Obama admits to bias against racial minorities in US

US President Barack Obama has acknowledged that "bias" against racial minorities still exists across the country despite dramatic improvement in race relations, as the American nation is reeling from a shock in the wake of recent deadly shootings.

Obama made the remarks on Tuesday during a memorial service honoring five police officers killed in the US city of Dallas in Texas last week.

“Race relations have improved dramatically in my lifetime,” he said. “Those who deny it are dishonoring the struggle. But, America, we know that bias remains. We know it … We have all seen this bigotry in our own lives at some time … If we’re honest perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads or felt it in our own hearts. We know that.”

Obama also admitted that the concerns of protesters and those questioning law enforcement tactics cannot be simply dismissed, saying, “We cannot simply turn away and dismiss those in peaceful protests as troublemakers; we can’t simply dismiss it as a symptom of political correctness or reverse racism.”

He also condemned the rhetoric that suggests harm to police, saying it does a “disservice to the cause of justice.”

Obama called the killings of police an “act not just of demented violence but of racial hatred,” adding, “it’s as if the deepest fault lines of our democracy have been exposed, perhaps even widened.”

The US president called for urgent action to halt the conflict between police and protesters and black and white. He admitted that previous approaches, including his own, are failing.

“I’m not naive. I have spoken at too many memorials in the course of this presidency,” Obama said. “I’ve seen how inadequate words can be at bringing about lasting change. I see the inadequacy of my own words.”

Back on Friday, five policemen were killed and seven others wounded by sniper fire during a protest against police brutality and racial profiling of African Americans. The attack has been described as the deadliest incident for law enforcement forces since the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The protests were held after graphic videos shot in the states of Louisiana and Minnesota, showed the deaths of two African Americans at the hands of police officers.

Philando Castile, 32, was killed during a traffic stop Wednesday night in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He was shot inside his car as he was reportedly trying to reach for his driver’s license.

Castile’s death happened within a day of another fatal shooting by police in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where Alton Sterling, 37, was pinned to the ground and shot in the chest outside a convenience store following an altercation with police. A graphic video of the shooting recorded by a bystander shows an officer shooting Sterling five times at close range.

Data compiled by an activist group that runs the Mapping Police Violence project shows that police in the US killed over 1,150 people in 2015, with the largest police departments disproportionately killing at least 321 African Americans.

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