In the African-American Community, the murder of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent trial of George Zimmerman evokes painful experiences and a ‘history that won’t go away.’ Photo screen captured from a video by The Washington Post.
“Whoa!” exclaimed the gaggle of reporters gathered for Friday’s daily White House press briefing, when — instead of Press Secretary Jay Carney — the president himself appeared on the podium.?Barack Obama?joked with Carney about how when he sees the press conferences on TV, “it usually looks like you’re addressing a full room,” and then announced that he?had come?to speak about the Zimmerman trial verdict. After sending prayers to Trayvon Martin’s family and assuring?reporters that he saw no improprieties in the trial itself, Obama cut to the chase:
But I did want to just talk a little about context, and how people responded and how they are feeling. You know, when Trayvon Martin?was first?shot, I said he could have been my son. Another way of saying that is that 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.
The president went on to vividly describe our violent history, inequities in our system, racial dynamics at play in our communities, and how it feels to be a black man in America, discussed ways to address these issues, and then somehow managed to end on a hopeful note:
And let me just leave you with — 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 that we’re in a postracial society. It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But you know, when I talk to Malia and Sasha and I listen to their friends and I see 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.
Here’s the video, courtesy of The Washington Post:
