Three funerals this month — of Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, Chicago student Shaquise Buckner, and Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., tell us much about the Obama Administration’s attitudes toward the military and hypocrisy on issues of race.
Maj. Gen. Harold Greene, the two star general assassinated in Afghanistan was the highest-ranking U.S. military officer killed in combat since the Vietnam War.
One would think that the major general’s funeral would have merited attendance by the president or at least the vice president.
Did the president attend or in his absence send his vice president?
No. He was relaxing in Martha's Vineyard.
He sent Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno.
The absence of the Commander-in-Chief or his Vice President was an insult and slap in the face to our military.
Shaquise Buckner, 16 years old, was killed in a drive by shooting in Chicago, the same day Michael Brown was killed by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri. Yet, her death and funeral did not merit the attention by President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, the national news media, or civil rights leaders — as was the case with Brown’s death.
No one rioted in Chicago because Shaquise Buckner was killed.
Her mother said that her daughter was a “happy teen with a sharp focus on her future,” who wanted to go into forensics. “She’s been on the honor roll since she’s been in high school every semester. She was supposed to start school on the 19th."
Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson, who lives in Chicago, did not rush to protest her murder; the New Black Panthers did not have rallies to condemn her murder by another black; and, news networks did not rush to cover her death — or the hundreds of other black on black murders in that city.
It was different in Ferguson.
Obama’s political gurus did not miss a politically correct opportunity to score points with a key political constituency by not only sending the attorney general to Ferguson, but also sending four White House aides to Brown’s funeral.
Why did Michael Brown’s death merit such five-star political treatment while the murder of a promising young black teen, and hundreds of others in Chicago, merited nary a comment from those rushing to judgment in Ferguson?
As I have written on numerous occasions, it is obvious from recent events that a black life is more valuable if taken by a white cop, than if by another black. If you’re black and want any justice or attention paid to your being killed in a shooting, just make sure you are killed by a white person — hopefully a cop — and not another black.
Did the President send Holder to Chicago to meet with FBI agents and Justice Department Officials to probe the hundreds of blacks killed by other blacks?
Did he ask Holder to launch a major federal, state and local strike force to attack against gang and drug violence in black neighborhoods of Chicago and other urban areas?
Of course not. Why? It is only blacks killing blacks — so what?
If black leaders, politicians and civil rights groups, and the black president and attorney general don’t seem to be concerned, why should whites?
You can bet your next paycheck that if blacks were killing whites in downtown Chicago in drive-by killings that the president, attorney general, governor of Illinois and mayor of Chicago would be declaring curfews, blockading streets and asking for identification.
It would not be tolerated.
But, in August of 2014, as in years before, it is not politically correct to attack black on black slaughter and gang terrorism in our big cities where law abiding blacks cower in fear on a daily basis.
There also was no apparent politically correct gain to be had by the President or Vice President in showing respect by attending Maj. Gen. Harold Greene’s funeral or sending White House aides to Shaquise Buckner’s funeral.
A very sad commentary.
Clarence V. McKee is president of McKee Communications, Inc., a government, political, and media relations consulting firm in Florida. He held several positions in the Reagan administration as well as in the Reagan presidential campaigns and has appeared on many national and local media outlets. Read more reports from Clarence V. McKee — Click Here Now.
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