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Jason Riley: Obama ‘Pretending’ U.S. Has ‘Epidemic Of Black Men Dying At Hands Of Police’

Al Weaver Reporter
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In an appearance on “Special Report” Friday, Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Riley took issue with comments by the likes of President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the Baltimore riots this week.

Riley told guest host Shannon Bream that Obama and Clinton are pushing a “false narrative,” saying they are “pretending” that the U.S. has “an epidemic of black men dying at the hands of police.” Rather, as Riley put it, it’s “young black men dying at the hands of other black men.”

JAOSN RILEY: When the Watts riots happened, Watts had a substantial and growing black middle class. When the Detroit riots happened, black unemployment in Detroit was lower than the national average for whites. Again, a big black middle class. Those populations then fled after the riots and the economic deprivation set in…I agree that we have underlying problems here, and the underlying problem is a false narrative that continues to be pushed, not only by the prosecutor but by Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama and the protesters and all of the rest who are pretending that we have an epidemic of black men dying at the hands of police. That is not an epidemic. That is exceptional. That is rare. What is normal is young black men dying at the hands of other black men, and they do not want to talk about that.