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Obama's remarks on Martin/Zimmerman

BeachBumDeac

BeachBumDeac

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The usual suspects will blast him, most likely, but I liked what he said (shocker, I know).

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs.../?Post+generic=?tid=sm_twitter_washingtonpost

“Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,” 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.”

Obama continued: “And 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. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.”

Obama, who spoke in deeply personal terms during his short statement about both his own experience as a black man and what he sees in his daughters and their relationship to children of other races, noted, ”There are very few African-African men who haven’t had the experience of being followed in a department store. That includes me.”

But he also struck a hopeful note, saying, “As difficult and challenging as this episode has been, things are getting better.”
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The president said he and his deputies were considering pursuing a few concrete policy options in the wake of the George Zimmerman verdict, such as trying to train state and local law enforcement officials how to better deal with issues of racial bias, and explore if laws such as “stand your ground” would “encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations” rather than defuse them.

More broadly, he said he wanted to pursue a “long-term project” of “thinking about how to bolster and reinforce African-American kids. There are a lot of kids out there that need help, that are getting a lot of negative reinforcement.”
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I don't like much of what he says, but I'm with him on the quotes you provided.
 
His comments on being profiled were spot-on and good.

Then he rambled on about SYG, which has nothing to do with the case.
 
Love the stuff about trying to reach the kids, the other stuff was boilerplate and typical Obama rhetoric w/ no solutions.

I'm all in favor for more conversations and I applaud any efforts to help kids like Rachel Jenteal
 
I liked the comments.

I think that every teenage male has been followed in a department store. Certainly not at the same level or with the same frequency but I still think it is possible that Zimmerman would have confronted any teenager in a hoodie that night.
 
What is the big deal about wearing a hooded jacket on a rainy evening? This is baffling. This is one of the weirdest ways I've seen to blame the victim.
 
so dumb. EVERYONE in SF wheres them. it's crazy.
 
Seriously. I looked at the weather history for that night in Sanford. It was high 50s/low 60s around 7 and raining. It was perfectly reasonable for a kid from Miami to wear a hooded jacket to walk to the store.

Do white people not wear hooded jackets when it rains?

Wouldn't a person who would have followed anybody wearing a hood on their head in the rain be crazy?
 
According to the 911 call he wasn't just calling about a guy in a hoodie in the rain, he said something like he looked suspicious and "on drugs" and like he was up to something. Race wasn't mentioned until the operator asked. That said, he could have just made up the other stuff and been calling b/c TM was black, no way to know.

I think Obama's comments were pretty good, though I don't see the relationship to SYG. I think that is just an opportune target to focus some of the emotion, so that works for me. It's better than other outlets for it.
 
PhDeac said:
Seriously. I looked at the weather history for that night in Sanford. It was high 50s/low 60s around 7 and raining. It was perfectly reasonable for a kid from Miami to wear a hooded jacket to walk to the store.

Do white people not wear hooded jackets when it rains?

Wouldn't a person who would have followed anybody wearing a hood on their head in the rain be crazy?
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umbrellas, dawg. that's how we roll.
 
Umbrellas are for chicks and little kids. Real men just sprint to the car in the rain.
 
PhDeac said:
What is the big deal about wearing a hooded jacket on a rainy evening? This is baffling. This is one of the weirdest ways I've seen to blame the victim.
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I rarely if ever use the hood on my sweatshirt or my rain jacket. My point was Zimmerman is this hyper vigilant moron so my guess is any teenager after dark he is automatically suspicious of.
 
PhDeac said:
Seriously. I looked at the weather history for that night in Sanford. It was high 50s/low 60s around 7 and raining. It was perfectly reasonable for a kid from Miami to wear a hooded jacket to walk to the store.

Do white people not wear hooded jackets when it rains?

Wouldn't a person who would have followed anybody wearing a hood on their head in the rain be crazy?
Click to expand...

I wear the hood on hoodies all the time.
 
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DeaconCav06 said:
I liked the comments.

I think that every teenage male has been followed in a department store. Certainly not at the same level or with the same frequency but I still think it is possible that Zimmerman would have confronted any teenager in a hoodie that night
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I'm really not trying to attach any motivation to your post, but throughout this whole debate I keep seeing white (or non-black) people often add on to or modify comments like PH's here. It's seemingly as if people need to dismiss or minimize any complaint that black people make about being discriminated against in modern society.

I don't think Obama's comments about being followed in a store stem from his experience of simply being a teenager, I think he's specifically talking about his experience of being black in America. As for Zimmermans discrimination, I think he would have been just as suspicious of an adult man as he was a teenager, but I think he would have been less suspicious of a white person.
 
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No worries. Ted Cruz has figured out how we should view Obama's comments.

"Speaking after addressing a Republican group, Cruz told reporters he hadn’t yet watched Obama’s remarks. But when asked to respond to Obama’s call for a review of laws in individual states, Cruz responded by saying the president was trampling on constitutionally guaranteed rights.

I haven't seen em', but I know they ain't right! WOO WOO!!! Texas!!! 2014 then 2016!!!

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.co...guns-with-stand-your-ground-remark/?hpt=hp_t2
 
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