ColorofChange.org Targets GOP Over Trayvon Martin

Group wants RNC not to back candidates who say race didn’t factor into teen’s death.

When President Barack Obama was recently asked to comment on the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, his response seemed rather uncontroversial.

“You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon,” Obama replied.

But rivals such as Newt Gingrich attacked the president for making that remark, accusing him of playing up racial divisions between Americans. Gingrich said, “What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful. It’s not a question of who that young man looked like.”

Rick Santorum weighed in as well, remarking that president was trying to “drive a wedge in America.”

Now the political group ColorofChange.org is taking Republicans such as Gingrich and Rick Santorum to task for suggesting that race didn’t play into the teen’s death.

The organization has launched a petition asking the Republican National Committee to withdraw support from any GOP candidate who dismissed the role that racism played in Trayvon Martin’s Feb. 26 murder by a neighborhood watch captain who spotted the black youth and thought he looked suspicious.

“There is no doubt that Trayvon — a 17-year-old boy armed only with Skittles and iced tea — was considered ‘suspicious’ and subsequently killed because of the color of his skin,” ColorofChange said in a statement. “We have reached a critical moment. Americans of all walks of life are talking openly and honestly about racial profiling, targeting and the dehumanization of Black boys and men. We can’t stand by while politicians who claim to want to lead all Americans play dumb and deny the racial realities surrounding Trayvon’s death.”

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The group says that if the RNC refuses, it will send a clear message that it’s unconcerned with one of the most pressing concerns of Americans: race relations.