Protest pressure alone compelled Obama to speak on race after Zimmerman verdict

Evidence

A few days later, after a swell of protests around the country, President Obama spoke again. This time he explicitly identified with Trayvon Martin. Obama spoke in the White House briefing room: … You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot, I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, 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—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. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 185

Categorization

• XREF: Dire-thesis of situational voice; this is the text quoted through the reader’s note. — connects to: Obama’s first Zimmerman response omitted race entirely despite racial verdict dynamics — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 183
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Obama’s first Zimmerman response omitted race entirely despite racial verdict dynamics — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black: How Race Still…, 183