A Personal Note as Obama Speaks on Death of Trayvon Martin

From Coleman

A Personal Note as Obama Speaks on Death of Boy
By JACKIE CALMES and HELENE COOPER

NYTimes Published: March 23, 2012
WASHINGTON — President Obama did not mention race even as he addressed
it on Friday, instead letting his person and his words say it all: "If
I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."

A rally was held on Thursday in Sanford, Fla., to protest handling of
the Trayvon Martin case.

Weighing in for the first time on the death of Trayvon Martin, the
unarmed black teenager shot and killed a month ago in Florida by a
neighborhood watch volunteer, Mr. Obama in powerfully personal terms
deplored the "tragedy" and, as a parent, expressed sympathy for the
boy's mother and father.

"I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I
think about this boy, I think about my own kids," Mr. Obama said.
"Every parent in America," he added, "should be able to understand why
it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this
and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to
figure out exactly how this tragedy happened."

While speaking movingly from his perspective as the father of two
girls, one a teenager, Mr. Obama notably made no reference to the
racial context that has made the killing of Trayvon and the gunman's
claim of self-defense a rallying point for African-Americans. Since
Mr. Obama first began campaigning to be "president of all the people,"
as his advisers would put it when pressed on racial issues, he has
been generally reluctant to talk about race. And after his historic
election as the first black president, Mr. Obama learned the hard way
about the pitfalls of the chief executive opining on law enforcement
matters involving civil rights.

His remark at a news conference in the summer of 2009 that a white
police officer in Cambridge, Mass., had acted "stupidly" in arresting
a black Harvard law professor, Henry Louis Gates Jr., at his home led
to a national controversy that ended with Mr. Obama holding a
peacemaking "beer summit" with the two men at the White House.

Until Friday, Mr. Obama had refrained from commenting on the death of
Trayvon, 17, a high school student who was killed on the night of Feb.
26 in Sanford, Fla., near Orlando. George Zimmerman, 28, the
neighborhood watch volunteer, said he fired at Trayvon in
self-defense, although there is no apparent evidence that the
teenager, who held only a bag of Skittles candy and an iced tea, was
doing anything wrong.

But when a reporter asked about the case at a White House event
introducing Jim Yong Kim as his choice to be president of the World
Bank, Mr. Obama, who typically leaves such events ignoring the shouted
questions of reporters, seemed prepared.

"It was inevitable given the high-profile nature of this story that he
would be asked about it," his press secretary, Jay Carney, said later.
He added that Mr. Obama "had thought about it and was prepared to
answer that question when he got it."

Mr. Carney himself had refused for days to speak for Mr. Obama about
Trayvon's death, and other advisers on Friday likewise declined to
weigh in on the thinking at the White House about the case and its
repercussions. Mr. Obama's mostly white male inner circle has long
been reluctant to talk for their boss when the subject is race, given
how personal it is for him. One aide, speaking only on the grounds of
anonymity, said that there was no internal debate about how to respond
to Trayvon's death, but that Mr. Obama wanted to await the Justice
Department's initial review of the case and the announcement this week
by his attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., that the civil rights
division would investigate.

In his remarks, Mr. Obama endorsed the Justice Department
investigation as well as efforts by local and state agencies in
Florida to examine the circumstances of the shooting. Trayvon's
parents "are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to
take this with the seriousness it deserves, and that we're going to
get to the bottom of exactly what happened," Mr. Obama said.

The president indicated his caution in not reacting earlier was due to
the hazards of addressing an issue under inquiry. "I'm the head of the
executive branch and the attorney general reports to me so I've got to
be careful about my statements to make sure that we're not impairing
any investigation that's taking place right now," he said.

The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader who organized a rally on
Thursday night in Florida protesting the handling of the case and has
been working with the Martin family, praised Mr. Obama's comments and
took issue with black critics who say the president should have spoken
out sooner.

"We're trying to win a case, not just have the president make
high-profile statements," Mr. Sharpton said in an interview. "As one
who's been with the family, the president making a statement before
the Justice Department announced an investigation could have been used
by Zimmerman to say the White House was pre-judging a legal case."

Charles J. Ogletree, an African-American law professor at Harvard who
taught Mr. Obama there and remains a confidant, said there was no
doubt the president had been moved by Trayvon's death. "Nothing is
more frightening for a parent than losing a child," Professor Ogletree
said. "I know personally that he felt this pain, from the moment he
was made aware of the case." He added: "He has two young daughters.
This is personal."

Mr. Carney said he could not say whether Mr. Obama planned to call
Trayvon's parents, as some black activists have urged. Boyce D.
Watkins, a Syracuse University professor and the founder of the Your
Black World coalition, said Friday in a Twitter message, "If Trayvon's
mother were white, would Obama give her a call?"

Dr. Watkins, in an interview, called Mr. Obama's statement "a step in
the right direction," but added that the president could "squash a
great deal of the criticism" with a call to the parents. And while
applauding Mr. Obama's comment that his own son would look like
Trayvon, Dr. Watkins said the president's remarks were characteristic
of how Mr. Obama talks to black people.

"That's what I would refer to as a standard political smoke signal
that President Obama sends through the back door to the black
community," Dr. Watkins said. "He communicates to the black community
in code language. That's a subtle way of saying, 'I know this kid is
black.' "

Mr. Obama's comments appeared to prompt several of the Republicans
campaigning to run against him to weigh in against the shooting for
the first time. Both Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum said that based
on what they knew, Florida's "Stand Your Ground" self-defense law
should not apply in Mr. Zimmerman's case.

Speaking publicly for the first time on Friday evening, Craig A.
Sonner, Mr. Zimmerman's lawyer, said on CNN that he would not use the
Stand Your Ground defense should his client be charged in the
shooting. He said he would use self-defense.

Mr. Santorum, campaigning at a shooting range in Louisiana, which
holds a presidential primary on Saturday, called the decision of local
officials not to immediately prosecute Mr. Zimmerman "another chilling
example of horrible decisions made by people in this process." Mitt
Romney, the Republican front-runner, told reporters in Louisiana that
the shooting was "a terrible tragedy, unnecessary, uncalled for and
inexplicable at this point."

Richard A. Oppel Jr. contributed reporting from West Monroe and Shreveport, La.

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Have a great day,
Tommy

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Together, we can change the world, one mind at a time.
Have a great day,
Tommy

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