Attorney General Eric Holder recently described how he had been stopped twice, and his car searched, for no apparent reason on the New Jersey Turnpike. Here is the relevant section of his talk, delivered July 16, 2013 to the NAACP Convention:
[snip]
"Even as this convention proceeds, we are all mindful of the tragic and unnecessary shooting death of Trayvon Martin last year – in Sanford, just a short distance from here – and the state trial that reached its conclusion on Saturday evening. Today, I’d like to join President Obama in urging all Americans to recognize that – as he said – we are a nation of laws, and the jury has spoken. I know the NAACP and its members are deeply, and rightly, concerned about this case – as passionate civil rights leaders, as engaged citizens, and – most of all – as parents. This afternoon, I want to assure you of two things: I am concerned about this case and as we confirmed last spring, the Justice Department has an open investigation into it. While that inquiry is ongoing, I can promise that the Department of Justice will consider all available information before determining what action to take.
"Independent of the legal determination that will be made, I believe this tragedy provides yet another opportunity for our nation to speak honestly – and openly – about the complicated and emotionally-charged issues that this case has raised.
"Years ago, some of these same issues drove my father to sit down with me to have a conversation – which is no doubt familiar to many of you – about how as a young black man I should interact with the police, what to say, and how to conduct myself if I was ever stopped or confronted in a way I thought was unwarranted. I’m sure my father felt certain – at the time – that my parents’ generation would be the last that had to worry about such things for their children.
"Since those days, our country has indeed changed for the better. The fact that I stand before you as the 82nd Attorney General of the United States, serving in the Administration of our first African American President, proves that. Yet, for all the progress we’ve seen, recent events demonstrate that we still have much more work to do – and much further to go. The news of Trayvon Martin’s death last year, and the discussions that have taken place since then, reminded me of my father’s words so many years ago. And they brought me back to a number of experiences I had as a young man – when I was pulled over twice and my car searched on the New Jersey Turnpike when I’m sure I wasn’t speeding, or when I was stopped by a police officer while simply running to a catch a movie, at night in Georgetown, in Washington, D.C. I was at the time of that last incident a federal prosecutor.
"Trayvon’s death last spring caused me to sit down to have a conversation with my own 15 year old son, like my dad did with me. This was a father-son tradition I hoped would not need to be handed down. But as a father who loves his son and who is more knowing in the ways of the world, I had to do this to protect my boy. I am his father and it is my responsibility, not to burden him with the baggage of eras long gone, but to make him aware of the world he must still confront. This is a sad reality in a nation that is changing for the better in so many ways."
[snip]
You can read the full text of Mr. Holder’s July 16, 2013 speech here: http://goo.gl/pUmKl

New York Times, July 17, 2013

By John Eligon

University City, Mo. — Tracey Wolff never had a problem with her 19-year-old son’s individualism: his “crazy” hair and unshaven face. But this week, his look suddenly seemed more worrying.

When she thinks of Trayvon Martin and his cropped hair and smooth face, Ms. Wolff says, she wonders, “If that can happen to the clean-cut kid who looks like a good student, then what’s going to happen to my son, who dresses sloppy?” She is considering talking to him about reconsidering his look.

“I don’t want to tell him how to dress,” she added. “He’s a grown man; do what you want to do, but keep in mind these are the things going on.”

On cable news programs and in protests around the country, the acquittal of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Mr. Martin, an unarmed black teenager, in Sanford, Fla., has been fodder for an intellectual discussion on race and justice. But for many black residents, the verdict has spawned conversations far more personal and raw: discussions of sad pragmatism between parents and their children.

The intimacy of the Martin case for black Americans was drawn into the spotlight this week when Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said during an N.A.A.C.P. convention that he had had a conversation with his 15-year-old son about the case, much the way his father once counseled him about how to interact with the police.

Similar conversations are being held across the country, including here in this racially mixed St. Louis suburb.

On Wednesday afternoon, people of various races sat side by side in the cafes, restaurants and boutiques that line the town’s main road, blocks from Washington University. Longtime residents said racial tensions were not historically a problem in University City, where just over 50 percent of the residents are white and 41 percent are black. But some said the Martin case had rattled their sense of security.

Missouri, like many states, allows residents to carry concealed weapons with a permit. It also allows people to use deadly force in defense of their homes or vehicles without a duty to retreat. On Wednesday, fliers depicting a hoodie, the type of sweatshirt Mr. Martin wore on the night of his death, were taped to poles along the main road. They read, “No more dead youth no matter who’s holding the gun. One love.”

“They’re still showing racism is powerful and still alive,” Ashley Gaither, 22, said, referring to the acquittal of Mr. Zimmerman, who had said he was acting in self-defense. Speaking of her 3-year-old son, Isaiah, Ms. Gaither added: “It’s just sad. It’s already going to be hard for him being a young black male growing up.”

Her fiancé, Eddie Kirkwood, 24, said of their son, “I don’t want to let him walk to the store by himself, especially after that.”

The whole situation, added Ms. Gaither, a nurse’s assistant, “would just make me skeptical about what crowd of white people I put him around.”

Lesley Grice, 35, who was visiting a friend here but lives in Kirkwood, a St. Louis suburb that has a history of rocky race relations, said she had asked her 18-year-old son to stop wearing hoodies, a request that did not go over so well. “He’s like, ‘That’s what I like to wear,’ ” she said.

Ms. Grice, a housekeeper, said she had also told her son that when he was talking to adults, to keep his hands in place so it was clear that he was not reaching for anything.

Christian Hayes, 24, said he did not know what he would tell his 7-month-old twin sons about the Martin case when they were older. For now, he described a sense of being trapped in his own neighborhood. If someone were following him, he said, “I’m not going to run; I’m going to ask him what he’s following me for.” But, he added, “It just makes me feel like you can’t do nothing or go nowhere.”

As he walked down the street in rubber sandals on Wednesday afternoon, Rashaun Cohen, 17, said he carried himself differently since the shooting. His gray sweat shorts hung well past his knees, but he said he tended not to let his pants sag anymore. His mother also offered some advice, he said.

“Just, like, don’t walk into any neighborhood like I’m hard,” he said. “Just always be respectful and humble.”

Mr. Cohen, a high school junior, said Mr. Zimmerman’s acquittal was troubling because he believed that “it’s giving people the O.K. to do that.”

Shannon Merritt, 35, said the Martin case provided a larger teachable moment for her 19-year-old brother and 18-year-old son. One of the first things she did after the verdict, she said, was to tell her brother: “Please stay in school; just work, try not to be a statistic.”

Her daughter cried, Ms. Merritt said. Her daughter also became curious about the historic struggles blacks have faced in this country. They researched that topic and the uphill battle women have waged for rights like the freedom to vote.

“I’m going to help with the movement,” Ms. Merritt said her daughter told her.

© 2013 The New York Times

New York Times, July 18, 2013

By Sabrina Tavernise

The gap in life expectancy between black and white Americans is at its narrowest since the federal government started systematically tracking it in the 1930s, but a difference of nearly four years remains, and federal researchers have detailed why in a new report.

They found that higher rates of death from heart disease, cancer, homicide, diabetes and infant mortality accounted for more than half the black disadvantage in 2010, according to the report by the National Center for Health Statistics, the federal agency that tracks vital statistics for the United States.

Still, blacks have made notable gains in life expectancy in recent decades that demographers say reflect improvements in medical treatment as well as in the socioeconomic position of blacks in America. Life expectancy at birth was up by 17 percent since 1970, far higher than the 11 percent increase for whites over the same period.

Demographers credit declining rates of AIDS and homicide, which ravaged black neighborhoods in many American cities in the 1980s and ’90s, as well as reduced death rates from heart disease. Blacks, who have higher rates of heart disease, have benefited disproportionately from improved treatment of it, said Samuel Preston, a demographer and sociologist at the University of Pennsylvania. But there is still a lot of room for improvement, especially to prevent heart disease in blacks, experts said.

Life expectancy for blacks rose to 75 years in 2010, up from 64 years in 1970. For whites, it rose to 79 years from 72 years in the same period. In 1930, life expectancy stood at 48 for blacks and at 60 for whites.

Higher infant mortality among blacks also contributes to the gap, but less than it used to. The infant mortality rate for blacks fell by 16 percent from 2005 to 2011, compared with a 12 percent drop for whites, said Kenneth M. Johnson, a demographer at the University of New Hampshire.

Heart disease was the single biggest drag on black life expectancy, accounting for a full year of the 3.8-year difference between whites and blacks. The second-biggest factor was cancer, accounting for about eight months of the difference.

The report’s lead author, Kenneth D. Kochanek, said that 1994 was the last time his office published a report that focused on what was driving life expectancy disparities. At that time, researchers were exploring a surprising decline in life expectancy for blacks between 1984 and 1989 that was driven in part by AIDS and homicide among black men, and AIDS and diabetes among black women.

The new report analyzed data from 2010. Preliminary statistics for 2011 show that the gap has continued to narrow to 3.7 years.

Whites have suffered a setback in a category known as unintentional injuries, which includes the surge in prescription drug overdoses that has disproportionately affected whites since the 1990s.

Blacks also had lower death rates than whites from suicide, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, and respiratory diseases like emphysema, as well as chronic liver disease.

Sam Harper, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at McGill University in Montreal who has done extensive work on disparities in life expectancy, said some drivers of black disadvantage are preventable, like heart disease. Public health efforts should focus on reducing risk factors like smoking, poor diet and hypertension, he said.

Policy makers should also make sure that blacks are benefiting from improvements in medical treatments for cancer and heart disease, he said. “Redoubling our efforts on these two diseases would go a long way toward reducing the black-white life expectancy gap further.”

© 2013 The New York Times