We’re not as divided as we seem, says Obama in Dallas

US president Barack Obama asked Americans to reject despair about racial divisions and embrace "an open heart" to be able see the world through the eyes of police and protesters.

Speaking at a memorial in Dallas, Mr Obama called the murders of five police officers by a black former army reservist "an act of not just demented violence but of racial hatred".

He honoured slain officers Brent Thompson, Patrick Zamarripa, Michael Krol, Lorne Ahrens and Michael Smith, at the service, alongside president George W Bush, vice-president Joe Biden, Dallas mayor Mike Rawlings and the city's police chief David Brown.

Revenge

Micah Johnson

killed the officers at a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas on Thursday in revenge for the fatal police shootings of black men in

Minnesota

and

Louisiana

last week.

Mr Obama sought to console a nation shaken by one of the most violent and tempestuous weeks of his presidency.

Amid the polarised response to last week’s killings, Mr Obama said “it’s hard not to think sometimes that the centre won’t hold”, referencing William Butler Yeats’s phrase. “I’m here to insist that we’re not divided as we seem and I know that because I know America,” said an emotional Obama during a 40-minute speech.

He referred to the perseverance, character and hope displayed by police and protesters helping each other during the attack, and by the survivors and the people of Dallas afterwards.

"That's the America I know," he said repeatedly, rejecting a view that racial divisions have deepened, not improved – a claim made by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Acknowledging the many incidents of gun violence during his presidency, Mr Obama called for action and honesty, and not just words. “I have seen how inadequate words can be in bringing about lasting change. I have seen how inadequate my own words have been,” he said.

Protest

He defended the police while acknowledging the justified anger of those protesting against racial discrimination.

The “overwhelming majority” of police “do an incredibly hard and dangerous job” and are “deserving of our respect, not our scorn”, he said, while accepting that racial bias remains. “If we are honest, perhaps we’ve heard prejudice in our own heads and felt it in our hearts,” he said.

Urging Americans to have an open heart, he said police and protesters can learn to understand the other’s position.“Maybe the police officer sees his own son in that teenager with a hoodie who is kind of goofing off but not dangerous,” he said. “Maybe the teenager will see in the police officer the same words and values and authority of his parents.”