The point president Obama made was not about whatever Trayvonn did before that night, but the events of that night.
The fact remains that black males in our society are treated with a higher degree of suspicison than anyone else. Right or wrong, justifiable or not, a young black male is regarded as a threat by some people for the sole fact of the color of his skin. This is reality. It doesn't matter if you are a thug or a student in Harvard, you get treated as a possible criminal at times. Not all the time, not by everybody, but enough where it is a common shared experience by black males in the United States. So was Obama ever followed in a store, or had doors lock when he came by or whatever? Yah.. So in that sense he was in same position Trayvonn was in. Did he make the poor choices tm did? No, but the initial situation was the same
So, what I heard is the president trying to articulate why black people are so upset about this. I think that's an important thing to do.