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Obama’s identification with Trayvon Martin

Obama’s identification with Trayvon Martin

Either President Obama identifies pretty strongly with Trayvon Martin, or he’s pretending to do so for political purposes.

First we had Obama’s statement that, if he’d had a son, he’d have looked like Martin. That was fairly early in the game. But now, post-verdict, we have the following from the president:

When Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said this could’ve been my son. Another way of saying that is, a Trayvon Martin could’ve been me 35 years ago. When you think about why in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me — at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

Obama may identify with Martin for several reasons, the most obvious of which is being a black male. In addition, Obama smoked marijuana as a youth; so did Martin (so do lots of young men, white and black). Martin’s parents had split up, so had Obama’s. Not all was similar; unlike the young Obama, Martin had already gotten into quite a bit of trouble during his short life, and he had grown up in a largely black neighborhood.

But the most important similarity Obama is pointing out is his insinuation that they were both unfairly profiled for being black. Forget the actual reasons Zimmerman had phoned the police to report Martin as a suspicious person (hint: it was Martin’s behavior, not his color). Forget about what Martin actually did to Zimmerman to start the fight and continue it.

Obama has already described the origins of at least some of his strong feelings about profiling. They come from an incident with that “typical white person”, his grandmother, who had raised him. It might be time to take another look at what he wrote:

A careful look at this incident as Obama described it on pp. 88-91 of Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance…shows that Obama is slandering his elderly grandmother to make Rev. Dr. Wright look better. Obama’s white grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, who was raising him and earning most of the money in the family while his own mother was off in Indonesia…rode the bus each morning to her job as a bank executive. One day, the 16-18 year old Obama wakes up to an argument between his grandmother and grandfather. She didn’t want to ride the bus because she had been hassled by a bum at the bus stop. She tells him:

“Her lips pursed with irritation. ‘He was very aggressive, Barry. Very aggressive. I gave him a dollar and he kept asking. If the bus hadn’t come, I think he might have hit me over the head.”

So why didn’t Obama’s lefty grandfather want to drive his own wife to work? Because to help his wife avoid the hostile, dangerous panhandler would be morally wrong, because the potential mugger was … Well, I’ll let Sen. Obama tell the story:

“He turned around and I saw that he was shaking. ‘It is a big deal. It’s a big deal to me. She’s been bothered by men before. You know why she’s so scared this time. I’ll tell you why. Before you came in, she told me the fella was black.’ He whispered the word. ‘That’s the real reason why she’s bothered. And I just don’t think that right.’

“The words were like a fist in my stomach, and I wobbled to regain my composure. In my steadiest voice, I told him that such an attitude bothered me, too, but reassured him that Toot’s fears would pass and that we should give her a ride in the meantime. Gramps slumped into a chair in the living room and said he was sorry he had told me. Before my eyes, he grew small and old and very sad. I put my hand on his shoulder and told him that it was all right, I understood.

“We remained like that for several minutes, in painful silence. Finally he insisted that he drive Toot after all, and I thought about my grandparents. They had sacrificed again and again for me. They had poured all their lingering hopes into my success. Never had they given me reason to doubt their love; I doubted if they ever would. And yet I knew that men who might easily have been my brothers could still inspire their rawest fear.”

Then Obama drives over for counseling to the house of his grandfather’s friend Frank, an old black Communist Party USA member, who tells him:

“What I’m trying to tell you is, your grandma’s right to be scared. She’s at least as right as Stanley is. She understands that black people have a reason to hate. That’s just how it is. For your sake, I wish it were otherwise. But it’s not. So you might as well get used to it.”

“Frank closed his eyes. His breathing slowed until he seemed to be asleep. I thought about waking him, then decided against it and walked back to the car. The earth shook under my feet, ready to crack open at any moment. I stopped, trying to steady myself, and knew for the first time that I was utterly alone.”

Well, he’s not utterly alone now, is he? He has a bully pulpit to try to avenge the perceived psychological wounds of his childhood. Note, also, that Obama’s age at the time of the incident was very similar to Martin’s age at the time of his death, and note also that his grandmother indicated a fear that the panhandler might have hit her over the head if the bus hadn’t come in time. Shades of what actually happened to Zimmerman.

Seeing the above excerpt from Obama’s book, it’s no wonder he made the speech he did today. His political agenda dovetails nicely with his psychological one. Obama’s certainly not going to ground and pound Zimmerman, but he’ll use his formidable resources to perpetuate the idea that Zimmerman was a “typical white person” who profiled Martin for being black. The actual situation—whether it be that the panhandler was aggressively harassing his grandmother, or that Trayvon Martin was acting in a way that would have caused suspicion whatever his skin color—is of absolutely no importance to Obama.

[Neo-neocon is a writer with degrees in law and family therapy, who blogs at neo-neocon.]

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Comments

He’s a tad egocentric, huh?

    GrumpyOne in reply to Fabi. | July 19, 2013 at 10:58 pm

    narcissistic, self serving and calculating…

    Fantasywriter in reply to Fabi. | July 19, 2013 at 11:36 pm

    He is egocentric & he is also, frankly, jealous. Trayvon’s getting the lion’s share of the media’s sympathetic attention right now. Obama wd like to be TM because first & foremost he’d be center stage, but almost as importantly it wd put him off limits to criticism. The slight criticism Obama has taken over Benghazi, the IRS, the NSA, etc., really fries him. If he cd somehow conflate himself w Trayvon, he’d not only own the spotlight but he’d be once again immune to criticism. The appeal of that scenario for O right now cannot be overstated.

    TrooperJohnSmith in reply to Fabi. | July 20, 2013 at 1:09 am

    Pssst… That’s clinical narcissism.

    Also, he can’t write for sh*t. But then a clinical narcissist is like a guy who thinks he stays in the world’s biggest Holiday-Inn Express every single night. Prez-O-Bama is no exception. He’s above the law, above all people, answerable only to himself and, of course, to his fragile ego.

Henry Hawkins | July 19, 2013 at 8:08 pm

Nice work. Thanks, and welcome.

So much for Obama being President of ALL Americans, of both blue and red states.

He’s the Divider-in-Chief.

    TrooperJohnSmith in reply to avwh. | July 20, 2013 at 1:24 am

    Hey, the longer he keeps the Trayvon thing going, the longer Benghazi, IRS violations, NSA spying, a stagnant economy, lurking inflation and the ObamaCare train wreck are pushed out of the spotlight.

    He’s obfuscating on a massive scale.

Upon further reflection, does Obama mean to tell us he got kicked out of school, sucker-punched folks, and was a burglar when he was a teen??

Because otherwise, the only thing he had in common with Trayvon was being a pot head and black.

    robbi in reply to avwh. | July 19, 2013 at 8:42 pm

    T=You got it almost right. He’s a self proclaimed black.

    Well, except for that pesky little problem of Obama only being half black….

    Exiliado in reply to avwh. | July 19, 2013 at 9:27 pm

    If I had a son, he’d LOOK like Trayvon.

    —– —— ——- ——– ——— ——–

    It has always been about race.
    M. P. did not say “he’d BE like Trayvon”.

    It is about what color you LOOK.
    It is not about the content of your character.

    Sorry, Mr. King. Your dream has been killed, and guess who did it!

    and probably sold drugs on the side….

    Observer in reply to avwh. | July 19, 2013 at 10:07 pm

    IMO, they had much more in common than just that. Both Martin and Obama were black males who had been raised to see themselves as victims of a racist, unjust society. Both had a huge chip on their shoulders, and were (still are, in Obama’s case) very quick to take offense and attribute any slight, or perceived slight, from a lighter-skinned person as a product of racism.

    It is likely one of the reasons Trayvon Martin was so aggressive with Zimmerman that night. How dare that “cracka” disrespect Martin by looking at him with suspicion? Martin was going to teach Zimmerman a lesson about “dissing” him, a black man. Obama has the same attitude. He sees everything through the prism of race — and always with himself as victim.

      Paul in reply to Observer. | July 19, 2013 at 11:35 pm

      “Martin was going to teach Zimmerman a lesson about “dissing” him, a black man.”

      Lesson learned?

      USreader in reply to Observer. | July 20, 2013 at 12:30 am

      Doesn’t anybody notice that the center of this story is an older woman, his grandmother, who supported the household, getting up early and riding a bus, who had literally faced the threat of physical harm. Neither of the two men responded with offers of help. They had a car, but no ride to the office was available. . . maybe it was too early in the morning. God knows neither of these two went back out and tried to protect their wife/grandson/daughter,
      behavior, these two spineless “men” say she had a special fear of blacks. Or did she have a oerfectly logical reason.fo

      jayjerome66 in reply to Observer. | July 20, 2013 at 1:24 am

      Sorry to disagree, Obama wasn’t raised with the victim mentality — but the exact opposite.

      His white mother and grandparents instilled a sense of accomplishment and success in him — which makes his abandonment of his whiteness and his appropriation of the Trayvon myth even more problematic.

      There’s nothing that can be done now to right the false narrative: even now, idiots commenting at NY Times continue to regurgitate the lie that George ignored a police order to stay in his car, and followed and confronted Trayvon. We can repeat the correct version over and over, but the MSM will overpower our version with theirs.

    forksdad in reply to avwh. | July 20, 2013 at 1:01 am

    Sure wasn’t Dreams from My Father all about Barry getting ‘smoke’ and ‘fire ass lean’? I seem to remember when the badass Barry fought MMA style and bragged about beating up a busdriver. Of course, who can forget the youthful hijinks when he got suspended for graffiti stolen property burglary tools drugs etc?

    I particularly liked the part where Barry spotting aman he thought was gay (and thus an easy target) stalked the man sucker punched him pinned him to the ground and pummeled him while the short mild mannered man screamed for help. That sounds like Barry.

The old thug identifies with the young thug because they are both thugs.

Midwest Rhino | July 19, 2013 at 8:35 pm

Half black Obama was raised with all the things he claims to understand most blacks did not have.

JohnOfEnfield | July 19, 2013 at 8:40 pm

I am truly staggered at the enormity of this crime. How can a so-called President of the United States demean himself and his office and his country in this way? What persecution will be wrought on Zimmerman now? It has terrible parallels with what has happened to “Pussy Riot” in Russia. None of us, & that includes me in London, can feel safe.

    Juba Doobai! in reply to JohnOfEnfield. | July 20, 2013 at 12:14 am

    This is part of Obama’s psychological warfare against the USA. He wants none of us to feel safe, from his refusal to guard the borders to his stoking the fires of racism. The point he is driving home is we will not be safe in our own country. Not if he can help it.

    BannedbytheGuardian in reply to JohnOfEnfield. | July 20, 2013 at 4:56 am

    PussyRiot? 2/3 were convicted because they defiled the altar of Russia’s premier church. The one that did not actually step on it was let off .

    Just because the Church of England is pathetic does not mean The Russian Orthodox Church is .

“A careful look at this incident as Obama described it on pp. 88-91”

This incident never happened. Like the girlfriends mentioned in same book, its a “composite” instance.

ie. a mix of 5-6 incidents with made-up stuff to fill the gaps.

Barack The Fomenter

What is Obama talking about? How could Obama understand Trayvon? Trayvon is black and Obama is White Black. The racist white in him prevents him from understanding anything at all about blacks. The white half is probably constantly suspicious of the black half.

How many ways can we split the race hair to render it meaningless?

    donmc in reply to Katty. | July 19, 2013 at 8:50 pm

    If obama Sr is actually the thug’s father (highly unlikely, inho), then obama is actually 1/16 black, 7/16 arabic, and 8/16 white.

    Bubba could have more african blood than obummer.

    The thug is our first non-black black president.

    TrooperJohnSmith in reply to Katty. | July 20, 2013 at 1:12 am

    President Janus!

I suspect the identification was purely political. If Obama is Trayvon, then George Zimmerman, a white Hispanic, assassinated the first black President of the United States. Race-mongering as always.

Great analysis.

I must have missed that part in “his” book where he talked about the time that he accosted a white Polynesian because he wanted to teach him a lesson.

Or the time that he stood by while some of his friends beat up on a homeless guy.

Or how he wanted to buy a gun.

It sure was nice of his grandfather to want to send his grandmother back into a situation where she felt endangered, though. Real role model, that man….

In 2008 I accepted an invitation to be a guest speaker for a very conservative church congregation. The pastor requested a conversation style interview. I accepted. I was a young female mayor of a sleepy Florida town and only the 2nd female mayor to have served in the city’s history. During the interview, the pastor asked me, what I thought were very odd questions. He asked me what my boundaries were as a female leader? I wasn’t exactly sure of how to respond to his question as I didn’t know any existed? He then proceeded to outline the challenges he believed I must have been facing since, of course, I was a female, blond, young 30’s and after all, I was in a grown Man’s world. To which I responded, “Wow, I had no idea? Gosh, I must have missed that memo. He asked me what memo that would be? My response, The one which tells me my limitations?” You see, I didn’t know I had any and my father never raise my family of all girls to believe such a thing. The interview continued with me responding, “I choose to continue my commitment to my community, shifting our economy, providing a forum where people can contribute and make a real difference. I’ve chosen my America, I don’t choose the one you’re suggesting.”

I went on to lead the community, during the boom years in Florida, from an unhealthy tax base of 80% residential 20% commercial to 7 years later a robust 60%/40%. Silly me, I never new there to be such boundaries limiting our potential? Sadly, our President does.

The Limbaugh Theorem is on display once again. Obama likes words, not deeds – campaigning instead of governing – and most critical of all, no personal responsibility or blame for the economic and social havoc that his policies have wrought.

Democrats used to call the great Ronaldus Maximus “the Teflon President.”

The immunity from all the usual laws of politics — the Teflon Factor — is the ultimate mystery of Ronald Reagan’s success.

The difference between the two presidents primarily rests in the end result of their government service. Reagan dug America out economic doldrums, ended the cold war and started the longest and strongest period of prosperity in this nation’s history. Obama seems set on the path of ending America’s greatness and every step he takes is pointed toward economic downturn. Marxism is settling in and the rule of law is ending.

My take away from President Obama’s comments were more of a healing message. He recognizes that Trayvon was in the wrong in this incident with George. He understand where Trayvon was coming from as well…a kid who was basically minding his own business gets eyeballed by a cracka. (Of course Trayvon made his mistake when he attacked George, but that is not what Obama’s comments were about.) President Obama is asking the black leaders, preachers, athletes, entertainers to do what they could to help the young black males in this country focus and make something of themselves and be responsible. There is no doubt that these kids need guidance and role models other that gangsta rappers. It’s not the kid’s fault that he has no dad, is poor, mom is a drug addict or whatever horrible life he experiences. I applaud the President for reaching out to the nation to help solve one of our ills. I can’t even imagine what it is like to be a young black male having people suspicious of your every move.

    JerryB in reply to mwsomerset. | July 19, 2013 at 9:24 pm

    You can take what you want from his speech. That’s one skill Barry has as a experienced Community Agitator, i.e., he knows to give enough cream so listeners can ignore the venom if they so desire.

    Do you imagine that Sharpton or any of the rock-throwing protesters got the same take-away as you did?

    robbi in reply to mwsomerset. | July 19, 2013 at 10:29 pm

    Heads up, he’s supposed to be the President of all the citizens of the United States not the president of a few.
    He helped to bring up the divide in this country which arose from this case. Likely, he doesn’t give 2 sh_ts about Trayvon Martin. It’s about gun control and hoping people don’t pay attention to Benghazi and the IRS/Tea Party crap.

    The major issues you note: poverty, single-parent, drugs; are the diseases that yield young blacks being eyeballed. BHO didn’t need to piggyback on this case to make those points and he didn’t need to wait until the 5th year of his presidency to do so.

    Further, for the sake of efficiency, he should be tackling these issues re: the inner-city. Take care of the disease, take care of the symptoms.

    But, he’s a uncaring coward and not interested in solving any of those problems: he can’t insult his base (viz: Cosby) and he will have Secret Service protection for life. A little urban strife doesn’t affect No.1!

    Katty in reply to mwsomerset. | July 19, 2013 at 11:28 pm

    I’m always amazed by the fact that racial slurs are used liberally and, indeed, encouraged in the “black community”, but if anyone else uses them, it’s considered to be practically an attack with a deadly weapon.

    Jackster in reply to mwsomerset. | July 19, 2013 at 11:36 pm

    Trayvon appears to have come from a middle class background. I’m not saying he had good parenting, but he doesn’t appear to have suffered depravation.

    jayjerome66 in reply to mwsomerset. | July 20, 2013 at 1:37 am

    But the problem with his speech from our point of view (meaning a large segment of white Americans who carefully monitored the Zimmerman trial and all the evidence presented) who believe George was telling the truth, and should never have been charged, were ignored and marginalized by Obama’s speech: he took the black side and stuck with it; he continues to perpetuate the false narrative and demonize George; so screw him.

Barry is a racist, plain and simple.

And he has a bizarre martyr-complex. Perhaps his mental illness is the reason he’s hid his medical records from us.

Notice that he only wants to identify with the purportedly angelic (or at least, only dopester and slacker) members of his race.

Notice that he doesn’t say: “30 years ago, I could have been Aaron Hernandez.”

What a vile, divisive, race-baiting egomaniac we have in the White House.

But the most important similarity Obama is pointing out is his insinuation that they were both unfairly profiled for being black.

Trayvon wasn’t profiled for his skin color. But yes, Barry was unfairly profiled: by Columbia University, by Harvard U., by Harvard Law Review, by the Democratic Party, etc. This unqualified black guy displaced others much more qualified, and now he holds an office for which he has no qualification whatsoever. This is all unfair.

Now that I’m looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away, am I justified in always voting for a white male and being leery of every black man’s qualifications? If I affirm this, would I not be a bigot?

Obama is a bigot, and he’s agitating blacks to wallow in bigotry.

And if you believe a single word of Bill Ayer’s fictitious telling of Obama’s life, have I got a bridge to sell you!

I think that Barry’s and Eric’s plan is to foment so much hatred among blacks of George Zimmerman, that they incite some black thug to kill Zimmerman.

This would serve many purposes. They could avoid bringing bogus civil rights charges against Zimmerman, which they would lose. They would make similarly-minded black racists happy. And they could then pretend that they were sorry that poor George got iced, and make another try for gun control.

Barry is a very, very evil person.

Funny. I dislike Obama because he’s taken my money and keeps coming back for more, and I keep getting told I dislike him because he’s black, just like his Grandmother.

“If a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.”

If statistics are any indication, a white kid probably wouldn’t have attacked GZ. He wouldn’t have the black mindset (or “experiences,” per Obama) that allows him to harbor bigoted views of whites as “creepy-ass crackas.”

i can see Obumbles relating to St Thug Life:

both are/were not to bright, drug using thieves.

the only difference is that one robs an entire country at once using government agencies, and the other stole from people one house at a time.

I wonder why no one brings up the 2009 Roderick Scott case from Rochester, NY to the race hustlers? Read the link.

http://rochester.ynn.com/content/top_stories/490926/jury-finds-roderick-scott-not-guilty/

Essentially the roles were reversed (with some variations). A young black guy looking out for the neighborhood guns down a white teenaged boy in self-defense. He goes on trial for manslaughter and gets a Not Guilty verdict.

Am I wrong here? Seems to be close enough.

I’d like to welcome neo-neocon to LI.

Been reading her for years, and feel she’s one of the best writers in the blogosphere.

“There are very few African American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars.”

That’s it? The basis of black paranoia, according to President Sensitive? That stuff happens to me too, and I’m as white as you can get without being albino. It has nothing to do with skin color; it has to do with some people being nervous. Big deal; it’s not something to base your whole philosophy of life around. Act like an adult and get over it.

    jayjerome66 in reply to rantbot. | July 20, 2013 at 1:43 am

    Right. People are nervous/suspicious/afraid of black men in places/situations where they could be assaulted.

    That’s called a cause and effect response.

    When the black crime rate drops significantly, so will profiling.

When the hell are people going to wake up and realize just who ‘Barack Hussein Obama’ really is?

Only then will they realize he is manipulating an nationwide army of black street thugs to do his bidding?

When chaos begins, and martial law is enacted, will you then connect the dots?

(Welcome neo-neocon!)

The pro-Trayvon speech he gave, too, well that was pandering, lame, ineffectual and absurd. Thank you for the insights. We have a president who is not only corrupt and incompetent, but also mentally disturbed.

    JerryB in reply to JP. | July 19, 2013 at 11:48 pm

    From the link: ” Before you cast an opinion about what the President said, be sure to listen to his comments in full.”

    It’s an admixture of some cream and some venom. If you attended a buffet dinner, but were told that just one item was laced with cyanide, tell me, just how much would you eat?

    Read it in full, but recognize that POTUS is justifying black prejudice against whites. It’s disgraceful and abhorrent.

How could people think that way about blacks? Shameful.

This from the LA Times: …a group of unruly young people broke off from hundreds gathered for a Trayvon Martin prayer vigil.’

Youths.

MouseTheLuckyDog | July 19, 2013 at 10:22 pm

A brief comment about Obama’s family. The birthers did us all a disservice. By focusing attention on where he was born instead of who his mother was. Every college student knows people like Obamas mother.

They encounter them in their student unions sitting in a small group. All poly-sci majors, all with their hair unwashed, and arguing Lenin vs Trotsky.

Most racist president since Nixon. Much more so than Nixon.

I, for one, will not let Trayvon’s death be in vain. I’m going to use him as a toilet brush.

Carol Herman | July 19, 2013 at 10:51 pm

And, now we know that the bamster doesn’t see himself as Hawaiian. And, Indonesians are thrilled he doesn’t identify with them, either.

What obama is really after is seeing that the feds cancel out local and state governments. Since he thinks blacks just do better when everything is federalized. And, you won’t be allowed to carry a gun.

What an a-hole. There’s a reason a lot of black men are followed in a department store; a high proportion of them are shoplifters. There’s a reason why people lock their car doors when approached by black men; a high proportion of them intend to do wrong. HELLO – are we to dispute facts and statistics because of political correctness?

Big difference between Trayvon and Obozo? Trayvon was born in the US.

So Barack identifies with a young man who was suspended from school, caught with stolen property, posted pictures of himself with a handgun that he couldn’t legally possess, liked to smoke weed, was on the lookout for liquid codeine and loved to start fights?

Did I miss anything?

    Browndog in reply to Sanddog. | July 19, 2013 at 11:19 pm

    No, Obama just identified with the “victim of whitey”.

    Everything else…gangsta…playing football, ability to throw a baseball…anything that resembles manliness, however twisted, is mere envy.

Obama is entitled to his personal opinions about these things but that’s all it is, his personal opinion. He doesn’t seem to understand how much it diminishes his Presidential stature when he makes these kinds of statements, which are entirely personal, under the aegis of the Presidency.

He does this kind of thing fairly frequently. He already messed up a number of military prosecutions for sexual abuse by injecting his personal opinions about how they should turn out into the public debate. As President that’s deemed an abuse of his “command authority” or “command influence” since he is commander in chief of military forces. He’s not supposed to comment on active courts-martial cases.

He really has no claim to any superior level of wisdom or moral authority which would render his personal opinions any more or less valid than anyone else’s.

The fact that he claims to personally empathize with a violent mugger who was shot in self-defense IMO borders on the bizarre. Nevertheless the fact that he happens to be President doesn’t give his words any more weight or relevance than anyone else’s.

    fogflyer in reply to Marco100. | July 19, 2013 at 11:33 pm

    Marco100 said…
    “Obama is entitled to his personal opinions about these things but that’s all it is, his personal opinion. He doesn’t seem to understand how much it diminishes his Presidential stature when he makes these kinds of statements, which are entirely personal, under the aegis of the Presidency.”

    Man, I just couldn’t agree with you more on this!!!
    I have never been an Obama fan, but neither was I a Romney fan.
    I must say though, that I am just disgusted with Obama’s statement about this trial. Truly disgusted!

He is certainly climbing way out on that limb for someone
of Trayvon’s character.
It’s a risky play even for a lame duck.

That was pretty interesting reading.
It does give some insight into why Obama might be so off kilter in his thinking on this case.

In Obama’s defense ( did I really just say that?), for those of you poo-pooing his growing up in a nice neighborhood in Oahu, let me tell you a little about Hawaii.

I lived on Maui for a decade and the locals in Hawaii are probably the most racist people I have ever met against blacks. Seriously! I was really shocked when I moved there. The locals are racist against whites also, but they are the worst toward blacks, which there are not many off.

I always thought it was so strange. There are hardly any actual Hawaiians left, so “locals” are a mix of Samoans, Chinese, Phillipinos, Japanese, etc. basically, if you have brownish skin, you are accepted as a local. BUT, not black! That is too dark apparently.

The racism I experienced being white there, was nothing compared to hat of a black dive instructor friend I had.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that I am sure the racism Obama faced in Hawaii, was very real indeed.,

    dorsaighost in reply to fogflyer. | July 20, 2013 at 12:18 am

    maybe you missed your own point … Obama did not experience white racism in Hawaii … notice the difference …

    Juba Doobai! in reply to fogflyer. | July 20, 2013 at 7:49 am

    Excuse me, but Obama, like Holder and Valerie Jarrett, is a light skinned black. He would’ve had no problem in Hawaii.

ParalegalGirl | July 19, 2013 at 11:34 pm

I wonder if Obama would let his daughters date Trayvon.

Why does O keep identifying with TM – the assailant – and not GZ the not guilty citizen?

I was laughing about tomorrow’s Rev. Al 100 City Riot, until I remembered I’m attending a concert in the Murder Capitol of the South (Birmingham) tomorrow, as well!

I hope to avoid that which I hope to see: Widespread Panic.

VetHusbandFather | July 19, 2013 at 11:51 pm

Personally I think the reason for the President’s speech today was to soften the blow to his base once he announces that the justice department is not pressing civil rights charges. This is a subtle reminder that he is black so none of that anger gets directed at him.

Juba Doobai! | July 20, 2013 at 12:09 am

Obama is a racist hypocrite from his youth onwards. He hated his white grandmother, the one who was raising him, feeding, clothing, putting a roof over his head, and paying his tuition at an expensive private school, because she objected to being mugged by a black guy. He regarded that as an attack on himself. Nevertheless, Obama did not consider himself a black guy. He had no black friends or girl friends, until the composite one, of course. His first black girlfriend was his wife who could lend him the “legitimacy” of slave blood and street cred for blackness.

He was a pothead, a cokehead Communist who traveled to Pakistan under a passport that did not belong to the United States. He identifies himself with his father, black-skinned but regarded and self-identified as ethnically Arab and Muslim. Obama’s sympathies and allegiance are to Arab Muslims. For Christians and Jews, he has none. For blacks, he has none. All anyone needs to do is look at the plight of black America under the Obama administration.

So, all Obama is doing is manipulating low information black voters. He is pushing them towards a race war. The end result will serve Obama’s interests and not theirs. When you’re 12% of the population and committing 50% of the crime, you don’t start wars to serve the interests of a manipulative SOB.

I weep for American blacks who continue to view life and America entirely through the prism of race.

ReallyVeryObnoxious | July 20, 2013 at 12:50 am

Trayvon Martin was a danger to himself and others. This may be related to being a pot addled loony; pot impairs risk assessment and maybe also learning. (Sound judgment suggests that beating a man for no good reason has far too many risks to be worth any possible gain.)

Obama’s actions can be understood as those of a pot addled loony. This statement could, if we credit it as reliable, be a sign that he has started to recognize the danger he poses to others. That he feels that like Martin, he is in urgent need of stern parental intervention and a safe environment to be set onto a better path.

It is unmeet that a person of Obama’s years be looking to others to pull him from a teen’s mindset into a man’s.

    Uncle Samuel in reply to ReallyVeryObnoxious. | July 20, 2013 at 5:00 am

    Combining the cognitive/behavioral/biological effects of pot to those that occur with habitual use of ‘fire-ass lean’ as evidenced by the autopsy report of Trayvon’s liver damage and brain abnormalities (from possible trauma and/or drug use), you can add paranoia, emotional lability and aggression to the psychological and behavioral effects of his drug use and fighting.

    It is said that tobacco combined with pot creates increases the potent effect of marijuana on the brain.

    From his tweets, Trayvon was going for maximum effect.

TrooperJohnSmith | July 20, 2013 at 1:20 am

How long before some Santería priest, or voodoo priestess or old hippie from Nor-Cal reaches Trayvon’s spirit and channels him?

“Jusssss-tice! I want justice, mommy! Pleeeeease! And my Skittles I never got to eat.”

The Reb’n Owl Shawpt’n will be all over that like an insult at Denny’s.

theduchessofkitty | July 20, 2013 at 2:04 am

Keep adding fuel to the fire, Barry… Keep doing it…

“Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned?” – Proverbs 6:27

21st Century translation: “You play with fire, you get burned!”

Did you get that, Barry? Of course not…

    theduchessofkitty in reply to theduchessofkitty. | July 20, 2013 at 1:27 pm

    To the jerk who put this “thumbs down” on me: You better face me right now.

    I’m Puerto Rican: a mix of Caribbean Native, African and White. One of my grandmothers was Afro-Caribbean. The other one “looked” Taino, but actually had green eyes. One ancestor comes from Spain, another from France. (I do Ancestry.com)

    In other words, I’m just as multiracial as GZ.

    I see his picture on the Web: he can look to me like any other guy I’ve seen in Puerto Rico, born and raised into a nice, middle class family and taught manners and how to protect and defend people. I’ve seen people like him. I grew up with people like him. I went to school with people like him. I was friends with people like him.

    Yet, I have seen crime in Puerto Rico – even too close to my own house. Criminals there come from every shade of the melanin spectrum – no kidding. Crime rates in the island are higher than anything you’ve seen in any of the 50 states. The people over there don’t like it, obviously. There are actual gated communities, with security guards and ID checks at the front gate, springing all over the island in response to the horrific crime wave.

    In fact, many of my own have left the island for the relative peace and calm of the Mainland. Easy to do: no passport required, since we’re US citizens.

    In other words, we can talk a thing or two about crime, about the people who commit it, and the damage it does to a people’s sense of peace.

    A multiracial man doing what he can to defend his neighborhood is just that: a multiracial man doing what he can to defend his neighborhood.

    A thug is a thug. A thug wannabe is a thug wannabe. “Little Hoodie Angel” Trayvon loved to post pictures on the Web of himself, with a gun, looking quite “macho”, showing his middle fingers to the world, calling himself and others the n-this and the n-that. And his family refuse to look at those facts of his life – the fact that he was getting ready to, ahem, “make his mark in the world,” in a not-so-good way. His parents didn’t care about his upbringing when he was alive, now they want to canonize him in his death. What an “angel”…

    Nice men don’t do what TM did.

    Many former students of my mother (a retired teacher from Puerto Rico-s public schools) have ended up doing exactly the same things as TM. Many have already spent time in jail after going further. Others, became junkies and some recovered and restarted their lives. Others never recovered and are still at it. Others met an early grave. My mother has mourned them. The “What if?s” are frequent here.

    You can be totally bereft of reality here, and defend “Little Hoodie Angel” Trayvon until the ending of the world. But I can’t. I have seen too much already.

    I’m Puerto Rican. I can’t afford to dream of “little hoodie angels.” I want to keep my life and that of my children, thank you very much.

NC Mountain Girl | July 20, 2013 at 2:22 am

If the mother was one of his white girlfriends wouldn’t the son Obama never had rather look something like the mized race George Zimmerman? As Glenn Reynolds loves to point out, Zimmerman has more black in his ancestry than the plaintiff in Plessy v. Ferguson.

At this point I am not sure what Obama, Holder and company are thinking except that I suspect it has more to do with short term politics than the good of the nation. High turnout among lo-info black voters will be crucial in many upcoming elections. So will cash from affluent lefties. Both blocks have reasons to be unhappy with Obama and the Democrats but both blocks also have been trained to respond like trained seals to claims of racial victimization.
The question no one seems to be asking amid all this, however, is what exactly do Hispanic voters feel about all this?

Mister Natural | July 20, 2013 at 3:27 am

-they both have their school records sealed and hidden
but trayvon has a REAL birth certificate

Central Florida News 13’s poll on Obama commenting on Zimmerman verdict, 71% say inappropriate, 29% appropriate. Makes me feel a little better.

    That looks correct. The moonbats make up roughly 1/3 of the population. A Rasmussen poll had 34% disagreeing with the verdict of the Zimmerman trial. There is the illusion that they are a large part of the population but they aren’t. They have the time to go out (during working hours) and scream through their bullhorns and “organize”. Everyone else has to work and when they are off work, they are either too tired to do anything else or want to use that time to pursuit the things they couldn’t do at work. In a way, it’s the “moocher” society versus the “responsible” society.

Obama’s certainly not going to ground and pound Zimmerman, so he’s doing it to the whole country, including the black community, only they don’t seem to see it.

moonstone716 | July 20, 2013 at 7:57 am

As I have said before, I will continue to lock my door, cross the street, and get off elevators whether it hurts a young black man’s feelings or not. I would rather hurt a thousand people’s feelings (they will get over it) then leave myself vulnerable.

However, I can honestly state that I have NEVER locked my car door or left an elevator because of a black man or group of black men dressed in nice suits.

Either President Obama identifies pretty strongly with Trayvon Martin, or he’s pretending to do so for political purposes.

It is for political and personal purposes. The political part is obvious, but the personal part less so.

1.) Part of it as a previous comment said…he wants the spotlight….he really really doesn’t like sharing it, but when he must he must inject himself in to the narrative by any means necessary.

2.) The other part is his overweening desire to “be black” in the popular sense, the “back on the block” sense, when has never been “back on any block” nor actually associated with many blacks until at least college.

The result of this motivation is that he creates, invents, imagines, scenarios he believes are typical “black experiences”. Some are, some aren’t, but for certain he has barely if ever experienced any of them…he only insists he did to inject himself in to the narrative. At Trayvon’s age he had how much association with black kids in that private high school he attended in Hawaii? It is virtually impossible for his life to be anything like Trayvon [to his credit] but he imagines he must be for the narrative…e.g., black guy made good after a *tough* back on the block upbringing.

The sad part is Obama believes his imaginary narrative is what actually defines black Americans. If he really knew more of them, face to face, he’d know better.

So, did President Obama attempt to kill somebody 35 years ago?

    Aridog in reply to Valerie. | July 20, 2013 at 10:48 am

    Not very likely, since he was a high school kid at that Punahou Prep school, back on the block in Hawaii.

Barry never mentioned whether he would have wanted one of his daughters to go out with TM…

Interesting that Obama wasn’t so interested in the safety of his Grandmother. Rather he was troubled by her representation of a person with their hand out and poised to hit her over the head for the rest of her hard earned money … which if stolen would not enable him to go to that private school.

The biggest difference is that he had a racist set of grandparents that loved him during that transitional period of time when “children” become young men.

    robbi in reply to rmnewt. | July 20, 2013 at 11:42 am

    Either O’s grandfather was an evil old bastard or the story is a lie. What kind of person would say that to their grandchild?

reusdefensor | July 20, 2013 at 12:21 pm

I wonder if the identification is based on the color of his skin, or the content of his character?

theduchessofkitty | July 20, 2013 at 1:54 pm

I thought Presidents were supposed to “unify” the American People. I was wrong, apparently…

[…] —Julius Obamacus Nero Caesar, former leader of The Choom Gang […]

When B.O. was called the “post-racial” president, immediately following his election, I thought it was meant as something to applaud. Goes to show how naive I can be at times.

EyesWideOpen | July 20, 2013 at 5:07 pm

Obama is a farcical president. Never was someone elected (in 2008) with greater potential and promise to be the one who lead America “past the racial divide”. He actively campaigned on it (recall his 2004 DNC speech about “one America” that launched his national prominence) as a bi-racial candidate who could speak to both sides equally. He promoted it in 2008 (recall Jesse Jackson slapping him down for “talking down to black folks”). Many, many people, including many registered Republicans, voted for him for just that reason even if they were uncomfortable with his class warfare economic policies. Many we’re suckered in by his promise that in “electing a black president we could finally put the old racial canards behind us”. Millions and millions of WHITES voted for him, many of them did so twice. Strangely “white racism” is still cited as Black America’s biggest impediment despite mountains of evidence to the contrary.

He has done NOTHING to use his oratorical skills and unique position in history to be “the post-racial groundbreaking president” he promised. He was in an unparalleled position to denounce the use of “white racism” as an excuse and to use tough love on the AA community with regard to its largely self-inflicted problems. His words would have made a huge impact upon the Blacks who feel “owed” and whose irresponsibility and tolerance/excuse-making for anti-social behavior and criminality are so commonplace in black “culture”. He chose instead to side with the race-baiters and the demagogues in the name of racial solidarity and votes.

Every time he’s injected himself into a racial issue it’s been to gin up anger and divisiveness rather than as a “teachable moment” to encourage better citizenship and personal responsible among people. We all know the TM/GZ situation was nothing but an opportunity to turn up the black racial grievance vote in the all important state of Florida for the 2012 election. He’s frittered away the chance he had to be a uniting MLK#2 and instead has chosen to become nothing more than another Al Sharpton with smoother edges. He could have done so much good, but he’s chosen instead to grovel before politically correct racial grievances, expand the ensnaring welfare state, and fall back on the same old excuses for black socio-economic backwardness.

The man is a cowardly stuffed suit with a silver tongue who is as feckless economically as he is timid with the “bully pulpit” toward the very same people who voted overwhelmingly for him and who he could have benefitted the most.

    rmnewt in reply to EyesWideOpen. | July 20, 2013 at 6:00 pm

    and why would have expected anything different. His record is and was void of a work ethic or any other real accomplishment… oh except for community organization.

[…] recent article at Legal Insurrection also touches on this interpretation, quoting part of Obama’s recent […]

surrexit lex | July 21, 2013 at 3:58 am

Barack Obama was right about one thing — people do tend to clutch at their wallets when they see him. And it’s not because of the color of his skin.