Obama's Surprise Speech on Race: 'Trayvon Could Have Been Me 35 Years Ago'

During the White House's daily press briefing, usually conducted solely by press secretary Jay Carney, President Obama himself came to the podium ostensibly to address the Trayvon Martin verdict. "When Trayvon Martin was first shot," he said, "I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago."

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The focus of Obama's remarks was actually less about Martin than it was about the racial climate in which Martin was shot and in which the man that shot him was found not guilty of any crime. While he explicitly offered no critique of that verdict, he also clearly understood the response.

There are, frankly, 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. 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. And I don't want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida.

Acknowledging higher crime rates in the black community, he continued. "Folks understand the challenges that exist for African-American boys, but they get frustrated, I think, if they feel there's no context. And that context is being denied."

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Reactions to that idea were mixed online.

The president's comments weren't focused on policy proposals but, it seemed, on giving the case that missing context. He offered some ideas for how the federal government might ameliorate some of the tensions it exposed.

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• First, have the Justice Department work with state and city elected officials to try and reduce mistrust in local law enforcement. Specifically, how to decrease racial profiling in the system.
• Second, reconsider legislation like "stand your ground" which encouraged the confrontation. He largely echoed the attorney general's comments earlier this week. "I just ask people to consider," he said, "if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk?"
• Third, think about how to embrace and strengthen the community of young, male African-Americans ??to his introductory point. How, he asked, can celebrities and authority figures "figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African-American men feel that they're a full part of this society and that they've got pathways and avenues to succeed."

The speech ended on a hopeful note. "Things are getting better." Talking to his daughters, he sees that "they're better than we are. They're better on these issues." He concluded:

[W]e should also have confidence that kids these days have more sense than we did back then ? certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did ? and that along this long, difficult journey, we are becoming a more perfect union. Not a perfect union. But a more perfect union.

Some online commenters likened Obama's statement to his March 2008 speech on race, which is below.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/obamas-surprise-speech-race-trayvon-could-35-years-180500516.html

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