Protesters marching peacefully to voice concerns over policing in their communities are unwittingly providing cover for radicals who crave violent confrontation with law enforcement, conservative civil rights activist Niger Innis told
Newsmax TV on Monday.
Factions within the demonstrations that have spread to several U.S. cities "are not necessarily purposefully or voluntarily collaborating with one another, but they are, in fact, coinciding," Innis, executive director of TheTeaParty.net, told "MidPoint" host Ed Berliner.
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"The most innocent piece are folks who are legitimately frustrated about the tension between police and community relations," said Innis, national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality. "They have legitimate grievances … and they want to exercise their First Amendment rights."
But marching right alongside, said Innis, are "left-wing, liberal anarchist types ... that have largely hijacked these peace
protests" and turned some of them violent.
Innis cited marchers at a "Black Lives Matter" rally in New York who were overheard chanting for "dead cops."
Innis contended that Occupy Wall Street and groups backed by wealthy liberal donors such as George Soros are also embedded in the street marches that have multiplied since grand juries cleared white police officers in the deaths of two black men, Eric Garner and Michael Brown.
He said the remaining factor in the unrest is President Barack Obama.
"Obama himself and other political elements within his administration that were depressed after they got their butts handed to them in the last election … made a decision," said Innis, describing "a concerted effort" to rally aggrieved minorities "by whatever means necessary."
"They did it with executive amnesty with Latinos," said Innis, "and they're doing it with stoking the fires around these protests."
Innis said the president has encouraged Rev. Al Sharpton — "one of Obama's top advisers on matters of race" — on that confrontational course.
He said Obama is the same president who was elected because people "thought that he would be a person that would help us turn the page on the crass race politics of Sharpton."
"He has not only failed to turn the page," said Innis, "he has doubled down on that page," calling Obama "the most racially divisive president since we had Woodrow Wilson, and Wilson segregated the federal government."
Innis said the real work of reducing tension between cops and citizens belongs with other activists — ones who can address "the silent majority within black America, the silent majority within white America, Latino America, Asian America that are not out there violently protesting."
"The media has got to give more access and more voice" to those leaders, he said, because there are plenty out there who can speak to legitimate community concerns but "are not racial rabble rousers like Sharpton."
"But the fact of the matter is, liberal and conservative media has given the Sharptons and the Jesse Jacksons a disproportionate microphone," he said, "and here are the fruits of that behavior."
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