It's always about him.
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WASHINGTON (AP) Looking for positive lessons to draw from the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, President Barack Obama said Friday the nation needs to do some soul-searching, look for ways to bolster African-American boys and examine state and local laws to see if they encourage confrontations like the one in Florida.
Where do we take this? Obama wondered aloud in an impromptu appearance in the White House briefing room. How do we learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction?
The president said its time for all of us to some soul searching, but he also said its generally not productive when politicians try to orchestrate a conversation.
On the positive side, he said race relations in the United States actually are getting better Looking at his own daughters and their interactions with friends, the president said, Theyre better than we are. Theyre better than we were.
The president declined to wade into the detail of legal questions about the Florida case, saying, Once the jurys spoken, thats how our system works.
But he said state and local laws, such as Floridas stand your ground statute, need a close look.
Obama said it would be useful to examine some state and local laws to see if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of confrontation that led to Martins death. He questioned whether a law that sends the message that someone who is armed has the right to use those firearms even if there is a way for them to exit from a situation really promotes the peace and security that people want.
And he raised the question of whether Martin himself, if he had been armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk and shot neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman if he felt threatened when being followed.
Obamas appearance marked his first extended comments on the Martin case since Zimmerman was acquitted last weekend of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in Martins death last year. Jurors found that Zimmerman was acting in self-defense when he shot the unarmed black teenager. Zimmerman identifies himself as Hispanic.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said the Justice Department has an open investigation into the case. The department is looking into whether Zimmerman violated Martins civil rights.
Obama, who early on had said that if he had a son, the boy would have looked like Martin, on Friday drew an even more personal connection, saying that Trayvon Martin couldve been me 35 years ago.
He said that as people process the Zimmerman verdict, its important to put the angry reaction of many African-Americans into context. Protests and demonstrations, he said, are understandable, adding that some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through as long as it remains nonviolent.
Its important to recognize that the African-American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesnt go away, he said.
He said that distrust shadows African-American men, that they sometimes are closely followed when they shop at department stores, that they can draw nervous stares on elevators and hear car locks clicking when they walk down the street experiences that he personally felt before becoming a well-known figure.
Its inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear, he said.
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