“Enemies Of The State”: How Do We Prevent The Death Of The Next Trayvon Martin?
Say what you will about the jury’s decision to acquit George Zimmerman, the fact remains that Trayvon Martin, an unarmed, 17-year-old teenager, is dead. He was doing what many teen boys do every day — buying candy from a 7-Eleven — before he was shot by a 28-year-old adult in a gated community.
Martin is not the first unarmed young black man to be shot dead, and, sadly, he almost certainly won’t be the last. The Zimmerman trial coincided with the release of Fruitvale Station, a film based on the 2009 shooting of Oscar Grant, an unarmed 22-year-old who was hand-cuffed, face-down, when an Oakland transit agency police officer pulled out his gun and killed him.
Zimmerman will serve no jail time, and could even get the handgun he used in the shooting back from authorities. Johannes Mehserle, the officer who shot Grant, was found guilty of involuntary manslaughter, served 11 months in prison, and is out on parole.
In the wake of the Zimmerman verdict, President Obama released a statement saying, “We should ask ourselves, as individuals and as a society, how we can prevent future tragedies like this.”
So how, exactly, can we do that?
Certainly, gun laws are a factor. Progressives have pointed to Florida’s expansive Stand Your Ground laws, which allow you to shoot somebody on public property if you reasonably feel at risk of death or bodily harm, a vague standard prosecutors have complained has made it harder to put armed perpetrators behind bars.
“Effectively, I can bait you into a fight and if I start losing I can can legally kill you, provided I ‘believe’ myself to be subject to ‘great bodily harm,'” writes The Atlantic‘s Ta-Nehisi Coates. “It is then the state’s job to prove — beyond a reasonable doubt — that I either did not actually fear for my life, or my fear was unreasonable.”
Proving that Zimmerman’s fear was unreasonable was difficult because the only other witness, Martin, was dead. Using fear of bodily harm as a legal justification for shooting someone is also tricky in a country where a certain portion of the population believes that young black men are dangerous.
“It is a complicated thing to be young, black, and male in America,” writes Gawker‘s Cord Jefferson, adding:
Not only are you well aware that many people are afraid of you — you can see them clutching their purses or stiffening in their subway seats when you sit across from them — you must also remain conscious of the fact that people expect you to be apologetic for their fear.
If you’re a black man and you don’t remain vigilant of and obsequious to white people’s panic in your presence …. then you must be prepared to be arrested, be beaten, be shot through the heart and lung and die on the way home to watch a basketball game with your family. [Gawker]
The simple, terrible truth is that while gun laws can be changed, people’s attitudes on race are a different matter. Clutching a purse tightly when a young black man enters the subway isn’t illegal, nor should it be. But the culture of fear it’s indicative of has very real consequences.
“As much as I have written and advocated for reducing the number of and access to guns, it wasn’t just the gun in Zimmerman’s hand that shot Trayvon,” writes The Nation‘s Mychal Denzel Smith. “It was a historic rendering of black men as enemies of the state, menaces to society, threats to the American way of life, that caused Trayvon to lose his life that day. How do you legislate against that?”
By: Keith Wagstaff, The Week, July 15, 2013
“Wake The Hell Up”: Did George Zimmerman Get Away With Murder?
Four words of advice for African-Americans in the wake of George Zimmerman’s acquittal:
Wake the hell up.
The Sunday after Zimmerman went free was a day of protest for many of us. From Biscayne Boulevard in Miami to Leimert Park in Los Angeles, to the Daley Center in Chicago to Times Square in New York City, African-Americans — and others who believe in racial justice — carried out angry, but mostly peaceful, demonstrations.
Good. This is as it should have been.
But if that’s the end, if you just get it out of your system, then move ahead with business as usual, then all you did Sunday was waste your time. You might as well have stayed home.
We are living in a perilous era for African-American freedom. The parallels to other eras have become too stark to ignore.
Every period of African-American advance has always been met by a crushing period of pushback, the crafting of laws and the use of violence with the intent of eroding the new freedoms. Look it up:
The 13th Amendment ended slavery. So the white South created a convict leasing system that was actually harsher.
The 14th Amendment guaranteed citizenship. So the white South rendered that citizenship meaningless with the imposition of Jim Crow laws.
The 15th Amendment gave us the right to vote; it was taken away by the so-called “grandfather clause.” The Supreme Court struck that down, so the white South relied on literacy tests and poll taxes to snatch our ballots all over again.
Our history is a litany: two steps forward, one step back.
The civil rights movement was the greatest step forward since emancipation. So we ought not be surprised to see voting rights eroded again, the Civil Rights Act attacked, the so-called “war on drugs” used for the mass incarceration of black men. Or to see the killing of an unarmed child deliver a message as old as the Constitution itself: Black life is worth less.
We are in another period of pushback. And worse, we don’t even seem to know.
It feels as if we have taken the great advances of the last half-century — the protective laws, the rise of the black middle class, the winning of the ballot, the flowering of options once considered unthinkable — for granted. It feels as if we have come to regard progress as somehow inevitable, preordained, carved in stone and irrevocable as a birthright.
So yes, we need to wake the hell up.
While we were celebrating, others were calculating.
While we were writing nasty rap lyrics, they were writing senators.
While we were organizing Obama victory parties, they were organizing Tea Parties.
While we were buying DVDs, they were buying candidates.
While we were sending texts, they were building propaganda machinery.
While we were resting on the past, they were seizing the future.
Granted, the preceding casts a wide net. Yes, there are many of us, African-Americans and others, who don’t need the admonition, who are already awake, who have always been awake. More power to them.
But there are also many of us still sleeping. So let Trayvon Martin’s death and the acquittal of his killer be a wake-up call. Let it be a spur to stop reacting and start pro-acting. Let it be a goad to become better informed. Let it be a reminder to organize. Let it be a reason to send a check to the NAACP. Let it be an incentive to join the social justice ministry at church. Let it be cause to write your congressperson. Let it be an impetus to teach and nurture your kids.
Most of all, let it be an alarm clock, ringing in the darkness of a new morning, calling conscience to account. Do not waste this moment. The time for sleeping is done.
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., The National Memo, July 17, 2013
“Doomed To Fail”: When Tea Partiers Try To Show Their “Diversity”
Judging from the matching red t-shirts, bottled water, snack stands, and cover band playing a passable version of Marvin Gaye’s classic, “What’s Going On?”, you wouldn’t be wrong to assume there was a large and elaborate family reunion yesterday, held on the Capitol. But, in fact, it was a rally—organized by the Black American Leadership Alliance, a right-wing group with ties to white nationalists—to oppose the comprehensive immigration bill that has passed the Senate, and is fighting to survive in the House of Representatives.
Two things stood out about the event. First, even in the shade—and even with fans placed strategically around the area—it was hot. I would say it was too hot to be outside in the first place, but obviously, several hundred people disagreed with me. Or at least, opposed immigration reform enough to tolerate the conditions. And second, despite its organizers and its speakers—who were predominantly African American—the large bulk of the crowd was white. At best, there were a smattering of black faces, located at the edges of the group, seated away from the core of the gathering. Most of these faces were male, and like almost everyone there, they traveled from other parts of the country to join this demonstration.
Troy Warren is an unemployed graduate of the University of Wisconsin who came from Los Angeles, California, where he’s lived for the last seventeen years who says that immigration reform is an attempt to take jobs from blacks, and leave them impoverished. Indeed, he’s angry at the idea that African Americans won’t work the same jobs as “Mexicans.” “Look around,” he said, gesturing to the surrounding buildings, “We built this. The slaves. And if we built this, how can we not have the knowledge to work?”
(It’s worth pointing out that, at this point, he struck the drum on his shoulder, to emphasize the question.)
As for politics beyond immigration? When I asked if he liked President Obama, Warren said yes. “Yeah, I’m an Obama supporter. And I think he’s a good example. But he hasn’t done much for black people.”
This is what separated the black attendees from their white counterparts. While the white demonstrators were nearly unanimous in their disdain for President Obama—carrying signs slamming the president for Benghazi and allowing “amnesty”—the African American demonstrators ranged from careful ambivalence about the president, to outright support.
“I love President Obama,” said Gerald Pitts, founder of the “Milllennium Panthers,” an all-black anti-immigration group based out of LA, “I love the First Lady. I love their children. We support the president, completely. And if you fuck with him, I’ll protect him. I’ll be his top security.”
Dressed in military-esque gear, he waved his anti-immigration signs as he explained his stance. “If I did something illegally as a black man, I would be locked up. It’s a double standard,” Pitts said. “I’m a man of God, and I can’t have racism, sexism, or any kind of prejudice in my heart. But the law is the law.”
If there’s one thing that stood out about Warren, Pitts, and others, it was that their opposition to immigration reform—and their conservatism—had more to do with a kind of black nationalism than it did with any actual adherence to Tea Party ideology. Take Kenniss, a middle-aged woman who, in the precise voice of a grammar school teacher (she declined to tell me her occupation), took issue with the idea that all Americans were immigrants. “No African, living in their homeland begged for an opportunity to come here and work as free labor. Still, we were the basis for building this country.” Kenniss’ opposition to immigration reform had less to do with the identity of the immigrants (though she saw a double standard in the treatment of Latino immigrants versus Haitian ones), and everything to do with the idea that it was unfair. If anyone should receive assistance from the government—which, by and large, is how she saw reform—it should be the descendants of slaves.
As for the white attendees? They were there to oppose immigration reform, oppose Obama, and—yes—show their concern for black unemployment. “Adding more workers is irrational,” said Staci, a young single mother from Birmingham, Alabama, “Immigration reform will threaten jobs for black Americans, my children, and every American.” She was disappointed with the president, both for his policies, and for—as she saw it—squandering an opportunity to “bring the races together.” Instead, she said, citing Obama’s decision to get involved in the Trayvon Martin controversy last year, “he’s done the most damage of any president to race relations.”
This comment points to something important. In addition to voicing opposition to the “Gang of Eight” bill, it seems that the goal of this event was to show—loudly—that the Tea Party is as diverse as it claims. Most of the speakers were conservative African American activists, who mixed their attacks on immigration with post-racial red meat—“We’re not African Americans, we’re Americans,” said Ted Hayes, an L.A.-based black Republican—and odd call outs to black culture. Hayes, for instance, ended his speech with a nod to Flavor Flav. “Yeeaaah boyeeee!”, he yelled, which was followed by a crowd-driven chant of “USA, USA, USA!”
Of all the speakers, however, the crowd was most enthusiastic for Texas senator Ted Cruz, who didn’t deviate from his typical approach of broad condemnation for the federal government. But for as much as attendees appreciated the display, all it did was emphasize the extent to which, outside of immigration, there’s not much that could plausibly connect the interests of black Americans to anti-government conservatives.
Indeed, if this rally was meant as a pitch to black voters—to enlist them in the fight against immigration reform—then, from conception to execution, it was doomed to fail. “I voted for Obama both times,” said Pitts, the man who also urged “anchor babies” to go back to their “home country.”
When it comes to black people, that—in a nutshell—is the Tea Party’s problem.
By: Jamelle Bouie, The American Prospect, July 16, 2013
“The Politics Around Dark Bodies”: The Whole System, Moral And Legal, Failed Trayvon Martin
In a way, the not-guilty verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman for his killing of Trayvon Martin was more powerful than a guilty verdict could ever have been. It was the perfect wrenching coda to a story that illustrates just how utterly and completely our system of justice — both moral and legal — failed Martin and his family.
This is not to dispute the jury’s finding — one can intellectually rationalize the decision — as much as it is to howl at the moon, to yearn for a brighter reality for the politics around dark bodies, to raise a voice and say, this case is a rallying call, not a death dirge.
The system began to fail Martin long before that night.
The system failed him when Florida’s self-defense laws were written, allowing an aggressor to claim self-defense in the middle of an altercation — and to use deadly force in that defense — with no culpability for his role in the events that led to that point.
The system failed him because of the disproportionate force that he and the neighborhood watchman could legally bring to the altercation — Zimmerman could legally carry a concealed firearm, while Martin, who was only 17, could not.
The system failed him when the neighborhood watchman grafted on stereotypes the moment he saw him, ascribing motive and behavior and intent and criminal history to a boy who was just walking home.
The system failed him when the bullet ripped through his chest, and the man who shot him said he mounted him and stretched his arms out wide, preventing him from even clutching the spot that hurt.
The system failed him in those moments just after he was shot when he was surely aware that he was about to die, but before life’s light fully passed from his body — and no one came to comfort him or try to save him.
The system failed him when the slapdash Sanford police did a horrible job of collecting and preserving evidence.
The system failed him when those officers apparently didn’t even value his dead body enough to adequately canvass the complex to make sure that no one was missing a teen.
The system failed him when he was labeled a John Doe and his lifeless body spent the night alone and unclaimed.
The system failed him when the man who the police found standing over the body of a dead teenager, a man who admitted to shooting him and still had the weapon, was taken in for questioning and then allowed to walk out of the precinct without an arrest or even a charge, to go home after taking a life and take to his bed.
The system failed him when it took more than 40 days and an outpouring of national outrage to get an arrest.
The system failed him when a strangely homogenous jury — who may well have been Zimmerman’s peers but were certainly not the peers of the teenager, who was in effect being tried in absentia — was seated.
The system failed him when the prosecution put on a case for the Martin family that many court-watchers found wanting.
The system failed him when the discussion about bias became so reductive as to be either-or rather than about situational fluidity and the possibility of varying responses to varying levels of perceived threat.
The system failed him when everyone in the courtroom raised racial bias in roundabout ways, but almost never directly — for example, when the defense held up a picture of a shirtless Martin and told the jurors that this was the person Zimmerman encountered the night he shot him. But in fact it was not the way Zimmerman had seen Martin. Consciously or subconsciously, the defense played on an old racial trope: asking the all-female jury — mostly white — to fear the image of the glistening black buck, as Zimmerman had.
This case is not about an extraordinary death of an extraordinary person. Unfortunately, in America, people are lost to gun violence every day. Many of them look like Martin and have parents who presumably grieve for them. This case is about extraordinary inequality in the presumption of innocence and the application of justice: why was Martin deemed suspicious and why was his killer allowed to go home?
Sometimes people just need a focal point. Sometimes that focal point becomes a breaking point.
The idea of universal suspicion without individual evidence is what Americans find abhorrent and what black men in America must constantly fight. It is pervasive in policing policies — like stop-and-frisk, and in this case neighborhood watch — regardless of the collateral damage done to the majority of innocents. It’s like burning down a house to rid it of mice.
As a parent, particularly a parent of black teenage boys, I am left with the question, “Now, what do I tell my boys?”
We used to say not to run in public because that might be seen as suspicious, like they’d stolen something. But according to Zimmerman, Martin drew his suspicion at least in part because he was walking too slowly.
So what do I tell my boys now? At what precise pace should a black man walk to avoid suspicion?
And can they ever stop walking away, or running away, and simply stand their ground? Can they become righteously indignant without being fatally wounded?
Is there anyplace safe enough, or any cargo innocent enough, for a black man in this country? Martin was where he was supposed to be — in a gated community — carrying candy and a canned drink.
The whole system failed Martin. What prevents it from failing my children, or yours?
I feel that I must tell my boys that, but I can’t. It’s stuck in my throat. It’s an impossibly heartbreaking conversation to have. So, I sit and watch in silence, and occasionally mouth the word, “breathe,” because I keep forgetting to.
By: Charles M. Blow, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, July 15, 2013
“A New Low Even For Lawyers”: Defense Attorney Don West Gives A Despicable Reaction To The Zimmerman Verdict
It was clear from the start that whatever happened in the George Zimmerman case would produce a strong reaction – especially if, as happened, Zimmerman was found not guilty. And one would hope that in the midst of all of the heavy emotion and tragedy of the case, a dialogue would ensue over race relations, over the vastly different experiences of adult white men and black teenagers wearing hoodies, and over what makes us afraid and how we’re allowed to react to that fear. There have been some insightful and impressively soothing statements and behavior from people – President Obama’s pitch-perfect statement, for example, and Trayvon Martin’s own parents spending the day after the verdict in church, urging peace and calm.
The word “despicable” is not part of that dialogue – especially when it is uttered not only by an attorney arguing the case, but by one of the defense attorneys.
Lawyer Don West – who distinguished himself early on by opening his defense arguments with a wildly inappropriate knock-knock joke – told the Orlando Sun Sentinel after the verdict:
I think the prosecution of George Zimmerman was despicable. I’m glad this jury kept this tragedy from being a travesty.
This is the sort of talk one expects to find on Twitter or on some anonymous comments section on a newspaper website. This is not the sort of remark to be made by someone who is ostensibly committed to the criminal justice system.
Trayvon Martin was 17 years old, unarmed, and on his way back home after picking up candy and iced tea at the market. Now he is dead, and the person who shot him is on record having spotted Martin, declared him as a kid up to no good, gotten out of his car and shot him dead. The facts of what happened are somewhat murky, in part because Zimmerman gave conflicting accounts, and in part because the only other witness to the episode is in a grave.
Even if, as the jury found, Zimmerman rightly felt in danger of death or grievous bodily harm, Martin’s death was a horrible tragedy. Florida law gives wide latitude to people claiming self-defense, and the jury was required to listen to the facts and decide whether the prosecution had proven, without a reasonable doubt, that Zimmerman did not feel in danger. That’s a hard standard to reach, so as distressing as the not guilty verdict is to many people, it’s an understandable conclusion.
But the idea that there was something offensive about even prosecuting Zimmerman, about putting him through the stress of a trial after taking the life of an unarmed boy, is stunning. West’s self-righteous comment suggests that Zimmerman was the victim here, and that his insistence – despite his behavior and conflicting statements – that he killed someone only because there was no other way to protect himself is not just disrespectful to the dead boy. It’s disrespectful to the criminal justice system. It is, arguably, despicable.
By: Susan Milligan, U. S. News and World Report, July 15, 2013
Share This Blog
Unknown Feed- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
mykeystrokes.com 