President Obama addressed the Trayvon Martin trial outcome directly at a news conference today. He specifically articulated the experiences of black American men and boys from a personal point of view, as a black man.
He made statements like.
- “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago”.
- “There are very few African-American men who haven’t been followed in a department store. This has happened to me.”
- “If a white male teen would have been involved in this scenario … both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.”
- “If Trayvon Martin was of age and was armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we think 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 we need to rethink [Stand Your Ground] laws.”
- The President said that black boys need to know their country cares for them. He acknowledged the problems with black on black crime and urged America to understand that historical realities are responsible for how the black community reacted to the Trayvon Martin trial verdict.
- The president ended on a positive note, a note many Americans know. “We’re becoming a more perfect union. Not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.”
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It might have been Obama if he had been a 17-year-old drug abuser who had been suspended from school twice for fighting and who, after making a racist comment, went back to confront the man who had been following him and tried to beat him up, slamming his head on a concrete sidewalk. Trayvon Martin was not the innocent child too many people have made him out to be. If he had kept walking home instead of confronting Zimmerman, he would be alive today.
Or if he had been a 28 year old man on ADHD medicine who had been charged with resisting arrest and domestic violence he could have been GZ.