The PRESIDENT shared remarks about TRAYVON MARTIN and the case this week in Florida...
REMARKS BY THE
PRESIDENT
ON TRAYVON MARTIN
James S. Brady Press
Briefing Room
1:33 P.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: I wanted to
come out here, first of all, to tell you that Jay is prepared for all your
questions and is very much looking forward to the session. The second
thing is I want to let you know that over the next couple of weeks, there’s
going to obviously be a whole range of issues -- immigration, economics, et
cetera -- we'll try to arrange a fuller press conference to address your
questions.
The reason I actually wanted to
come out today is not to take questions, but to speak to an issue that
obviously has gotten a lot of attention over the course of the last week -- the
issue of the Trayvon Martin ruling. I gave a preliminary statement right
after the ruling on Sunday. But watching the debate over the course of
the last week, I thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a
little bit.
First of all, I want to make sure
that, once again, I send my thoughts and prayers, as well as Michelle’s, to the
family of Trayvon Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity
with which they’ve dealt with the entire situation. I can only imagine
what they’re going through, and it’s remarkable how they’ve handled it.
The second thing I want to say is
to reiterate what I said on Sunday, which is there’s going to be a lot of
arguments about the legal issues in the case -- I'll let all the legal analysts
and talking heads address those issues. The judge conducted the trial in
a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their
arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as
this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once
the jury has spoken, that's how our system works. But I did want to just
talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how
people are feeling.
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.
Now, this isn't to say that the
African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young
men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that
they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s
not to make excuses for that fact -- although black folks do interpret the
reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of
the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is
born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and
dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult
history.
And so the fact that sometimes
that’s unacknowledged adds to the frustration. And the fact that a lot of
African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given,
well, there are these statistics out there that show that African American boys
are more violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated
differently causes pain.
I think the African American
community is also not naïve in understanding that, statistically, somebody like
Trayvon Martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was
by somebody else. 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 and that context is being denied. 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.
Now, the question for me at least,
and I think for a lot of folks, is where do we take this? How do we learn
some lessons from this and move in a positive direction? I think it’s
understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and
some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it
remains nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that
that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family. But beyond
protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that we
might be able to do.
I know that Eric Holder is
reviewing what happened down there, but I think it’s important for people to
have some clear expectations here. Traditionally, these are issues of
state and local government, the criminal code. And law enforcement is
traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels.
That doesn’t mean, though, that as
a nation we can’t do some things that I think would be productive. So let
me just give a couple of specifics that I’m still bouncing around with my
staff, so we’re not rolling out some five-point plan, but some areas where I
think all of us could potentially focus.
Number one, precisely because law
enforcement is often determined at the state and local level, I think it would
be productive for the Justice Department, governors, mayors to work with law
enforcement about training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the
kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists.
When I was in Illinois, I passed
racial profiling legislation, and it actually did just two simple things.
One, it collected data on traffic stops and the race of the person who was
stopped. But the other thing was it resourced us training police
departments across the state on how to think about potential racial bias and
ways to further professionalize what they were doing.
And initially, the police
departments across the state were resistant, but actually they came to
recognize that if it was done in a fair, straightforward way that it would
allow them to do their jobs better and communities would have more confidence
in them and, in turn, be more helpful in applying the law. And obviously,
law enforcement has got a very tough job.
So that’s one area where I think
there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought to bear
if state and local governments are receptive. And I think a lot of them
would be. And let's figure out are there ways for us to push out that
kind of training.
Along the same lines, 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 kinds of
altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case,
rather than diffuse potential altercations.
I know that there's been commentary
about the fact that the "stand your ground" laws in Florida were not
used as a defense in the case. On the other hand, 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 that idea
that we should think about something like these "stand your ground"
laws, I'd 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, then it seems to me that we might want to
examine those kinds of laws.
Number three -- and this is a
long-term project -- we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we
bolster and reinforce our African American boys. And this is something
that Michelle and I talk a lot about. There are a lot of kids out there
who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is
there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about
them and values them and is willing to invest in them?
I'm not naïve about the prospects
of some grand, new federal program. I'm not sure that that’s what we're
talking about here. But I do recognize that as President, I've got some
convening power, and there are a lot of good programs that are being done
across the country on this front. And for us to be able to gather together
business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and
athletes, and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African
American men feel that they're a full part of this society and that they've got
pathways and avenues to succeed -- I think that would be a pretty good outcome
from what was obviously a tragic situation. And we're going to spend some
time working on that and thinking about that.
And then, finally, I think it's
going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. There has
been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. I haven't seen
that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize
conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are
locked into the positions they already have. On the other hand, in
families and churches and workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a
little bit more honest, and at least you 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? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of
this tragedy.
And let me just leave you with a
final thought that, as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been
for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting
better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in
changing attitudes when it comes to race. It doesn’t mean we’re in a
post-racial society. It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But
when I talk to Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I seem them
interact, they’re better than we are -- they’re better than we were -- on these
issues. And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across
the country.
And so 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. 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, we’re becoming a more perfect union -- not
a perfect union, but a more perfect union.
Thank you, guys.
