奥巴马痛陈美国种族问题：马丁可能就是35年前的我
2013年07月21日 07:31:30
来源： 人民日报
“特雷翁·马丁可能就是35年前的我”
奥巴马痛陈美国种族问题
7月19日，美国总统奥巴马出现在白宫吹风室。在17分钟的讲话中，奥巴马神情严峻，结合亲身经历阐述对特雷翁·马丁案及美国种族问题的看法。这是美国首位非洲裔总统就任以来首次如此长时间、广泛深入地公开谈论种族问题。
枪 杀特雷翁·马丁的协警齐默尔曼被判无罪后，奥巴马曾在第一时间表示此案判决引起他本人的强烈情感，同时呼吁各界冷静对待判决结果。此后数日，全美各地不断 爆发抗议示威活动，白宫也不断接到非洲裔美国人社团领袖电话，要求奥巴马表明态度。在压力不断增大的情形下，奥巴马18日晚召集顾问再度商议此事，最终决 定打破沉默，以在白宫吹风室发表讲话的形式阐述立场，既躲避了正式发表全国电视讲话可能带来的政治争议，也绕过了以接受媒体采访表明立场时可能遇到的盘 问。
在这一经过深思熟虑的讲话中，奥巴马措词极为谨慎。他首先表示，此案审理法官的态度是专业的，陪审团在合理的怀疑后做出判决。 话锋一转，奥巴马指出，应以更为广泛的背景来看待此案，“特雷翁·马丁可能就是35年前的我”，“重要的是要承认非洲裔美国人社团是基于一连串经历和历史 来看待此案，而这些经历与历史并没有离去”。
奥巴马说：“在这个国家，大多数非洲裔美国人都在百货商店购物时有过被人盯梢的经历， 其中也包括我。”他说，非洲裔美国人也意识到从死刑到毒品法，美国的执法有着“种族悬殊”的历史。年轻的非洲裔美国人中既有很高比例的暴力受害者，也有很 高比例的暴力犯罪者，对此不予承认便是“幼稚”，但如果利用这些统计数字对这些年轻人予以不同的对待将引起痛苦。
为防止类似马丁案的悲剧重演，奥巴马建议地方执法部门加强培训以减少民众的不信任情绪、重新思考包括“不退让法”在内的州和地方法律、真诚帮助非洲裔青少年走上正路、不回避种族问题并展开认真思考与诚实辩论、认识到美国正逐渐在种族问题上取得进步等。
奥巴马历史性地成为美国历史上首位非洲裔总统以来，美国根深蒂固的种族问题并未因此绝迹。入主白宫的奥巴马在种族问题上的言论一直十分谨慎，并为此受到 来自非洲裔美国人社团的批评和压力。此次奥巴马改变做法，意在通过“动之以情”达到“晓之以理”，通过他自己的痛苦经历帮助白人理解为何非洲裔美国人对齐 默尔曼案无罪判决作出如此失望、愤怒的反应。有评论认为，能够有一位总统像奥巴马这样坦诚论述种族问题对美国是件好事，但美国仍需奥巴马就种族问题发表这 样的讲话却很悲哀。
奥巴马的这番讲话在美国引发极大反响。包括马丁家人在内的众多非洲裔美国人对此表示欢迎，但也引起包括拥枪组织在内的美国白人社团和政治势力的强烈反弹。
（本报华盛顿7月20日电）
Obama?? Probably a JOKE:
http://www.ottawasun.com/2013/07/20/why-honour-trayvon-martin-robson
A jury of his peers said George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin in self-defence. Barack Obama urged people to respect the verdict.
A host of people including his own attorney general promptly didn't.
And the president who called for an adult conversation on race as a candidate five years ago was once again a bystander when his country needed a leader.
First, he should have firmly rejected federal civil rights charges against Zimmerman as a thinly veiled attempt to evade the "double jeopardy" rule that you can't be prosecuted twice for the same crime.
Then he needed to say George Zimmerman is not America's racial history. He's just one guy unlikely, without this incident, to have achieved distinction of any sort.
He's certainly not Birmingham's infamous 1960s white supremacist Public Safety Commissioner Bull Connor risen from the grave.
Zimmerman's not even white. He's Hispanic. And after decades of reading gleeful predictions of Hispanic population growth making whites a minority and turning the US progressive, feminist, Democratic etc. because of some link between brown skin and left-wing views unknown to science, I'm suddenly told Zimmerman's a "white Latino".
Despite black blood on his mother's side. (He is a registered Democrat.) Likewise Trayvon Martin was just one person. He wasn't black America. He wasn't Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. II or Kunta Kinte. He certainly wasn't Barack Obama 35 years ago as the president just irresponsibly suggested. He was one more teenager acting tough but in his case the game got way too real.
Martin's father recently told the press "I think that if Trayvon had been white, this wouldn't have never happened." Which is probably more true than he realizes but for cultural reasons.
Martin may once have been a sweet kid. Had he not tried to kill Zimmerman on Feb. 26, 2012 he might one day have become an admirable adult. But as a teen he was in the grip of a highly dysfunctional rap-hip-hop-ghetto chic culture too prevalent in black America.
His twitter handle was NO_LIMIT_NIGGA, for goodness sake. Some limits on his temper might have saved his life last February.
Instead of pointing this out, the president initially spoke of how to "honour" Martin. Excuse me?
I'm sorry he got himself shot.
But the evidence strongly suggests he was on top of Zimmerman trying to bash his brains out on a cement pavement when Zimmerman fired in self-defence. I didn't know we honoured things like that.
A genuinely adult conversation on race might include whether ghetto swagger contributes to American blacks committing the disproportionate share of serious crime a number of people have noted.
And it might say of crime what the first great post-Emancipation black leader Booker T. Washington said about slavery's legacy of poverty and ignorance: white people had caused it but they weren't going to fix it so blacks had to DIY.
Attorney General Eric Holder did the opposite in telling the NAACP annual convention the Zimmerman case made him have the infamous stopped-while-black conversation with his son.
Does he seriously think pot-smoking white kids in hoodies don't have to watch their step on a dark night with American cops many of whom today are Hispanic or black?
Does it bother Holder that in a phone call shortly before the lethal confrontation Martin called Zimmerman a "creepy-ass cracker" and a "nigga"? Surely Holder discourages his kids from talking, or thinking, that way.
But a recent Rasmussen poll showed
31% of black Americans think most black Americans are racist, while 24% think most white Americans are and 15% think Hispanics are.
Now there's is an honest adult response by black Americans about problems within their community.
What has Barack Obama to say about it?
Nothing helpful. And that's a great shame.
