Black Community Outrage Reportedly Pushed Pres. Obama to Speak on the Zimmerman Trial

This week, President Barack Obama finally spoke to the nation in the kind of powerful and heartfelt way that he spoke to them before he was President of the United States.  The president addressed the not guilty verdict of George Zimmerman as a black man, and shared his point of view in a way that was so direct and compassionate that even some of his harshest critics gave him credit for a job well done.

Where did all of this come from?  It is being reported that the pressure came from the African American community.  According to Richard Prince, who keeps a Journal-isms blog at TheRoot.com, Obama’s latest reaction to the case was due to the constant prodding by African Americans who were disinterested in hearing from a president who didn’t feel comfortable speaking to the matters that impact their communities.

According to Mark Landler and Michael D. Shear at the New York Timesthe speech followed “anguished soul-searching by Mr. Obama.”  They also say that President Obama spoke about the case extensively with friends and family before addressing the public. The original plan was for the president to address the matter during interviews with four Spanish-speaking stations.  But none of them even asked him about the case.

The story also mentioned that Rev. Jesse Jackson and Rev. Al Sharpton prodded the president to speak to the matter as well.

Janet Langhart Cohen, wife of former Defense Secretary William Cohen, wrote, “We have waited and watched the president address issues of importance to women, gays and lesbians, Latinos and the security of our allies. . . . But just as one does not have to be black to speak to the issues of race, black people should not have to wait for white leaders to be elected before they feel free to vigorously petition their government to redress their legitimate grievances.

“I say this with respect: To use Dr. [Martin Luther] King’s phrase, there is a fierce urgency of now for the president to talk boldly and truthfully about race and racism and why it still matters in the United States. I hope that President Obama will speak not just to black people or just to white people but to the good people in America. We can never have racial reconciliation without discussing the truth.

“The sound of silence is a song that we can no longer sing.”

The president, among other things, said, ”And for those who — who resist that idea, that we should think about something like these stand your ground laws, I 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.”

Before the address on Trayvon Martin, analysts around the nation had grown tired of President Obama’s blatant dismissal of racial inequality.  Throughout the Obama presidency, black unemployment has worsened, incarceration problems have gotten out of control and urban violence has hit a state of emergency.  These problems are directly linked to the lack of jobs and education in urban centers where the violence is most likely to take place.

Donna Brazile, a Democratic strategist, said that the White House was stuck in a “postracial box,” where it was determined “to present Obama as a leader who does not reflexively promote the concerns of fellow African-Americans over others.”

During his speech, President Obama finally admitted that America is not post-racial.