While I’m sure that no one has been wondering where Dana Perino stands on race, her appearance on ABC’s “This Week” made it loud and clear. In a discussion about President Obama's remarks last week about race and Trayvon Martin, she responded to correspondent Pierre Thomas's explanation of the feelings of African Americans in the aftermath of the George Zimmerman trial by criticizing Obama for not talking about a white thirteen month-old who was killed by black muggers.
From the Roundtable on yesterday's This Week:
THOMAS: Many African Americans believe that they won’t get the benefit of a doubt if they use "Stand Your Ground" on their behalf, and they believe, in this case that Trayvon Martin would not have had an opportunity to stand his ground. And, look - you can talk about this all you want - race permiated that case. And many African-Americans feel like, that Trayvon Martin did not get justice. And you can say that the system worked properly, and everyone’s talking that way, but you have a significant part of American society, that being the African American community, that feels like it failed.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And this gets to the heart of the problem. Dana Perino, a whole lot of other Americans look at it and say it worked exactly like it was supposed to work.
PERINO: Well, the other thing that I think they have to be careful about, is that the FBI has already looked into it. They actually looked into George Zimmerman, and they gave a full report to the state prosecution saying that we can find no instance of any sort of racial undertones of George Zimmerman. Maybe they’ll find something else as they turn over more things, I don’t know what else they could find.
Also, I think that when I president speaks, it’s to multiple audiences. So, from the prism of self defense: If you think of the young mother whose 2-year-old son was shot in the face by the two black teens that approached her in Atlanta and that baby has died, why do presidents choose to speak about one case and not the other? That’s why it’s better maybe not to talk about any of them. They chose to talk about this one. I do think that the president was signaling ‘We’re going to have to move on.’ Good luck on (repealing) "Stand Your Ground."
As Raw Story’s David Edwards wrote, Perino was probably talking about this case, in which a woman’s 13-month-old son was shot and killed by a mugger.
In contrast to the Martin killing, 17-year-old De’Marquise Elkins and 15-year-old Dominique Lang were charged with first-degree murder about a day after the crime. And the 13-month-old victim in the Georgia case was never profiled as criminal and blamed for his own death. (our emphasis)
In fact, there’s little comparison between the two cases. But we know what Perino was getting at. She was emulating her Fox News colleagues by whitesplaining to African Americans (including our president) that they should be criticizing themselves, and not George Zimmerman, for racial profiling and crimes against blacks.
Yep…no disparity there