Today, President Obama shared his thoughts on the not guilty verdict in the Trayvon Martin murder case during which he made the point that African American males in this country are often treated with suspicion and that that history informs “how the African-American community interprets what happened one night in Florida”:
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.
And 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.
As luck would have it, Steve Malzberg of Newsmax had right-wing crackpot Erik Rush scheduled to be on his radio program today so the two were able to discuss Obama’s remarks. After Rush asserted that people like Obama are treated with suspicion because they cultivate a “cynical, suspicious, chip-on-your-shoulder attitude,” Malzberg weighed in wanting to know if Obama experienced people crossing to the other side of the street or locking their doors after he climbed out of a van where he and his friends had been smoking pot.
“Maybe when he got out of that van and wandered across the street, someone pushed down their button. I mean, you know, he’s making is sound like he was walking around as a young man in a shirt and a tie and this was happening”:
