Florida – When President Barack Obama told the nation on Friday that slain black teenager Trayvon Martin could have been him 35 years ago, many black Americans across the nation nodded their head in silent understanding.
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Like the president, they too have seen people walk across the street and lock their car doors as they got near. They, too, know what it’s like to be followed while shopping in a department store.
In many ways, it was the frank talk on what it can be like to be black in America that many African Americans had been waiting to hear from Obama, especially since a Florida jury last weekend acquitted neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Martin’s shooting death. And it generated a range of reactions — a reflection of the diverse opinions and experiences the conversation on race in the U.S. provokes.
“I think he was trying to give the other side of the equation,” Angela Bazemore, 56, an administrative assistant who lives in New York City, said. “Black people and brown people everywhere feel like they’ve been heard.”
Others felt his comments, while helpful, still only scratched the surface of an issue that is inherently more complex than the color of one’s skin.
“I was really happy with what he had to say, but I do feel like him being a multi-ethnic person and Zimmerman being multi-ethnic, are really downplayed when we talk about black and white,” said Hank Willis Thomas, an artist whose work frequently focuses on themes of race and identity.
In the unscheduled appearance before reporters at The White House, Obama said the nation needed to look for ways to move forward after the shooting and trial in Florida and urged Americans to do some soul searching about their attitudes on race.
It was the first set of extended remarks Obama has made on the Martin case since Zimmerman was acquitted by a six-woman jury of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in Martin’s death last year. Jurors found that Zimmerman had acted in self-defense when he shot the unarmed teenager. Martin was black. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic.
Obama issued a statement after the verdict that said in part, “I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict, I know those passions may be running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken.”
He went much further on Friday.
“I think it’s important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away,” he said.
Obama said that before becoming a senator, he himself experienced walking across the street and hearing the locks click on doors, among other similar situations. It’s that set of experiences, he said, that informs how of the black Americans interpret what happened one night in Sanford, Fla.
While acknowledging racial disparities in how criminal laws are applied, the African-American community isn’t “naive about the fact African-American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system, that they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence,” he said.
He said race relations are, however, getting better.
Civil rights leader Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network is planning rallies in 100 cities to press for federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman on Saturday, said the president’s words were historic.
“There is nothing more powerful than the president of the United States, for the first time in history, saying, ‘I know how they feel,'” he said.
Martin’s parents said Obama’s words gave them strength.
“What touches people is that our son, Trayvon Benjamin Martin, could have been their son,” they said in a statement. “President Obama sees himself in Trayvon and identifies with him. This is a beautiful tribute to our boy.”
Zimmerman’s defense attorneys said they acknowledged and understood the racial context of which Obama spoke, but wanted to “challenge people to look closely and dispassionately at the facts.”
Those who do so, they said, will see it was a clear case of self-defense and that Zimmerman is a “young man with a diverse ethnic and racial background who is not a racist.”
“While we acknowledge the racial context of the case, we hope that the president was not suggesting that this case fits a pattern of racial disparity, because we strongly contend that it does not,” they said in a statement.
It wasn’t the first time Obama has spoken about race to the nation. He delivered a speech on race during his 2008 presidential campaign after controversy arose around comments made by his former pastor. And the issue has surfaced from time to time during his presidency, including in 2009, when he invited black Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the white police sergeant who arrested him for disorderly conduct for a 40-minute chat on the Rose Garden patio.
But many in the African-American community have wanted more.
“I think African Americans in particular wanted him to speak to an issue that deals with race as African Americans see it, and I think African Americans are pleased he’s done so,” said Brenda Stevenson, a history professor at the University of California Los Angeles. “But I think the president wanted to do so without alienating other people.”
Ana Navarro, a Republican consultant, said she cringed at first when she heard the president had spoken about the case.
“I cringed because I think the last thing we need is to insert politics into what is already a very divisive, emotional debate,” she said. “When I actually read his words, I thought he had been measured, respectful of the legal process.”
“I don’t think he’s asking white people to identify with black people,” she added. “He’s saying, ‘This is a reality for some of us in America.'”
Some felt Obama still didn’t go far enough.
“In a case that’s just bristling with racial tension, this is probably a sane and reasonable statement that can be made, that we need to step into each other’s shoes for a minute and understand through each other’s eyes the impact of a particular situation, namely this trial and the killing of this boy,” said Connie Rice, an African American civil rights attorney in Los Angeles. “The thing that he didn’t say and perhaps he couldn’t say is that this country is almost retarded when it comes to dealing with race.”
She remembered how Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote about integration as the answer to America’s racial problems.
“Well guess what?” she said. “We decided not to integrate. We decided to desegregate and we decided to end Jim Crow but we never integrated, we are not fluent in each other.”
Stevenson said she wished he’d also addressed black women in his remarks.
Alexandra Grande, a 24-year-old law school student in Idaho, said she found Obama’s remarks to be compelling.
“I think he was being very diplomatic,” said Grande, watching as an ethnically mixed wedding party posed for pictures at a downtown Boise intersection. “But he also let his emotions play out, and that was interesting to see. At the end of the day, he is a man with emotions.”
For Nolan V. Rollins, president and CEO of the Los Angeles Urban League, having the president of the U.S. talk about racial profiling in the first person is emblematic of two things.
“It says how far we’ve come, no question,” he said. “But it also says how far we have to go.”
I don’t love O or go along with many of his policies, esp. in the middle east, but in this case he spoke heartfully, intelligently on a difficult subject, while not interjecting on the legal merits of the case itself. He clearly asked that all protests be peaceful, explained how he understood why black Americans might be upset at the verdict and spoke to the absurdity of the stand your ground laws. Jews, who’ve for too lnog
I mean, I really think that Mr. Obama has lost his true vision on this matter. He is not in the verse of prayer for a new way of life and he is simply trying to exact vengeance upon reality. This wont serve his legacy.
What’s the big tummel? Because he’s the president he has no right to express his feelings toward one of his own? Maybe you can argue about the content of his speech, but such disgusting comments that was posted on Friday regarding this subject is pure racist and even more! specifically the comment by a StanleyMartin! Only if something happens in Israel you’re allowed to complain?
I honestly can’t understand all the accolades Obama is getting for this speech. He insinuated that the verdict would be different if Trayvon was white, which is completely baseless and inflammatory. He also refused to acknowledge that ppl clutching their purses or locking their doors in the inner city are mostly not racists, but rather living in fear due to the very real plague of violence in the black community.
Holder, Obama and the media have all forgotten that ZIMMERMAN was never white, is not white, and will never be white.
He is an Hispanic man whose ethnicity has been PURPOSELY ignored. The media has painted his skin white.
He is definitely not white. Therefore a white man did not shoot Trayvon. Also a white man was not arrested, not accused, and not freed.
Wooops, they all seem to have missed that.
The man’s an instigator par excellence. But he’s no leader.
“they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence”
How is that a white problem? How should one react when he sees those “perpetrators of violence” walking down the street with a hoodie and attire that looks as if he wants to look like a boogie gangsta and scare people? Should they turn around and say hello and risk being mugged? Should appreciate that culture of vulgar?
I am far from a racist, just trying to understand how they want people to read them when they dont seem to be doing much to refine their culture. They have many many positive attributes which I do appreciate, it’s just that they keep on blaming people for being scared of them when they are the ones scaring.
When will people come to understand he is nothing else than a demagogue and rabble rouser, Just a polished Al Sharpton
Way too many people believe the myth of black racism: If a crime is alleged that involved a non-black perpetrator and a black victim, it is always guilty, regardless of the facts or the laws. This stupidity is being breathed into the lungs of every black and every liberal across the United States. All the usual loudmouths are yelling this, insisting that justice has not been served by the system that worked. Even Eric Holder, the anti-white AG joined in this, rejecting his own FBI findings that already examined and reported its findings about a civil rights issue. Now the President is weighing in with the same idiocy. And this guy is our leader!
I would vote for any candidate that would address black racism for what it is. It is high time that we have an undivided country, as true civil rights were meant to be. The blacks need to stop making race an issue in everything.
Yes, blacks are overrepresented in crimes. That’s their fault, no one else’s.
President Obama’s remarks would have been more properly addressed to a psychiatrist in a private office rather than in a press room before the American people. He is obviously discombobulated about his own upbringing as a black man, in which the moral compass of his life was set by his white grandmother, whom he adored, but whom he thought was a racist. What has run through his mind all these years is, “If grandma loved me so much, how is it possible that she feared black people so much?”. When he says that he could have been like Trayvon Martin 35 years ago, he may be comparing Trayvon’s light complexion to the dark skin color of both of Trayvon’s parents, and subconsciously questioning who his real father is. It appears that Obama’s father had 3 additional sons, through 2 additional marriages after his marriage to Obama’s mother, including 2 sons by his marriage to a Jewish-American woman, Ruth Baker. There is plenty of genealogy for any researcher to sort through, so we can only imagine how difficult it must be for Obama to reconcile the relatively tranquil life he had with his white grandmother, to the discordant themes that were expressed in Obama, Sr’s life.
Of course Obama is race baiting. He was a community organizer common street thug and will ALWAYS be one. The only differences between Obama & Slim Shady Not Too Sharpton is that Sharpton ym’sh uses a bullhorn & obama uses a teleprompter, and that Obama was actually elected by a bunch of people voting with race in mind (they had to vote for a shvartza to prove they weren’t racist).
The president had no right to enflame an already tense situation with his statements. The blacks do not even care about the facts of the case. All they know is that Martin was black therefore he must be innocent. More blacks kill blacks and whites than whites kill blacks. The rioters are looting as they have done often in the past. This is what they really want. It you check out the rioters they are welfare recipients who do not work and therefore have the time to riot. Working people are too busy working and don’t have time to riot. Give these guys a broom and make them clean the streets then the riots would stop. The blacks, the president, and all the black organizations have lost the respect of the American people. The riots prove that they never accept the rule of law. One can say I do not like the verdict it is yet another to try and bring down the justice system to coheres and pressure the system to change the truth and have the verdict come out in your favor through threats and violence. There are no longer any slaves or slave owners alive today. The civil war ended 150 years ago. This excuse will not fly with most Americans any longer.
He said (in the beginning of his speech) that he is not going agsinst the jury, and every second word after that, he is second-guessing the jury. Enough! It’s over! The jury has decided (like u urself said.) Don’t pour kerosine on the fire!!!!
Even though Obama has become President his thought process still belongs in the ghetto. America has given him power afforded to very few people despite the fact ( or maybe because of) that he is black. Don’t you think it’s time to think like a man first and not as a black first?
The fact in the city I livein a city where daily blacks are killed by other blacks without mercy. The fact is Martin had Mariujana in his blood stream but these are the facts were are facing but we also have a Republican majority leader whose cousin in
Tel-Aviv is operating a large facility to convert Jews to Christianiy. We have Jews who beat a “chareidi” IDF soldier. Unfortunately life is not black and white and within the gray there are different shadings.