President Barack Obama, the Department of Justice, the liberal media punditry and a number of civil rights activists appear hell-bent to continue stoking the fire of American racial tension following the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. But as the DOJ mulls a civil rights case against Zimmerman, one of the Nation’s leading civil rights guardians has come forward to ask officials to stop the race baiting and take a real initiative to improve American minorities’ problems.
If President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder are concerned about racism, they should reform government’s racist policies. Credit: UPI
President Barack Obama, who inserted himself into the case even before Zimmerman’s trial saying that his son would look like Martin, seized upon disquiet over Zimmerman’s acquittal Friday. The President, in more words, said that anger over the jury’s decision is justified because racial profiling is a real problem in America.
From the President’s remarks:
You know, 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. 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.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. That includes me. 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. There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.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. The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws — everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.
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