Thread: President Obama: 'Trayvon Martin Could've Been Me 35 Years Ago'

National Journal
By Matt Berman, Brian Resnick, Matt Vasilogambros and Niraj Chokshi
Updated: July 19, 2013 | 2:18 p.m.
July 19, 2013 | 1:53 p.m.

President Obama made a surprise visit to the White House press room on Friday to speak about the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin case, making some of the most bold and open remarks about race of his presidency.

While the president began by commending the judge in the case as "professional" and the jurors as "properly instructed," he brought the case into the much broader context of race in America.

When Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said this could've been my son. Another way of saying that is, a Trayvon Martin could've been me 35 years ago. When you think about why, in the African American community at least, there's a lot of pain around what happened, 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.

That history, he explained, is especially salient to black men. He said "There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping at a department store. That includes me." The same goes for African American men who have heard "locks click on the doors of cars," or seen a "woman clutching her purse nervously" in an elevator.
And those feelings in daily life are a reflection of what the president acknowledged as "a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws" -- from the death penalty to drug laws. He continued (with our emphasis):

Folks understand the challenges that exist for African American boys. But they get frustrated that they feel that there's no context for them, that that context is being denied. And that all contributes 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.

The president's comments also looked at the real problems of "poverty and dysfunction" in African American communities, saying that they can "be traced to a very difficult history." As he said, young African American men are disproportionately "both the victims and perpetrators of violence" and that Trayvon was "statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else." But that's no excuse for unequal treatment:

The fact that a lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuses given 'well, there are these statistics out there that
show that African American males are more violent,' using that as an excuse to see sons treated different causes pain.

To combat these larger social issues, President Obama offered three broad suggestions:

1. Get the Justice Department involved with training local governments to reduce mistrust in the legal system. (It's worth remembering that this episode started over an outcry that Zimmerman wasn't arrested at all after the incident.)
2. Examine local laws -- such as "Stand Your Ground" -- and see if they "may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case rather than diffuse potential altercations."
3. Think about ways to bolster and reinforce African American boys so they do not get caught up in the legal system (as the statistics indicate they are more likely to be).

Despite such discriminatory experiences, African Americans perceive less discrimination today than ten or twenty years ago, according to the results of a Gallup survey released this morning. A shrinking share of blacks blame the black-white disparities in jobs, income and housing on discrimination.
In 1993, 44 percent said those disparities existed mostly from discrimination, while 37 percent say so today. Non-Hispanic whites exhibited a similar shift: 15 percent say discrimination is mostly to blame for the disparity, down from 21 percent two decades ago. Overall, one in five adults blames discrimination for the disparities.

Older blacks tend to perceive more discrimination than younger blacks, with 47 percent of those 55 and older saying discrimination is mostly to blame for those disparities compared to 30 percent of those aged 18 to 34.



Obama did offer some hope in his comments, citing the progress among the youngest generation—including his daughters and their views on race: "When I talk to Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I see them interact, they're better than we are," Obama said. "They're better than we were on these issues."

The president's comments were not only surprising because of their content, but also because the circumstances. The White House gave only seconds notice to reporters before the president entered the briefing room—a rarity with the press corps.

The comments were the most Obama has spoken on race in America as president, and the most in-depth and personal since his remarks in Philadelphia during the 2008 campaign. Those remarks were largely pegged off of the controversy surrounding Obama's relationship with Reverend Jeremiah Wright.

http://www.nationaljournal.com/white...s-ago-20130719