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Immediately after the verdict, the president issued a statement that while calling the death of Trayvon Martin \u201ca tragedy,\u201d he also reminded Americans that we are a nation of laws and that the jury had spoken. He further challenged Americans \u201cto respect the call for calm reflection from two parents who lost their young son.\u201d He called for Americans to \u201cask ourselves if we\u2019re doing all we can to widen the circle of compassion and understanding in our own communities.\u201d We should ask ourselves if we\u2019re doing all we can to stem the tide of gun violence that claims too many lives across this country on a daily basis. We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this. As citizens, that\u2019s a job for all of us. That\u2019s the way to honor Trayvon Martin.[1]<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n However, Obama\u2019s speech in the Press Briefing Room served as a departure from his silence on race since the Gates incident. Instead of issuing a carefully worded statement that did not mention anything about race, Obama decided it was time to broach the subject. According to the New York Times,[3]<\/a> after days of \u201cangry protests and mounting public pressure,\u201d the president summoned five of his top advisers to the Oval Office to talk about a verbal response to the George Zimmerman verdict.[4]<\/a> According to one of the president\u2019s senior aides, Obama spoke \u201cwithout interruption\u201d for about fifteen minutes on \u201cwhy the not-guilty ruling had caused such pain among African-Americans.\u201d After hearing from the president and his determination to make a statement, his team decided that Obama should speak about the verdict in \u201cbrief interviews with four Spanish-language television networks.\u201d That plan did not work because none of the interviewers asked him about the verdict. Therefore, without any advance warning Obama appeared in the press briefing room and delivered his response to the George Zimmerman verdict. <\/p>\n In this presentation, I argue that through a close reading of a portion of the speech, Obama frames the killing of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of George Zimmerman through the lens of blackness. In short, Obama articulates to the American people the pain that African Americans felt after the verdict. Moreover, I argue that by framing black pain at the center of this \u201cAmerican tragedy,\u201d Obama invited all Americans to see \u201cblackness\u201d and its pain as part of the American fabric. <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Then Obama shifts into the major part of his speech. He starts by saying that \u201cYou know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son.\u201d However, after the verdict, Obama adds another way of interpreting his previous statement\u2014\u201cTrayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago.\u201d Framed this way, the president moves from locating himself as a parent of a slain teen to a more concrete position\u2014he locates his own body with that of the slain Trayvon Martin. <\/p>\n By doing this, Obama does two things. First, when he says Trayvon \u201ccould have been my son,\u201d he stands with not only the parents of Trayvon but also all parents who have had to grieve that death of a child by gunfire\u2014and second, Obama\u2019s comment \u201cTrayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,\u201d now shifts the issue to its current position. What the president wants to invite his audience to do is to see him as Trayvon Martin and to begin to understand some of the frustrations fr There are very few African American men in this country who haven\u2019t 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\u2019t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me \u2014 at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven\u2019t 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.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n After not wanting to exaggerate this (speaking of racial profiling and race biases), Obama suggests that those \u201csets of experiences inform how the African American community interprets what happened one night in Florida and \u201cit\u2019s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear.\u201d Further, he surmises The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws \u2014 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.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Obama continues this line of thinking when he speaks on the frustration of African Americans when he notes that 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 \u2014 using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain\u2026\u2026.But they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here, Obama not only shares the frustration of many African Americans and the excuses that folks use to treat sons differently, Obama also offers a new way to see this incident. By introducing a different \u201cscenario,\u201d adding a white male teen to the mix instead of a black teen, Obama, while careful not to agree himself, suggests that many African Americans see the case this way. <\/span><\/p>\n After offering some directions and suggestions that American can do to honor the memory of Trayvon Martin, Obama closes this part of the speech with a powerful reflection. And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these \u201cstand your ground\u201d laws, I\u2019d 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.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n However, for whatever reason, Obama decided on that day to speak about an issue important to many Americans. By speaking on the Zimmerman verdict, Obama used the bully pulpit to not only speak on the issue of race and racial biases and profiling, but also include again African Americans into the nation\u2019s fabric. This time, the president of the United States, the president for all the people, offered a pedagogical speech in which he attempted to explain and teach to some, why some African Americans felt hurt and betrayed, yet again by a system that many tell them to trust. In doing so, he brought issues germane to the African American community to the forefront and reassured the African American community that he in fact does see and the African American pain is part of the fabric of America\u2014that when one hurts, we all hurt.\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n [1]<\/a> Statement by the President. July 14, 2014. http:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/the-press-office\/2013\/07\/14\/statement-president <\/p>\n [2]<\/a> See Arrest of Harvard\u2019s Henry Louis Gates Jr. was avoidable, report says. June 30, 2010, http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2010\/06\/30\/AR2010063001356.html<\/a>, Obama Addresses Race and Louis Gates Incident. July 23, 2009. http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/07\/22\/AR2009072203800.html<\/a>, Gates, Police Officer Share Beers, Histories With President. July 31, 2009. http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/07\/30\/AR2009073003563.html<\/a>, Obama Involvement in Gates Flap Hurt Image, Poll Finds. July 31, 2009. http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/wp-dyn\/content\/article\/2009\/07\/30\/AR2009073004097.html\u00a0<\/p><\/span><\/div>\n
On July 19, 2013, President Barack Obama delivered by all accounts, an impromptu speech responding to the verdict in the George Zimmerman case. The jury in the case found Zimmerman not guilty of the murder of Trayvon Martin in February 2012. The verdict prompted surprise and outrage and caused many to question yet again the justice system and its fairness when it came to African Americans seeking justice. What also surprised many pundits was that Obama responded the way he did at all. <\/span><\/p>\n
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Obama\u2019s short statement after the death of Trayvon Martin also reminded observers of the delicate balance the president has to navigate when speaking of race-sensitive topics. Obama quickly learned this lesson back in 2009 when he commented that the police acted \u201cstupidly\u201d when an officer arrested African American Harvard professor Henry Louis \u201cSkip\u201d Gates at his home for disorderly conduct. After the infamous beer summit and after the DA assigned to the case elected not to charge Gates for disorderly conduct, nevertheless, the incident caused a huge drop in the president\u2019s approval ratings among white voters. Since this incident, during both his first and second terms, it would seem that the White House has elected not to get involved in race charged incidents.[2]<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n
After reassuring the press corps that Jay (Carney) was going to take their questions and after reiterating his earlier statement, Obama framed the speech within the context of understanding \u201chow people have responded to it (the verdict) and how people are feeling.\u201d What Obama invited his audience to do was to imagine and maybe even to see how others responded to the verdict\u2014a verdict that many found unjust. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nom a portion of American\u2014African Americans.
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Next, he locates this experience with this:
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By framing his narrative this way, Obama places himself with the many people who find themselves racially profiled. \u201cThat includes me,\u201d signifies the complete understanding of this feeling\u2014whereas \u201cat least before I was a senator indicts not a removing of the racism, but an elevation of class and notoriety. While as he admits, since becoming a senator, he has not been subjected to racial profiling; Obama does not dismiss the racial profiling from others. In short, Obama\u2019s critique that racial profiling continues remains as he moves to the elevator comment of women clutching their purses when African Americans get on the elevator.<\/span><\/p>\n
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Obama argues that African Americans not only see the case from their own perspective, but they have reason to see the case this way. In short, the president validates African American interpretation of the Zimmerman case. African Americans are not crazy, too sensitive, or too radical\u2014there is a \u201chistory of racial disparities\u201d that give rise to these feelings and it shapes the way many African American interpret the case. <\/span><\/p>\n
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Obama offers a reversal in \u201cblack fear.\u201d In Obama\u2019s reshaping of the narrative, by placing a gun in an \u201cof age\u201d Trayvon Martin\u2019s hand, the president can then, by way of rhetorical question ask could Trayvon Martin \u201chave stood his ground on that sidewalk?\u201d Further, by asking again rhetorically, \u201cdo we actually think that he (Martin) would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened,\u201d the president does two things.\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/div>\n
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In examining a portion of Obama\u2019s remarks after the Zimmerman verdict, I argue that for the first time, America heard its president not only describe black pain, but also affirm its manifestation. I suggest this is new to the American experience\u2014that previous presidents, Democrats or Republicans have not articulated the pain of the African American experience. Moreover, while I demonstrate that he does it here in this speech, this critique prior to the speech would have included Obama as well. The reaso
\nn why this speech was a surprise to many was the fact that Obama continuously has stayed away from race themed topics throughout both terms. <\/span><\/p>\n
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[3]<\/a> President Offers a Personal Take on Race in U.S. July 19, 2013. http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2013\/07\/20\/us\/in-wake-of-zimmerman-verdict-obama-makes-extensive-statement-on-race-in-america.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0\n