文字实录：奥巴马首度公开谈论马丁案 罕见抛种族言论

美国白人协警齐默尔曼射杀黑人青年马丁，却被判无罪释放，全美各地引发强烈反响和抗议活动。美国总统奥巴马昨首度公开谈论此事。他表示该判决让人想到美国黑人经历的种族歧视。马丁可能就是35年前的自己，因为他个人作为一个美国黑人，也曾遭遇歧视。奥巴马也说国家要做一些自我反省，并敦促美国人要重新思考种族问题。

这一言论被认为是奥巴马担任总统以来最大胆的种族言论，整个讲话长达近20分钟。

观察者网摘译奥巴马部分发言如下：

来到这里，我想首先告诉你们，杰伊·卡尼（Jay Carney，白宫新闻发言人——观察者网注）正在为你们所有的问题做准备，并且非常期待这个环节。第二，我想让你们知道，在未来的几周内很明显会有一系列议题——移民、经济等等——我们会尽量安排一个更全面的新闻发布会来解决你们的问题。

实际上，我今天站出来的原因不是回答问题，而是回应一件在过去一周引起广泛关注的事件——特雷翁·马丁案的判决。周日案件判决之后，我给了一个初步的说明。但是看到过去一周的争论，我认为可能有必要进一步阐述一下我的想法。

首先，我想再一次把我连同米歇尔的心情和祈祷献给马丁的家人。他们在处理整个事件时，体现出了高度的从容和尊严感。我能想象他们所经受的痛苦，但他们出色地应对了一切。

其次，我想重申上周日所说的话，那就是，围绕这个案子，将会有很多关于司法问题的争论——我将让所有的法律专家和评论者解决这些问题。法官秉着专业的态度审理此案，控辩双方提出了他们的观点，陪审团认为像这样的案子需要理性的怀疑，然后再给出判决。一旦陪审团发话，我们的体系就照此运作。但是我确实想多说一点，关于事件的背景、人们的反应和感受。

奥巴马首度公开谈论马丁案 涉及种族言论

你们都知道，当特雷翁·马丁刚被枪杀时，我曾说马丁的遭遇可能在我儿子身上发生。换个方式说就是，特雷翁·马丁也可能就是35年前的我。你们在想为什么，那是因为至少在非裔美国人当中，这个案件引发了他们很多遭受不公正待遇的痛苦回忆。我们要意识到，非裔美国人是从一种难以忘却的经历和历史的角度来看待此案的。

在这个国家，很少有非洲裔美国男子——包括我本人——没有过在商场购物时被跟踪的经历；在这个国家，很少有非洲裔美国男子没有过在大街上行走时听到旁人忙不迭锁上汽车门的经历，在我身上也曾发生过这样的事，至少在我当参议员之前。在这个国家，很少有非洲裔美国人没有过在坐电梯时一个妇女紧张地捂着自己的钱包并且屏住呼吸直到走出电梯为止的经历。这经常发生。

我不想夸大其词，但这一系列的经历对黑人社区如何解读马丁案势必产生影响，人们必然会联想起这些经历。非裔美国人也知道，我们过去在执行刑法方面，有一段种族歧视的历史——从执行死刑到实施禁毒法，都出现过。这段历史，最终在人们如何解读马丁案的过程中产生了影响。

美国的非裔年轻人卷入刑事司法系统的几率高得不成比例，他们成为暴力受害者和施暴者的几率也高得不成比例。在这些问题上，非裔美国人并不是天真得一无所知。现在并不是要为这些事实找借口——尽管黑人们确实从历史背景的角度来解读这些事实。他们明白，发生在美国贫困黑人社区的一些暴力事件源自于这个国家暴力的过去，我们在这些社区看到的贫困和混乱都可以追溯到美国那段艰难的历史。

所以，有时候低人一等的感受让他们更加沮丧。很多非洲裔美国男孩被投向异样的眼光，但理由却是：瞧，已经有数据表明美国的非裔男孩更暴力——拿这个作借口来看待受到不公正待遇的男孩只会引起伤痛。

非裔美国人也不是不知道，从统计数据来看，像特雷翁·马丁这样的人更可能被同龄人枪杀。所以人们理解非洲裔美国男孩面临的重重阻碍。但如果遗忘、甚至抹杀那段特定的社会历史背景，他们会很沮丧。如果是一个白人少年卷入相同的案子，我认为无论是结果还是善后都可能会完全不同。

现在，对我和大多数人的问题是，我们如何看待这个事件？我们如何从这件事中吸取教训，然后朝着积极的方向发展？我能理解人们游行示威和抗议，一些人只是要推动事情发展，尽管仍然是暴力的。如果我看到暴力，我会提醒人们这只会进一步让马丁和他的家人蒙羞。但是，除了抗议示威，问题是，我们能否做一些实质性的事情呢？

……

让我最后再申明一点，尽管整个事件让很多人倍感艰辛，但我不希望大家忽视一个事实——事情总体上正在变好。种族问题正在一代一代地改善。**这并不是说我们已处“后种族主义社会’，也不是说种族歧视已经消除。**但是当我和玛丽亚及萨沙交谈、听他们的朋友说话、看他们交流时，我发现他们这一代在（种族）问题上比我们要好，比过去的我们更是进步许多。我在全国各地都见证了这一点。

被齐默尔曼杀死的17岁黑人青年马丁

以下为英文全文：

I wanted to come out here, first of all, to tell you that Jay is prepared for all your questions and is very much looking forward to the session. The second thing is I want to let you know that over the next couple of weeks, there’s going to obviously be a whole range of issues -- immigration, economics, et cetera -- we’ll try to arrange a fuller press conference to address your questions.

The reason I actually wanted to come out today is not to take questions, but to speak to an issue that obviously has gotten a lot of attention over the course of the last week -- the issue of the Trayvon Martin ruling. I gave a preliminary statement right after the ruling on Sunday. But watching the debate over the course of the last week, I thought it might be useful for me to expand on my thoughts a little bit.

First of all, I want to make sure that, once again, I send my thoughts and prayers, as well as Michelle’s, to the family of Trayvon Martin, and to remark on the incredible grace and dignity with which they’ve dealt with the entire situation. I can only imagine what they’re going through, and it’s remarkable how they’ve handled it.

The second thing I want to say is to reiterate what I said on Sunday, which is there’s going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case -- I’ll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address those issues. The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury has spoken, that’s how our system works. But I did want to just talk a little bit about context and how people have responded to it and how people are feeling.

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 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. There are very few African American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven’t had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

And I don’t want to exaggerate this, but those sets of experiences inform how the African American community interprets what happened one night in Florida. And it’s inescapable for people to bring those experiences to bear. The African American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws -- everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.

Now, this isn’t to say that the African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s not to make excuses for that fact -- although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

And so the fact that sometimes that’s unacknowledged adds to the frustration. And the fact that a lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there that show that African American boys are more violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain.

I think the African American community is also not naïve in understanding that, statistically, somebody like Trayvon Martin was statistically more likely to be shot by a peer than he was by somebody else. So folks understand the challenges that exist for African American boys. But they get frustrated, I think, if they feel that there’s no context for it and that context is being denied. And that all contributes I think to a sense that if a white male teen was involved in the same kind of scenario, that, from top to bottom, both the outcome and the aftermath might have been different.

Now, the question for me at least, and I think for a lot of folks, is where do we take this? How do we learn some lessons from this and move in a positive direction? I think it’s understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family. But beyond protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that we might be able to do.

I know that Eric Holder is reviewing what happened down there, but I think it’s important for people to have some clear expectations here. Traditionally, these are issues of state and local government, the criminal code. And law enforcement is traditionally done at the state and local levels, not at the federal levels.

That doesn’t mean, though, that as a nation we can’t do some things that I think would be productive. So let me just give a couple of specifics that I’m still bouncing around with my staff, so we’re not rolling out some five-point plan, but some areas where I think all of us could potentially focus.

Number one, precisely because law enforcement is often determined at the state and local level, I think it would be productive for the Justice Department, governors, mayors to work with law enforcement about training at the state and local levels in order to reduce the kind of mistrust in the system that sometimes currently exists.

When I was in Illinois, I passed racial profiling legislation, and it actually did just two simple things. One, it collected data on traffic stops and the race of the person who was stopped. But the other thing was it resourced us training police departments across the state on how to think about potential racial bias and ways to further professionalize what they were doing.

And initially, the police departments across the state were resistant, but actually they came to recognize that if it was done in a fair, straightforward way that it would allow them to do their jobs better and communities would have more confidence in them and, in turn, be more helpful in applying the law. And obviously, law enforcement has got a very tough job.

So that’s one area where I think there are a lot of resources and best practices that could be brought to bear if state and local governments are receptive. And I think a lot of them would be. And let’s figure out are there ways for us to push out that kind of training.

Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it -- if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations.

I know that there’s been commentary about the fact that the “stand your ground” laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case. On the other hand, if we’re sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there’s a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we’d like to see?

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these “stand your ground” laws, I’d just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

Number three -- and this is a long-term project -- we need to spend some time in thinking about how do we bolster and reinforce our African American boys. And this is something that Michelle and I talk a lot about. There are a lot of kids out there who need help who are getting a lot of negative reinforcement. And is there more that we can do to give them the sense that their country cares about them and values them and is willing to invest in them?

I’m not naïve about the prospects of some grand, new federal program. I’m not sure that that’s what we’re talking about here. But I do recognize that as President, I’ve got some convening power, and there are a lot of good programs that are being done across the country on this front. And for us to be able to gather together business leaders and local elected officials and clergy and celebrities and athletes, and figure out how are we doing a better job helping young African American men feel that they’re a full part of this society and that they’ve got pathways and avenues to succeed -- I think that would be a pretty good outcome from what was obviously a tragic situation. And we’re going to spend some time working on that and thinking about that.

And then, finally, I think it’s going to be important for all of us to do some soul-searching. There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. I haven’t seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have. On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there’s the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

And let me just leave you with a final thought that, as difficult and challenging as this whole episode has been for a lot of people, I don’t want us to lose sight that things are getting better. Each successive generation seems to be making progress in changing attitudes when it comes to race. It doesn’t mean we’re in a post-racial society. It doesn’t mean that racism is eliminated. But when I talk to Malia and Sasha, and I listen to their friends and I seem them interact, they’re better than we are -- they’re better than we were -- on these issues. And that’s true in every community that I’ve visited all across the country.

And so we have to be vigilant and we have to work on these issues. And those of us in authority should be doing everything we can to encourage the better angels of our nature, as opposed to using these episodes to heighten divisions. But we should also have confidence that kids these days, I think, have more sense than we did back then, and certainly more than our parents did or our grandparents did; and that along this long, difficult journey, we’re becoming a more perfect union -- not a perfect union, but a more perfect union.