Obama's Intervention Breaks the Taboo

Barack Obama’s advisers say that after George Zimmerman was found not guilty, the president couldn’t hide his urge to address the race issue in a way that he had yet to do since his campaign for the White House in 2008. Obama was elected and re-elected by a multiracial coalition — as well as by a large majority of young people — with the promise that a better society was possible and he would be the architect to design the bridges they needed to unite the different Americas that live in the United States.

They say that Obama decided to speak up and become the first president to clearly discuss what it means to be black in the U.S. — even if he did so with the power given to him by the White House —after Zimmerman was declared innocent, just as John F. Kennedy decided to promote civil rights after a photograph in The New York Times in 1963 brought him to the brink of nausea. The image depicted a police dog biting a young black man in the midsection during the Birmingham race riots that set the south of the country on fire in the ’60s.

But after a jury comprising six women set free a man — white, with a Latin mother — accused of killing a young man — black and unarmed — the first African-American president in the history of the United States limited his response to a cold statement in which he asked for calm, showed compassion for the victim and spoke of the need for a national debate on the possession of weapons. Pure political correctness and not a hint of closeness to the people or reflection on the moment they were living. His voters, especially his black voters, expected more.

From that moment on, black activists and civil rights associations demanded a reaction from the president, making the community’s frustration and rage official. The fact that Obama revealed the old constitutional lawyer that still lives inside him and declare the judge’s work to be professional as well as say that the jury was properly instructed, did not help the situation. In the Zimmerman case, a whole demographic saw a repeat of the past and the perpetuation of scenes from the racist history that is still strangling the country.

The White House looked for the best strategy to accommodate the president’s desire to be heard while still being aware that race is perhaps the single issue that most divides and polarizes North American society. They saw a golden opportunity to tackle the subject in the four interviews that Obama was going to have on Tuesday with four different Hispanic television channels. They made an error in their calculations, however, because, surprisingly, none of the four channels’ journalists asked the leader about the controversial verdict. They limited the questions to the president’s current battleground, migration reform.

The next option was the one that we ended up seeing during the White House spokesperson’s daily press conference on Friday. Behind the presidential seal that marks the podium, Obama spoke for 18 intense minutes to offer a reflection — one that did not come from any teleprompter — about what it means to be a young black man in the United States of the 21st century. In his speech, he referenced a personal experience and recognized that he, 35 years earlier, could have been Trayvon Martin. The collective sigh of relief was very intense. The African-American community let out a deep breath. The Reverend Jesse Jackson said that Obama had no choice but to face reality. Al Sharpton, a reverend who these days wears many different uniforms — from activist to television host and promoter of marches in the U.S. demanding justice for Martin — was pleased to see that Obama had finally used his position to ensure that the feelings of an entire community were heard.

Relief and satisfaction. Their leader used his influence from the country’s most powerful pulpit and spoke of reflection in his lengthiest, deepest and most intense comments on race since he took office. What had been uncovered, exposed, was the advantage of having a black president: Someone who understands the story behind what took place and, what’s more, can explain it to the country from a position of privilege. They let out a deep breath.

Of course, it’s always “too little and too late” for some people, and the most critical progressive voices accused the president of only acting when his hand was forced and playing it safe. Since the president also used the events to remind the country that the list of innocent victims of firearms continues to grow, steadfast defenders of the second amendment, who believe that it guarantees them the constitutional right to bear arms, interpreted the president’s words as an unjust attempt to exploit such a complicated debate.