RAGGED THOTS

After letting the White House spokesman make an initial statement on the killing of Trayvon Martin earlier in the week, President Obama weighed in personally on Friday, in a statement that concluded:.

But my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. And I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves, and that we're going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

While most applauded Obama's comments (delivered following an unrelated Rose Garden event), they didn't completely escape controversy.  Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin calls the words, "cloying," adding, "Why is it always about him? I thought the president — like all of us — is supposed to care about those who look like his kids and those who don’t."

Former Speaker Newt Gingrich -- surprise! -- went even further:

“What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful,” Gingrich said on the Hannity Radio show. “It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background.
“Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up. It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.”

Appalling? Disgraceful? Absurd.

Sorry, but this is one of the most frustratingly disappointing statements I've ever heard my former boss utter (and there've been more than a few over the last year leading into and including the presidential campaign season).

Obama's statement was completely appropriate. To the extent that anyone felt them overly personal and racial, it's because they didn't read/hear the entire statement! The president said, in full:

Well, I'm the head of the executive branch, and the attorney general reports to me, so I've got to be careful about my statements to make sure that we're not impairing any investigation that's taking place right now.

But obviously, this is a tragedy. I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids. And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together - federal, state and local - to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.

So I'm glad that not only is the Justice Department looking into it, I understand now that the governor of the state of Florida has formed a task force to investigate what's taking place. I think all of us have to do some soul-searching to figure out how does something like this happen. And that means that examine the laws and the context for what happened, as well as the specifics of the incident.

But my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon. And I think they are right to expect that all of us as Americans are going to take this with the seriousness it deserves, and that we're going to get to the bottom of exactly what happened.

Obama begins with a cautionary observation about not saying too much so as not to interfere with either Justice Department or ongoing state investigations into the killing. So, he is thus recognizing who he is as national leader -- not as a black man.

He then uses a word that everyone can agree on to describe what occurred: "Tragedy" carries moral weight, but not legal. So, again, he's not mucking up the investigative part of the episode.

Then, most importantly, he gets as universal as is possible: "I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids. And I think every parent in America should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this, and that everybody pulls together - federal, state and local - to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.'

He speaks as father and explicitly of "every parent in America should be able to understand" the need for an explanation of "how this tragedy happened." How on earth can anyone not see that as the president addressing the universal nature of what happened -- speaking to white, black, Asian parents and letting them know that they have a stake in this as well?

It is only at the very end that Obama, offering a "main message to Trayvon Martin's parents" that he invokes the personal. He is, at that point, speaking as a black man to black parents who have lost a child in a tragedy, that may not have been a racist act, but in which Trayvon's race almost definitely played a role.

President Obama spoke in three roles Friday: as chief executive of the nation's laws, as president noting the universal nature of the tragedy -- and only at the end as a public leader speaking empathetically to those whom the tragedy has hit closest. Yes, Obama went further than the generic "I feel your pain" stance, because, frankly the circumstances called for it.

as Newt Gingrich himself seemingly recognized earlier this year,
saying “I’m prepared if the NAACP invites me, I’ll go to their convention and talk about why the African American community should demand paychecks and not be satisfied with food stamps."

Again, after first speaking to all American parents, Obama then stepped out as an empathetic black  parent addressing grieving black parents. Besides being a factual statement (not just because of race, one could picture a son of Barack Obama resembling the slender athletic Trayvon Martin), he helped universalize the special fears that black parents have of losing sons prematurely to random violence (no matter the race of a potential assailant).

While that's one community's unique pain (specific), the particular way it manifested itself in a Florida  town one month ago, is nonetheless -- for reasons already articulated -- one that "all of us as Americans" (universal) take seriously enough to demand resolution.

Far from appalling, that's an essential message that hopefully all Americans heard.

Labels: Barack Obama, Newt Gingrich, race, Trayvon Martin