Charles Blow: Barack and Trayvon

[UrbScotty]

During a press briefing, Mr. Obama spoke of the case, soberly and deliberately, in an achingly personal tone, saying: “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.”

With that statement, an exalted black man found kinship with a buried black boy, the two inextricably linked by inescapable biases, one expressing the pains and peril of living behind the veil of his brown skin while the other no longer could.

With his statements, the president dispensed with the pedantic and made the tragedy personal.

He spoke of his own experiences with subtle biases, hinting at the psychological violence it does to the spirit — being followed around in stores when shopping, hearing the locking of car doors when you approach, noticing the clutching of purses as you enter an elevator.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/opinion/blow-barack-and-trayvon.html?_r=2&

[sheshe2]

1. Thank you for posting that at the BOG.

In “The Souls of Black Folk,” W. E. B. Du Bois described this phenomenon thusly:

“It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/20/opinion/blow-barack-and-trayvon.html?_r=2&

UrbScotty

[Cha]

2. I like how it starts out, Scotty..

"Despite persistent attempts by some to divest the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman tragedy of its racial resonance, the president refused to allow it."

Everything in between and how it ends..

"That’s why there was value in the president of the United States acknowledging his “two-ness” on Friday and connecting with Trayvon Martin — because we can never lose sight of the fact that biases and stereotypes and violence are part of a black man’s burden in America, no matter that man’s station.

We could all have been Trayvon."

I'd like to post this link in your thread from bigtree.. as it has more commentaries in it as well as Charles Blow's. You've probably seen them but just in case..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=3301912

Mahalo for posting this in the BOG, Scotty..