President Obama Unscripted

On a slow news day, President Obama made a surprise appearance at the White House press room and delivered unscripted remarks about the Trayvon Martin case and why the African-American community has been emotional about it. 

Only the day before Eugene Robinson wrote in the Post that the President wasn't the right one to talk about race given the guff he gets every attempt he's made from the Henry Gates incident on has provoked backlash. But sure enough, the man did it and succeeded.

President Obama's remarks about how he knows what it is to be followed in department stores and car locks clicking when he walks by triggered a flood of African-American males on television recalling similar incidents. The refrain was that each African American male has to sit down and tell his son the same things his father taught him about dealing with the police, how to to look threatening, how to be polite. 

Two most interesting responses, I thought, were Michael Steele, the former RNC Chairman, talking about being followed by cops in Rock Creek Park, and Jonathan Capehart, Post editorial writer and MSNBC contributor. How this is the sorry war story of African-American males was demonstrated by Eric Holder talking to the NAACP about "The Talk" he had to give his son and the audience just murmuring their agreement.

I found Capehart's story the saddest. Here is a young nerdy black guy with glasses who could not be perceived as threatening in the least. You would have to be a raving racist to think otherwise. He was moving because he was in the White House briefing room when President Obama made his remarks. He said his eyes filled with tears when the President talked about his own personal experience that he himself had shared.

Former presidential candidate John McCain complimented the President on his remarks, calling them "impressive" and picked up on his remarks on the "Stand Your Ground"Laws, which McCain said should be reviewed in all the states,including his own Arizona. While the major media were--by and large--complimentary like FOX News Wallace, others thought it was race-baiting and polarizing. Former George W. Bush press spokeswoman Dana Perino criticized Obama for not talking about black males shooting white babies. Sean Hannity blasted the President, suggesting he identified with Trayvon Martin's drug use. 

While some argued it was too late in the African-American communities, there was much relief that the President stood up for the anguish and anxiety the community felt over the not guilty verdict. During the weekend hundreds of cities held marches in solidarity with the Martin family and for justice in the case.And should be said that even after the verdict there was little violence except police riots in L.A. and Oakland.

I found the President's remarks refreshing and his call for a national conversation on the subject appropriate. While this case was especially fraught with racial overtones, the big elephant in the room seems to me the economic and social issues facing all young males in society, white, black and Hispanic. We are commemorating mass shootings in Aurora ,Tucson and Newtown carried out by white males, a Boston bombing carried out by another young male and a shooting in Sanford, Florida by a Hispanic cop wannabe. Homicides caused by guns since Newtown have far eclipsed the deaths in the entire Iraq war. Ladies and gentlemen, we not only have a gun problem but a Young Male Problem.