Having emerged from the safety of the White House bunker today, President Trump has met the world with the words, “Where there is no security there is no hope.”

To clarify, the President is not referring to Black Americans who live in daily fear for their lives because of the constant threat of brutalization and murder by law enforcement infiltrated by KKK. He is talking about victims of looting and violence during the protests following the murder by Minneapolis law enforcement of George Floyd.

The President implied a supplanting of local police authority by American defence in order to safeguard the people, and threatened immediate “arrest and long sentences.” However he was not talking about action against law enforcement officers who brutalize and murder Black Americans – even while on camera – or their colleagues in law enforcement and the justice department who aid and abet these ongoing murders, nor was he talking about the authorities who have failed to act on FBI warnings about KKK operations within law enforcement. No all these actions were in fact promised for looters.

In fact the President’s statement was totally silent with regard to the systemic and entrenched problem of racist violence in American law enforcement and justice. A problem which has sparked countless peaceful protests all across the country and sympathetic actions around the world.

But the problem is not the woeful shortfall of one president or one speech. No president has ever been willing to be a president for all Americans by taking this issue on. This is why all but one of my extended family is leaving America for other countries after living in America for more than a generation. You cannot live and pursue happiness when your life is continually under threat from your own police and where authority is collusive with a system that sees you as less than human. They are leaving because as the President rightly said, “Where there is no security there is no hope.”