A More Perfect Union for Trayvon Martin

Boston.com blogger Francie Latour uses President Barack Obama's poignant remarks on Friday about the brutal death of Trayvon Martin as a much-needed jumping-off point for an important conversation about race in America. Suggested Reading ‘Sinners’ Releases in Black American Sign Language. Here’s What That Means A Burger King Employee Throws a Drink on a Child…

Boston.com blogger Francie Latour uses President Barack Obama's poignant remarks on Friday about the brutal death of Trayvon Martin as a much-needed jumping-off point for an important conversation about race in America.

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Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?
Trump’s Tariffs Might Stick Around. What Should We Buy Now?

โ€œWe can tackle race only as spectacle,โ€ the candidate and then-Senator Barack Obama said exactly four years ago this week, riveting the nation from a Philadelphia podium as he delivered a historic, campaign-saving speech on race. โ€œ[We can tackle it] in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina. Or as fodder for the nightly news.โ€ Distant memories, indeed, those days when Obama would stand before a microphone and confront the raw complexities of race head on. In 2008, having stitched his loving, bigoted white grandmother and his loving, bigoted black pastor together in a single American tapestry, he was outlining the reflexes โ€” spasms, really โ€” that often result when matters of race explode onto the national scene. And he was offering another option.

Race โ€” the colossal weight of it, its divisive, detonating nature โ€” was not something the country could go on ignoring, Obama said then. The only way out of it โ€” the only way โ€” was to go much, much further into it. โ€œThe issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks," he argued, "reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through โ€” a part of our union that we have yet to perfect.โ€ His speech lasted for 37 minutes.

Read Francie Latour's entire blog entry at Boston.com.

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