Idiot Obama Doubles Down on "Trayvon is my Son" remark
.............................................................................................................
Trayvon 'could have been me'
By Justin Sink - 07/19/13 01:54 PM ET
President Obama on Friday offered stark comments about race in his first on-camera remarks since a Florida jury found George Zimmerman not guilty of killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin.
In a surprise appearance at the White House press briefing, Obama said he’d been a victim of racial profiling and empathized with black Americans outraged by Zimmerman’s acquittal.
“There are very few African-American men who haven't had the experience of being followed in a department store,” he said. “That includes me.” After Martin was killed, Obama said the teenager would look like his son if he had one. On Friday, he compared himself to Martin, and said the death of the Florida teen should be put into the context of the history of American race relations.
“I said 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,” Obama said.
Obama also called for a review of so-called “stand your ground” laws, asking if they were “contributing to the kind of peace and order we would have like to see.”
“It'd be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kind of altercations and confrontations and tragedies we saw in the Florida case,” Obama said.
The president said he also hoped to find other ways to “learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction.”
He suggested it would be “productive” for the Justice Department to work with state and local law enforcement officials to “reduce the mistrust” with the African-American community. And he said he would encourage churches, families and workspaces to more critically examine their racial attitudes.
“Those of us in authority should be doing everything in our power to encourage the better angels of our nature,” Obama said.
But the president’s remarks — which appeared unscripted — also touched on the complexities of American race relations, and the difficult questions that had arisen in the aftermath of the Martin shooting.
He said that it was important to interpret the frustration of the African-American community “in a historical context.”
“I don’t wand to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida,” Obama said. “It’s inescapable for people to bring those experience to bear.”
The president noted “a history of racial disparity in the application of our criminal laws,” and suggested things would have been different were Martin white.
“Folks understand the challenges that exist for African-American boys, but they get frustrated if they feel there is no context for it and that context is being denied,” Obama said. “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 both top to bottom both the outcome and the aftermath might be different.”
But the president also emphasized that the trial had been conducted fairly and properly.
“They rendered a verdict, and once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works,” Obama said.
The president said those in the African-American community were not “naïve about the fact that African-American men are disproportionately ... both perpetrators and victims of violence.”
“Statistically someone like Trayvon Martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was someone else,” Obama said.
Read more: thehill.com  |
