NBC News.com :President Barack Obama, speaking in Dallas this afternoon to a community – and a nation – reeling from last week’s deadly sniper attack, said Americans must reject despair during these tough times.”We turn on the TV or surf the internet, and we can watch positions harden and lines drawn and people retreat to their respective corners,” he said at a multi-faith memorial at the Morton Meyerson Symphony Center. “Politicians calculate how to grab attention or avoid the fallout. We see all this, and it’s hard not to think sometimes that the center won’t hold. And that things might get worse. I understand. I understand how Americans are feeling. But, Dallas, I’m here to say we must reject such despair.”Obama, who cut short a trip to Europe to be at the memorial, continued, “I’m here to insist that we are not as divided as we seem. And I know that because I know America. I know how far we’ve come against impossible odds. I know we’ll make it because of what I’ve experienced in my own life. What I’ve seen of this country and its people, their goodness and decency, as president of the United States.”He said, “This is the America I know,” citing how protesters and police officers are mourning side by side, grieving for the five officers slain in Dallas as well as the two black men recently killed by police – Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota.”In this audience I see what’s possible,” Obama said. “I see what’s possible when we recognize that we are one American family. All deserving of equal treatment. All deserving equal respect. All children of God. That’s the America I know.”He continued that often with memorials – having spoken at too many during his presidency and hugging “too many families” – the spirit for change falls to daily life, and words are inadequate.”Because they’re comfortable,” he said. “We’re used to them. I’ve seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I’ve seen how inadequate my own words have been.”He criticized the instinct to dismiss people’s experiences and their pain over needing to instruct their children how to respond to police officers so they don’t get shot.”When all this takes place more than 50 years after the passage of the Civil Rights Act? We cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protests as troublemakers or paranoid,” he said. “You can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism. To have your experience denied like that, dismissed by those in authority, dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and co-workers and fellow church members, again and again and again? It hurts. Surely, we can see that. All of us.”The president also criticized how much society asks police officers to do in the current system, echoing the remarks earlier this week of Dallas Police Chief David Brown.”So much of the tensions between police departments and minority communities that they serve is because we ask the police to do too much and we ask too little of ourselves,” he said. “As a society, we choose to underinvest in decent schools. We allow poverty to fester so that entire neighborhoods offer no prospect for gainful employment. We refuse to fund drug treatment and mental health programs.”While Obama took on the division and tensions of race in America, he called on unity in the country to address those issues.”Because the vicious killer of these police officers – it won’t be the last person who tries to make us turn on one another. The killer in Orlando wasn’t. Nor was the killer in Charleston. We know there is evil in this world. That’s why we need police departments,” he said. “But as Americans, we can decide that people like this killer will ultimately fail. They will not drive us apart. We can decide to come together and make our country reflect the good inside us, the hopes and simple dreams we share.”Obama began his remarks with scripture, returning to it throughout his remarks. To Obama’s side, five chairs remained empty except for a folded American flag on each one as a tribute to the fallen officers.
