Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me, 35 years ago," Obama told reporters at the White House on Friday, addressing last weekend's acquittal of Martin's shooter, George Zimmerman. “Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago,” Mr. Obama said, adding that “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.” 
 
 He said 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” or “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,” he said, “includes me.” 
 
 Mr. Obama said African-Americans are also acutely aware 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.” 
 
 He said it would be naïve not to recognize that young African-American men are “disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence.” But using those statistics “to then see sons treated differently causes pain,” he said. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator. It was compelling talk for a president who avoids discussing race almost as much as he avoids discussing all those young African-American men shot down in Chicago every year in the street gang wars.
– President Obama's surprise comments yesterday on the George Zimmerman verdict—"Trayvon Martin could have been me"—continue to resonate today. Examples: New York Times editorial: It lavishes high praise on Obama for "laying bare his personal anguish and experience" to explain why black Americans were so frustrated by the acquittal. His important, eloquent words went beyond the specifics of the trial and "crystallized the dissonance around this case." It's great we have a president who can do that, but it's "sad that we still need him to do it." Jonathan Chait, New York: It was "instantly historic," he writes. "Obama understands that interjecting himself into a racialized controversy carries risks, but he also believes that the electorate of the future is on his side. His remarks are probably aimed not at the present but at posterity." John Kass, Chicago Tribune: All the people praising the speech are missing something, Kass argues. Obama "played the race card and they didn't see it coming. He attributed racial motive to a homicide even though the race angle was never established in court." His "silky rhetoric" helped him get away it—the president "bypassed the evidence and established his own motive. Only a maestro could accomplish this." Rich Benjamin, Salon: He calls the speech a "dramatic anti-climax," arguing that Obama didn't say anything "insightful or profound." But Benjamin, who is black, raised a ruckus when he compared Obama's response unfavorably to Eric Holder's "trenchant" remarks. "Some of us have an Inner Child. Others have an Inner Nigger. Is Holder the president’s conscience? Or his Inner Nigger?" The comment drew so much reaction that Benjamin later addressed the issue in his post, saying that he used the term "with deep understanding of its long, complicated existence." CBS has the full transcript of the president's remarks.