Here’s another part of President Obama’s legacy he can be proud of when he (finally!) leaves office on January 20, 2017.
Racial tensions have been exacerbated in the U.S. to the point that other nations have taken note. The government of the Bahamas has issued a “travel warning” to their citizens who plan on visiting the U.S.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Immigration has taken a note of the recent tensions in some American cities over shootings of young black males by police officers.
At the commencement of the Independence holiday weekend, many Bahamians will no doubt use the opportunity to travel, in particular to destinations in the United States.
We wish to advise all Bahamians traveling to the US but especially to the affected cities to exercise appropriate caution generally. In particular young males are asked to exercise extreme caution in affected cities in their interactions with the police. Do not be confrontational and cooperate.
If there is any issue please allow consular offices for The Bahamas to deal with the issues. Do not get involved in political or other demonstrations under any circumstances and avoid crowds.
The Bahamas has consular offices in New York, Washington, Miami and Atlanta and honorary consuls in Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago and Houston.
Their addresses are on the Ministry’s website – mofa.gov.bs
Pay attention to the public notices and news announcements in the city that you are visiting.
Be safe, enjoy the holiday weekend and be sensible.
We now join the likes of Kenya, Philippines, Colombia, Ukraine, and Lebanon as countries worthy of being singled out for special consideration when it comes to the safety and security of travelers. Those nations are all on the U.S. State Department’s list of places you really don’t want to go unless it’s absolutely necessary.
A dubious honor, indeed.
For a man who was expected to narrow the racial divide in America, President Obama has performed miserably. But don’t worry. The president says things aren’t so bad as they seem:
“When we start suggesting that somehow, there’s this enormous polarization and we’re back to the situation in the ’60s, that’s just not true. You’re not seeing riots, and you’re not seeing police going after people who are protesting peacefully,” he said. “And so as tough, as hard, as depressing as the loss of life was this week, we got a foundation to build on.”
Nonetheless, “the issue of guns” desperately needs to be addressed, Obama said in his hour-long comments, vowing to “keep on talking about guns” until Congress passes anti-gun laws.
The president should have said, “no riots”…yet. All it would take is another police killing and the tinderbox would flare up. Driven to near hysteria by the rhetoric telling them their lives are in danger every time they see a white policeman, it won’t take much to start a conflagration that would burn from coast to coast.
The president would protest his innocence. But every time a police shooting occurs involving a black man, the president refuses to point to the rule of law and instead, talks about how flawed the police and the criminal justice system are. Those are not the words of the chief executive of a great republic, but the mealy mouthed musings of a blind partisan who see it his duty to stand up for his race rather than for the rule of law.
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