Barack Obama: "I Am Trayvon Martin."

President Obama made a surprise appearance at a White House press briefing to say some more about the Zimmerman-Trayvon Martin case. His intent seemed to be to explain and justify his own earlier comments about Trayvon Martin looking like his own son, which have appeared to some like an unwarranted interference in a case at law.

He argued that the rest of us must understand that blacks are “looking at it through a lens and a history.” “There are few African-American men in this country who haven't had the experience [of being watched] when they're shopping at a department store, and that includes me.”

The problem with all such appeals to the special experience of any group—including feminist claims that men “just don't get it”--is that it necessarily works both ways. If non-blacks cannot possibly understand how things appear to blacks, it follows that blacks cannot possibly understand how things appear to non-blacks. If men cannot possibly understand what it is like to be a woman, then women cannot possibly understand what it is like to be a man.

As it happens, I too have had the experience of being watched while I was shopping. Many times. I was at least once confronted and asked by a store clerk to open my bag to prove I had not shoplifted.

I doubt my experience is that different from others. I doubt I look much more like a criminal than average.

Obviously, Obama is totally unaware of this. If I were black, then, like Obama, I might blame it on racism. Not being black, I just shrug it off.

The moral: it is therefore impossible to appeal to any such “special experience” to justify what otherwise seems irrational or unjustifiable. The same rules must apply to blacks, Irish, Catholics, men and women. Nobody can claim special treatment because of supposed “special experience,” because nobody can really know whether their, or anyone else's, experience is special.