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Here's the transcript.
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.
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