If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon: Obama

WASHINGTON: President Obama did not mention race even as he addressed it on Friday, instead letting his person and his words say it all, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”
Weighing in for the first time on the death of Trayvon Martin, the unarmed black teenager shot and killed a month ago in Florida by a neighbourhood watch volunteer , Obama in powerfully personal terms deplored the “tragedy” and, as a parent, expressed sympathy for the boy’s mother and father.
“I can only imagine what these parents are going through. And when I think about this boy, I think about my own kids,” Obama said. “Every parent in America,” he added, “should be able to understand why it is absolutely imperative that we investigate every aspect of this and that everybody pulls together — federal, state and local — to figure out exactly how this tragedy happened.”
While speaking movingly as the father of two girls, Obama notably made no reference to the racial context that has made the killing of Trayvon and the gunman’s claim of self-defence a rallying point for African-Americans . Since Obama first began campaigning to be “president of all the people,” when pressed on racial issues, he has been generally reluctant to talk about race. And after his historic election as the first black president, Obama learned the hard way about the pitfalls of the chief executive opining on law enforcement involving civil rights.
One of Obama’s aide, requesting anonymity, said that there was no internal debate about how to respond to Trayvon’s death, but that Obama wanted to await justice department’s initial review and the announcement by his attorney general, Eric H Holder Jr, that the civil rights division would investigate .