President Barack Obama surprised reporters today by giving an unscheduled speech addressing the acquittal of George Zimmerman and talking about race in greater depth than he had since becoming president.
Right at the start of his speech the president stated that the trial was conducted professionally and that the jury did their job appropriately, and that once they have spoken the matter is closed. Moving on from that the president attempted to explain, in a very personal matter, why the case has brought up so many emotions, especially in the African-American community.
"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," President Obama said. "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 - 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," President Obama continued. "That includes me. And 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."
"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," President Obama said. "And it's inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear."
The president went on to talk about how a disproportionate number of young African-American men are in the criminal justice system as well as a history of a violent past in poor neighborhoods that when it goes unacknowledged it can lead to frustration.
"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 or -and that context is being denied," President Obama said. "And - 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."
The president then focused on how the country moves on from here, reminding people that vigils and protests are acceptable as long as they remain non-violent. After discussing how law enforcement is handled at the state and local levels, not the federal level, President Obama mentioned that training police to better understand subjects such as racial profiling could be beneficial. Then the president turned his attention to Florida's stand your ground law.
"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 kind of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations. 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 the idea that we should think about something like these 'stand your ground' laws, I 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, it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws."
President Obama also suggested that the country, as a whole, do some soul-searching on the topic of race.
"At least 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?" President Obama said. "That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy."
In closing President Obama mentioned that he has noticed that every generation seems to be handling the issue of race better than the one that preceded it and that he especially sees this with his daughters and their friends.
"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," President Obama said. "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, you know, we're becoming a more perfect union - not a perfect union, but a more perfect union."
A full transcript of President Obama's speech can be found at the Washington Post.
