President
Barack Obama, making his first public remarks on the George Zimmerman
acquittal, said on Friday that many African-Americans believe that
“both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different” if
Trayvon Martin had been white.
“You
know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have
been my son,” Obama said somberly during a surprise appearance in
the White House briefing room. “Another way of saying that is
Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.”
In
searingly personal terms, Obama described his experience with
race-based prejudice. “There are very few African-American men in
this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when
they were shopping in a department store—that includes me,” he
said.
“There
are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of
walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of
cars. That happens to me—at least before I was a senator,” he
said. “There are very few African-Americans who haven’t had the
experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse
nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off.
That happens often.”
So
“the African-American community is looking at this issue through a
set of experiences and a history,” judging “what happened one
night in Florida” through that lens, he said.
Obama
seemed to pour cold water on prospects that a Justice Department
review of the case would lead to federal charges against Zimmerman.
"It's
important for people to have some clear expectations here.
Traditionally, these are issues of state and local government, the
criminal code, and law enforcement is traditionally done at the state
and local levels—not at the federal level," the president
said.
"The
judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution
and the defense made their arguments. The jurors were properly
instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant,
and they rendered a verdict," Obama said. "And once the
jury has spoken, that's how our system works."
He
also tamped down suggestions he call a national conversation on race,
but encouraged churches and families and communities to discuss
issues surrounding the case and urged all Americans to engage in some
"soul-searching."
And
he called for a review of laws such as Florida's "stand your
ground" statute, suggesting that they rewrite traditional
self-defense rules in a way that fuels violence rather than smother
it.
"And
for those who resist that idea—that we should think about something
like these 'stand your ground' laws—I just ask people to consider:
If Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his
ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have
been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman, who had followed him in a
car, because he felt threatened?" the president said.
"And
if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems
to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws," Obama
said.
Over
the longer term, the president said, "we need to spend some time
in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our
African-American boys" and to "give them a sense that their
country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in
them."
Still,
the president underlined, "I don’t want us to lose sight that
things are getting better.
"It
doesn’t mean we’re in a post-racial society. It doesn’t mean
that racism is eliminated," Obama said. "But when I talk to
Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I see them
interact, they’re better than we are—they’re better than we
were—on these issues. And that’s true in every community that
I’ve visited all across the country."
So
why speak out now?
Obama,
who had released a relatively brief written statement Sunday after
the verdict came down Saturday night, watched the national reaction
unfold over the course of the week.
He
discussed it with friends and family, a White House aide explained.
He called together some top advisers late Thursday afternoon and told
them he wanted to speak out publicly, the aide said on condition of
anonymity to detail the behind-the-scenes work leading up to the
remarks.
The
aides weighed what the best venue would be – arrange an interview?
Make a statement in the Rose Garden? – and ultimately decided that
the best approach would be for him to make an unannounced visit to
the briefing room.
Obama
was eager to “speak extemporaneously and speak from the heart,”
the aide said. “There was no speechwriter involved.”
That's why you are the president of the greatest country in the world. Perfect. It could have been any of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment