THE FATHER of Jacob Blake, the black man shot by police in Kenosha, Wisconsin, refused to ‘play politics’ with his son’s life’ when President Donald Trump visited the city yesterday.
Jacob Blake Sr’s son was paralysed after being shot by a police officer, and his family says it will be a miricle if he ever walks again.
Ahead of Trump’s visit, the president told a news conference he would not meet the Blake family because they wanted lawyers to be present.
In an interview with CNN, Jacob Blake Sr said his son’s life was more important than a meeting with President Trump. ‘I’m not getting into politics. It’s all about my son, man. It has nothing to do with a photo op,’ he said.
He added: ‘This is not politics. This is about the life of my son, who is still paralysed from the waist down, and holding on for dear life.’ His 29-year-old son was shot seven times in the back by a police officer as he entered a car where his three children were seated.
‘We are dealing with an individual that a couple of weeks ago was running around with the boys and talking to me on the phone and laughing, to an individual that cannot move his legs,’ Blake Sr said.
Jacob Blake’s sister commented: ‘I have been watching police murder people that look like me for years.’
In fact, local officials urged Trump to not visit Kenosha, saying his presence in the city might reignite protests that had calmed down in recent days.
Trump rejected their pleas, accusing Democratic mayors and governors of failing to get a handle on the violence. He intends to win the election by creating a civil war situation throughout the USA and insisting that only he he can save the country from anarchists, socialists and a communist revolution.
Governor of the state, Democrat Tony Evers, had urged Trump to reconsider his visit, warning his presence would ‘hinder our healing’ and arguing that the citizens of the town are already traumatised.
‘I, along with other community leaders who have reached out, are concerned about what your presence will mean for Kenosha and our state,’ Evers wrote in a letter to Trump.
The White House said the president was expected to meet with law enforcement and tour ‘property affected by recent riots’.
In fact, Trump has deliberately whipped up tensions before setting a foot in the city by defending a white teenage supporter accused of shooting to death two men amid demonstrations over Blake’s shooting in Kenosha last week.
He suggested the teenager, Kyle Rittenhouse, 17, was acting in self-defence, telling reporters: ‘I guess he was in very big trouble, he probably would have been killed.’
At Monday’s White House news conference, Trump blamed Democratic Party presidential candidate Joe Biden and his allies for violence in cities run by Democratic mayors and governors.
A CNN reporter asked the Republican president whether he would condemn Trump supporters who had fired paint pellets during a confrontation with counter-protesters at the weekend in Portland, Oregon.
In the ensuing street clashes, Aaron Danielson – a member of a far right group, Patriot Prayer – was killed by a suspect who has reportedly described himself as a member of the antifa movement.
Trump described the protest as ‘peaceful’ and said paint was ‘a defensive mechanism, paint is not bullets.’
He told the reporter: ‘Your supporters, and they are your supporters indeed, shot a young gentleman – and killed him, not with paint but with a bullet. And I think it’s disgraceful.’
Trump has gone from playing with fire to fanning the flames. This is because the US economy is bust, with up to 50 million unemployed, and the US leads the world with 6,118,204 Covid-19 infections and 186,348 deaths.
He is whipping up the US’ right wing and working for a massive attack on the working class and the youth if he is re-elected, to preserve crisis-ridden US capitalism. He has even said that he may refuse to accept a rejection at the polls because of allegations of rigged postal voting.
The US trade unions must be ready to call a general strike if Trump is re-elected in this pogrom atmosphere. The USA must go forward to socialism and a workers government, not back to the days of the Great Depression.
