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| President Obama Speaks on Trayvon Martin |
In the setting of a news conference President Obama spoke from the White House James S. Brady Press Briefing Room for17 minutes Friday afternoon about Treyvon Martin, the young, black teenager killed for being black and young.
Obama was brilliant, erudite and candid about what it is to be a young, black man in America.
In some ways, Obama will never be what most progressives and arguably to a lesser extent, what blacks want him to be: A LBJ figure cursing out and shaking up George Wallace in 1965 in a private meeting in the White House before LBJ went on to became the greatest civil rights president in American history, which is to say the greatest president in American history.
The eye of our rage.
This simply is not who Barack Obama is.
What he is is effective, and he is the right person to meet the grave challenge presented by today's rightwing propped up by the Koch brothers and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).
Blacks along with the entire working class of America are under attack from GOP governors of today, more pernicious than George Wallace ever could be.
Civil rights monuments to justice and struggle enjoy no place of honor with these retrograde forces of corruption who enacted the very laws that protected Treyvon Martin's killer.
Scott Walker (Wisconsin), Rick Scott (Florida) and Tom Corbett (
Pennsylvania) pursue a program against working families and minorities using the fear mongering and voter obstruction in an America worse than the segregationist south on the 1950s-60s.
It is in this context of the forces of reaction and racism working on the state level, that President Obama has again rose to the occasion on race and justice in America, addressing the country as adults who are wise enough to learn from today's youth and their personal histories.
Said Obama:
It doesn’t mean we’re in a post-racial society. It
doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But when I talk to Malia and
Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I seen 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.
Children, the saving grace of our humanity, and our country.
Remarks by the President on Trayvon Martin
James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
1:33 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: I wanted to come out here, first of all, to tell you
that Jay is prepared for all your questions and is very much looking
forward to the session. The second thing is I want to let you know that
over the next couple of weeks, there’s going to obviously be a whole
range of issues -- immigration, economics, et cetera -- we'll try to
arrange a fuller press conference to address your questions.
The reason I actually wanted to come out today is not to take
questions, but to speak to an issue that obviously has gotten a lot of
attention over the course of the last week -- the issue of the Trayvon
Martin ruling. I gave a preliminary statement right after the ruling on
Sunday. But watching the debate over the course of the last week, I
thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a little bit.
First of all, I want to make sure that, once again, I send my
thoughts and prayers, as well as Michelle’s, to the family of Trayvon
Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity with which
they’ve dealt with the entire situation. I can only imagine what
they’re going through, and it’s remarkable how they’ve handled it.
The second thing I want to say is to reiterate what I said on Sunday,
which is there’s going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues
in the case -- I'll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address
those issues. The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner.
The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were
properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was
relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury has spoken,
that's how our system works. But I did want to just talk a little bit
about context and how people have responded to it and how people are
feeling.
You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could
have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could
have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African
American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened
here, 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.
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. 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. 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. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those
experiences to bear. The African American community is also
knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the
application of our criminal laws -- everything from the death penalty to
enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in
terms of how people interpret the case.
Now, this isn't to say that the African American community is naïve
about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately
involved in the criminal justice system; that they’re disproportionately
both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s not to make excuses
for that fact -- although black folks do interpret the reasons for that
in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that
takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out
of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and
dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very
difficult history.
And so the fact that sometimes that’s unacknowledged adds to the
frustration. And the fact that a lot of African American boys are
painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are
these statistics out there that show that African American boys are more
violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently
causes pain.
I think the African American community is also not naïve in
understanding that, statistically, somebody like Trayvon Martin was
statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody
else. So folks understand the challenges that exist for African
American boys. But they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that
there’s no context for it and that context is being denied. And that all
contributes I think to a sense that if a white male teen was involved
in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome
and the aftermath might have been different.
Now, the question for me at least, and I think for a lot of folks, is
where do we take this? How do we learn some lessons from this and move
in a positive direction? I think it’s understandable that there have
been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is
just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains
nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that
dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family. But beyond
protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that
we might be able to do.
I know that Eric Holder is reviewing what happened down there, but I
think 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 levels.
That doesn’t mean, though, that as a nation we can’t do some things
that I think would be productive. So let me just give a couple of
specifics that I’m still bouncing around with my staff, so we’re not
rolling out some five-point plan, but some areas where I think all of us
could potentially focus.
Number one, precisely because law enforcement is often determined at
the state and local level, I think it would be productive for the
Justice Department, governors, mayors to work with law enforcement about
training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the kind of
mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists.
When I was in Illinois, I passed racial profiling legislation, and it
actually did just two simple things. One, it collected data on traffic
stops and the race of the person who was stopped. But the other thing
was it resourced us training police departments across the state on how
to think about potential racial bias and ways to further professionalize
what they were doing.
And initially, the police departments across the state were
resistant, but actually they came to recognize that if it was done in a
fair, straightforward way that it would allow them to do their jobs
better and communities would have more confidence in them and, in turn,
be more helpful in applying the law. And obviously, law enforcement has
got a very tough job.
So that’s one area where I think there are a lot of resources and
best practices that could be brought to bear if state and local
governments are receptive. And I think a lot of them would be. And
let's figure out are there ways for us to push out that kind of
training.
Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine
some state and local laws to see if it -- if they are designed in such a
way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and
confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather
than diffuse potential altercations.
I know that there's been commentary about the fact that the "stand
your ground" laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case. On
the other hand, if we're sending a message as a society in our
communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use
those firearms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation,
is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and
security and order that we'd like to see?
And for those who resist that idea that we should think about
something like these "stand your ground" laws, I'd 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? 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.
Number three -- and this is a long-term project -- we need to spend
some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African
American boys. And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot
about. There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a
lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to
give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them
and is willing to invest in them?
I'm not naïve about the prospects of some grand, new federal
program. I'm not sure that that’s what we're talking about here. But I
do recognize that as President, I've got some convening power, and there
are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on
this front. And for us to be able to gather together business leaders
and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes, and
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 -- I think that would be a pretty good
outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. And we're going to
spend some time working on that and thinking about that.
And then, finally, I think it's going to be important for all of us
to do some soul-searching. There has been talk about should we convene a
conversation on race. I haven't seen that be particularly productive
when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being
stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they
already have. On the other hand, in families and churches and
workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a little bit more
honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I
wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as
much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of
their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the
wake of this tragedy.
And let me just leave you with a final thought that, as difficult and
challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t
want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successive
generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it
comes to race. It doesn’t mean we’re in a post-racial society. It
doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But when I talk to Malia and
Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I seem 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.
And so we have to be vigilant and we have to work on these issues.
And those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to
encourage the better angels of our nature, as opposed to using these
episodes to heighten divisions. But we should also have confidence that
kids these days, I think, have more sense than we did back then, and
certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did; and that
along this long, difficult journey, we’re becoming a more perfect union
-- not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.
Thank you, guys.
END
1:52 P.M. EDT
