The article A Personal Note as Obama Speaks on Death of Boy by Jackie Calmes and Helene Cooper is an article about President Obama's reaction to the murder of Trayvon Martin. Obama recently spoke about the murder of Trayvon Martin, but without mentioning anything about race, except for “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” The article poses both opinions of the reaction to this fact, with some people saying that he should of mentioned how race played a part in the murder, and some saying that he did it for the better. I believe that the writers of this article think that he handled the whole situation well, but if he was just a little more racially charged, he could have faced a lot less criticism.
One way that the reporters show is that he handled the station well is that throughout the whole entire article, they present the critics point of view, but then are very quick to counterclaim the critics' arguments. For example, after the present the opinion that Obama waited far to long to comment on the case, the article follows up by saying "The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader who organized a rally on Thursday night in Florida protesting the handling of the case and has been working with the Martin family, praised Mr. Obama’s comments and took issue with black critics who say the president should have spoken out sooner." They also do not not spend that much time on the critic's argument that Obama should have spoken out earlier (around 2-3 sentences), but they spent at least two paragraphs refuting that claim. They do something similar when it comes to the fact that Obama hardly mentioned race in his speech. They bring up a part of Obama'a campaign that stated that he was "a president for all people", and therefore he had no real obligation to bring up the race Trayvon Martin in his speech. So all in all, The writers of the article A Personal Note as Obama Speaks on Death of Boy thought that President Obama did a good job by hardly talking about the issue of racial prejudice during his speech addressing the murder of African American teen Trayvon Martin.
But even though he the writers thought that President Obama made a relatively smart decision by not discussing how the matter of race most likely was an influential variable of the murder of Trayvon Martin, they also did think that being a little bit more racially charged couldn't of hurt. President Obama has not yet called Martin's family, even though many strong black activists have urged him to do so. He has faced a lot of criticism because of this, and this article seems to agree with that criticism. Unlike the many other attacks brought against Obama on the issue of Martin's murder, the article does not defend him on this one. "Dr. Watkins, in an interview, called Mr. Obama’s statement 'a step in the right direction,' but added that the president could 'squash a great deal of the criticism' with a call to the parents." The article presents absolutely no counterclaim to this argument, suggesting that the writers might actually agree with the critics for once. The article also later quotes Dr. Watkins in saying that “He [President Obama] communicates to the black community in code language." So in the end, the writers have some critique on how President Obama handled the issue of the murder of Trayvon Martin.
While the writers of the article A Personal Note as Obama Speaks on Death of Boy do think that overall Obama handled himself well when it came to the murder of African American teen Trayvon Martin, they do think he could have very easily dodged some criticism by doing a little more than just acknowledging that both he and Trayvon Martin shared the same skin color. In some ways agree with the writers. The President could of at least called to console Trayvon's parents. Also, it makes sense to me why he would wait a little while before addressing the issue. It took some time for the entire story of what exactly happened before, during, and after the crime was committed to completely come through to the public. But I also do think that Obama should have talked a lot more about racial prejudice, considering it played such a big part in the murder. The murder of Trayvon Martin is not widely known because a man killed a teenager. It is widely known because it was White/Hispanic man killing a teen for no other reason but the color of his skin.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/24/us/politics/obama-talks-of-tragedy-not-race-in-florida-killing.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=politics
A Personal Note as Obama Speaks on Death of Boy from nytimes.com ^^^^^^^^^^^
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