular on Rolling Stone<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

via:: Rolling Stone<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barack Obama shared an emotional letter on Twitter in response to the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25th. \u201cI want to share parts of the conversations I\u2019ve had with friends over the past couple days about the footage of George Floyd dying face down on the street under the knee of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[98],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-807920","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-music-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-07-09 23:07:15","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=807920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/807920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=807920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=807920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=807920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}