said why was he so afraid of trayvon martin? having these conversations is so important. you know, what occurs to me is when mr. canada and mr. blow speak so eloquently as other journalists have about the question of what shall i tell my black son? i would be very interested to know how many parents are saying what shall i say to my white son or white daughter about this world, and the fact that all of us have a role in it. and that we do not live in a race neutral world. we do not live in an innocent world, in any kind of way. so what it means to me is that if parents don t have the courage to have these kinds of conversations, then we ve got to bring them back into the classroom or in our churches, or in art.
do you feel that george zimmerman racially profiled trayvon martin? do you think race played a role in his decision, his view of trayvon martin as suspicious? i don t think he did. i just think circumstances caused george to think that he might be a robber or trying to do something bad in the neighborhood because of all that had gone on previously. there were unbelievable number of robberies in the neighborhood. so you don t believe race played a role in this case? i don t think it did. if there was another person, spanish, white, asian, if they came in the same situation where trayvon was, i think george would have reacted the exact same way. do you believe that? well, i watched the interview, anderson, and the biggest thing i took away from it, she never, ever saw sabrina
rights. even as the issue evolves, the theme stays constant. namely whether justice applies differently and is seen differently depending on skin color. race, justice, who we are as americans. it is an important conversation coming up with a distinguished voice is. first case that brought us here. no homicide could be called retain but at first the shooting that occurred on a late february night in a small town in central florida didn t make national headlines. what is your emergency, police fire or medical? an armed teenager was shot and killed by a volunteer
we cannot fault their verdict, and i don t believe it can be faulted based on race. this was a tough case. we felt it was compelling that george zimmerman got out of his car after profiling trayvon martin, followed him, and attempted to apprehend him. we felt we could prove it was not justifiable use of deadly force. we have to leave it there. i want to talk about sort of how we got here when we come back. the long history of race and justice in america and what the future holds as our 360 town hall continues. we ll be right back. this man is about to be the millionth customer. would you mind if i go ahead of you? instead we had someone go ahead of him and win fifty thousand dollars. congratulations you are our one millionth customer. nobody likes to miss out.
into the divisive issue of race. they said he criminally profiled trayvon martin. we don t know if george zimmerman is racist or not. we can try to look to his words and past actions, and i pray that is what the department of justice is going to do. but he criminally profiled trayvon and why? what was it about trayvon that made him a criminal or f -ing punk or a-hole? the conversation is evolving now, because this verdict, people are saying can people profile my child just walking home and follow and confront him? because the police can t do that. the united states supreme court says the police can t profile based on race. you said you believe racial profiling was part of this case, race was part of this case. yes. i think what s important here is that race was an element of his decision. in fact, when race did come into the arguments here, it was