In a virtual town hall on Wednesday, former President Barack Obama weighed in on the nationwide protests and rioting sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis police custody last week, declaring that “this country was founded on protest.”
“Just remember this country was founded on protest,” Obama proclaimed. “It’s called the American Revolution, and every step of progress of this country, every expansion of freedom, every expression of our deepest ideals has been won through efforts that has [sic] made the status quo uncomfortable.
“They are the result of a long history of slavery, Jim Crow, institutionalized racism that have too often have been the plague of the original sin of our society,” he added.
Slavery is not America’s “original sin”; it was universal until England and America ended it. Nor is there any institutionalized racism in America, where blacks occupy positions of power at every level of society. Comparing the rioting and looting ravaging the country to the American Revolution is shameful and false.