President Obama And Attorney General Eric Holder Speak Out On Trayvon Martin Killing

Holder pledged swift action. The ministers were pleased. “They seemed assured by the promise of a thorough and independent review, and the fact that this was something that the A.G. had personally focused on,” Holder said. The Rev. Calvin Butts III, pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City, was in the room. “We listened very closely,” he said. Holder’s statement “gave us a sense of relief that finally something was being done that was independent of the Sanford police and the state of Florida, which made us say, ‘Great!’?”

But the delicate nature of the administration’s handling of the case became apparent when Obama offered his own public comment on the subject, saying “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” His remark, which drew wide praise for humanizing the tragedy, was also pilloried by Newt Gingrich. “Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK, because it didn’t look like him? That’s just nonsense, dividing this country up.”

Getting the balance right has been a constant, and historic, challenge for both Holder and his boss. “Given who I am, I am acutely aware of our nation’s historical, and current, struggle with issues of racial injustice,” Holder says. But “I understand that my personal focus must also be a broad one. I am the attorney general of the United States and the concerns of the entirety of our nation must be, and are, my primary responsibility.”

Obama and Holder have been wrestling with that balance since their earliest days in office. They are both black men raised outside the African-American mainstream (Obama as the son of a white mother and an African father; Holder’s family comes from the West Indies). Both worked their way into the top tier of America’s professional and political elite. They have led lives committed to racial progress and yet are wary of being defined by the color of their skin. And they are both married to smart, principled women who are themselves the descendants of American slaves and who in some ways act as their husbands’ consciences on race. (The wives are also good friends; the first lady sometimes stops by for “pizza night” at the Holders’ home.)

Both men have also felt the searing pain of racism. In Dreams From My Father, Obama writes about the time a tennis pro told him not to touch the schedule of games pinned up on a bulletin board because his “color might rub off.” When Holder was a young Justice Department lawyer, he had his own brush with racial profiling; he was stopped by police while dashing to catch a movie in Georgetown. They shined a floodlight on him and asked him why he was running.

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