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twotap
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_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Mon Jul 15, 2013 8:45 pm |
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00SL2
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Mon Jul 15, 2013 10:01 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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The parents of Trayvon and their unwillingness to accept the unfairness of their child's death was the difference!
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Trayvon Martin: how a teenager's death sparked a national debate
Issues of race and gun law came to the fore thanks to civil rights leaders, protests and the influence of social media
Ed Pilkington in New York and Richard Luscombe in Miami
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 13 July 2013 22.38 EDT
Trayvon Martin so nearly went to his grave unnoticed, his death barely recorded among the grim statistics of gun violence involving African American youths. Initially, after the 17-year-old was killed on 26 February 2012, as he was walking unarmed on a side street in a gated community in Sanford, central Florida, the incident attracted virtually no attention outside the local press.
But the determination of his parents, Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton, combined with the amplifying echo-chamber of social media, turned an hitherto unnoted death into a cause célèbre. Their call for the man who shot their son with a 9mm pistol, the then 28-year-old neighbourhood watch captain George Zimmerman, to be held accountable transformed the shooting into a litmus test of justice in America today. It put the country's proliferating "stand your ground" gun laws, racial profiling and discrimination against black young men – as well as police incompetence – in the dock.
On 8 March, Martin's parents launched a petition on change.org, complaining that Zimmerman had been released without charge and calling on the local district attorney to investigate. The petition went viral, attracting within days more than two million signatures, a record for the campaigns website.
In the wake of the petition, a storm gathered. Protests were staged across Florida and around America, the crowds sporting hoodies and eating Skittles sweets, just as the teenager had the evening he died. Those seasoned civil rights activists, the reverends Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, descended on Sanford, and the furore reached as high as the White House, where President Obama lamented that "If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon".
The billowing controversy put a spotlight on the state of law enforcement locally and nationally. Locally, the police chief handling the case, Bill Lee, came under pressure for having appeared to run a less than robust investigation into the shooting. Lee allowed Zimmerman to walk free, stating publicly that there was insufficient evidence to show he did not act in self-defence. Despite the efforts of the Sanford city authorities to protect him, Lee was forced out in June last year, by which time a special prosecutor had issued charges against Zimmerman.
Jesse Jackson at Trayvon Martin protest march Jesse Jackson, centre right, joins a protest march over the death of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. Photograph: David Manning/Reuters
Race aggravated the picture, with influential groups such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People calling for a review of the local police force's conduct, claiming that the investigation was racially-biased in a way that compounded the initial racial component of the teenager's death. Supporters of Zimmerman countered that he is Hispanic, and that race didn't come into it.
When the case came to trial, Zimmerman's defence team mounted a conventional argument of self defence and did not rely on the stand-your-ground provision in Florida law. But the shooting drew national attention to a plethora of such laws that have expanded the power of gun owners by extending their right not to retreat from a threat out of their homes and into public places. More than 20 states had adopted such laws, Florida among the first and most enthusiastically.
A Tampa Bay Times investigation found that of 200 cases in which Florida's stand your ground law was invoked, almost 70% of the accused had gone free. The accused were much more likely to face no penalty if a black person had been killed (73%) than if a white person had been killed (59%).
Of the incidents explored by the newspaper, almost a third involved defendants who initiated the fight, shot an unarmed person or pursued their victim – and still went unpunished. Some were released having shot their victims in the back.
As the shockwaves of the Trayvon Martin shooting reverberated far beyond Florida's shores, they caught off guard some very prominent entities – notably, the National Rifle Association, the nation's most powerful pro-gun lobby group, which has been a staunch advocate of stand your ground laws. The NRA's executive vice president, Wayne LaPierre, tried to deflect criticism from his own organisation by accusing the media of exaggerating what had happened in Sanford. "You don't care about the truth, and the truth is the national news media in this country is a national disgrace," he said.
But, for the first time in many years, the NRA was put on the defensive. It was a precursor, perhaps, for the battering the lobbying group was to face after the Newtown school shooting a few months later.
In the outcome, the trial of George Zimmerman for second-degree murder was largely stripped of many of these fundamental and searing elements. Lawyers spent three weeks appearing to tread carefully around the issues of race, the social backgrounds of the victim and defendant, and Florida's controversial gun laws. Some of that was court ordered. Judge Debra Nelson rejected a series of pre-trial motions from both sides, excluding certain evidence or descriptions from being introduced, such as photographs showing Martin apparently smoking marijuana, or any hint that Zimmerman had racially profiled the teenager.
But, overwhelmingly, the attorneys chose to make the trial legally and procedurally straightforward, relying on the evidence and conflicting statements of eyewitness and experts, especially the forensic analysis of Zimmerman's alleged injuries, to try to prove their points. What little emotion was on display came mostly outside the witness box, such as when Martin's parents walked out during particularly graphic testimony or when Zimmerman appeared to tear up when John Donnelly, a close friend, spoke of his dedication to the community in glowing terms.
That Zimmerman suspected Martin of being a criminal because he was black was never suggested in three weeks of testimony; Martin's size, weight, demeanour and attire – that now famous hooded top – were.
Likewise, the defence sought to portray Zimmerman's perceived guardianship of his gated community purely in terms of service to its residents, rather than masking any deep-seated or previously held resentment for suspicious outsiders
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Observers watching the trial in a vacuum would have seen a basic to-and-fro over the physical evidence and the issues of self-defence and the right to stand your ground. They would have been largely oblivious to the wider civil rights and social controversies surrounding it. |
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Tue Jul 16, 2013 10:32 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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JET Magazine Does Special Report on Missing Black Children
http://www.blackyouthproject.com/…g-black-children/10 Apr 2013... missing black children who are largely ignored and unreported by the media. The cover says it all: 'Missing & Black: Where Is The Outrage?'
Are Missing African American Children Ignored by the Media?
http://therickilakeshow.com/…n-Ignored-by-the-Media25 Sep 2012 ... 146,000 African American children are reported missing each year. But why aren' t they getting the same media attention? Derrica Wilson, a ...
Amir Jennings, Missing Boy, Neglected By Media Because He's A ...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…-girl_n_1868361.html8 Sep 2012 ... Amir Jennings Missing Black Boy ... Black Boy, Media Only Cares Missing White Girls, Missing Black Boys Ignored, Missing Black Kids Ignored, ...
Does media ignore missing minorities? | HLNtv.com
http://www.hlntv.com/…a-ignore-missing-minorities-020 Jan 2012 ... Every day, somebody goes missing in America … and many ... 'oh, it`s just that black kid again, and he`s gone some place, and they`ll find him ...
Has National Media Ignored Disappearance of Jahessye Shockley ...
http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/…a_ignored_dis.php21 Oct 2011 ... Has National Media Ignored Disappearance of Jahessye Shockley Because " She is a Little Black Kid?" By James King Fri., Oct. 21 2011 at ...
Why Missing People of Color Aren't a Media Priority | The Maynard ...
http://mije.org/…olor-aren%E2%80%99t-media-priority9 Feb 2012 ... Media outlets have traditionally devoted a disproportionate amount of ... while often ignoring minority women and other demographics, such ... A 2005 study by Scripps |
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Tue Jul 16, 2013 11:06 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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It makes a difference because this case puts a bulls eye on the back of every black male teen in America and especially in the south. It says that because of the color of your skin, you can be victimized and the perpetrator will suffer no consequences. It says that a young black man will be on trial instead of the man who killed him. It means that your life history can be hacked and your identify can be transformed to that of another who is older and has a violent history. It says that your plans to attend college will forever be overshadowed by the fact that you smoked marijuana.
For all young black males this means that a wannabe cop with a hard on for blacks can follow you, intimidate you and confront you and use he can get away with it because of race baiting.
The FBI data I printed on another link shows that whites commit hate crimes at a rate over twice that of blacks.
The sleepy town od Sanford did not anticipate that the more sophisticated parents of Trayvon Martin would launch an attack of the unfairness of this tragedy. Had the parents not been so strong, the case would have slithered into oblivion. Sometimes justice does not come or it comes at a price.
Even the attention brought to the absence of media coverage over missing black children has not changed anything. In some communities they get coverage, but even then t is disproportionate to the coverage of say the Smart girl I Utah. |
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Tue Jul 16, 2013 11:24 am |
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pan8
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Webs, please explain the absence of race hustlers sharpton and jackson when O.J. walked. Where were the unruly black or white mobs then?
Pan8 |
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Tue Jul 16, 2013 12:16 pm |
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twotap
F L I N T O I D
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| Where was Sally?? |
_________________
"If you like your current healthcare you can keep it, Period"!!
Barack Hussein Obama--- multiple times. |
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Tue Jul 16, 2013 12:24 pm |
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00SL2
F L I N T O I D
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The BLOG
Romany Malco
Actor
A Message to Trayvon Martin Sympathizers
Posted: 07/17/2013 2:37 pm
I haven't touched on the Trayvon Martin issue because race matters in this country are the paralysis of the American people. To constructively discuss Trayvon would require empathy, introspection and an understanding of America's social and economic history. This is why the open forums we have seen thus far seem to fuel more ignorance and bias than reasonable debate.
To be brutally honest, the only reason people are even aware of Trayvon Martin is because it became a topic within mainstream news and pop culture. Meaning: News directors saw it as a profitable, sensational story.
Hundreds of blacks
die annually in South Side Chicago without even a blurb. Trayvon isn't in the mainstream news for any reason other than ratings and profit. The news coverage on the Zimmerman case almost implies that the killing of this young black man is somehow an anomaly and I resent that.
In this country, if it isn't streamlined through mainstream media and pop culture, it doesn't seem to warrant national debate. Our "government" continues to wreak havoc on our civil liberties and there is little to no protest from the black community because of media diversion tactics that keep such pertinent issues out of mainstream media. But if Jay-Z or Rihanna were to make mention of it, we'd suddenly be jolted out of our sugar comas and protesting on freeways.
My point being, people are up in arms about Trayvon based on regurgitated pundits and manipulated facts aired to elicit emotion while fueling America's anger and division. That's how you boost ratings. No different from Piers Morgan's desperate rant over gun control when he knew his ratings were in the dumps. And from where I stand, anyone who still relies on corporate-owned media pundits to support an argument isn't equipped to offer worthwhile solutions.
People are using Trayvon Martin's death as an excuse to project their own deep-seated issues with racism and will not be capable of intelligent, empathetic debate until they've cooled down and afforded themselves an education.
Addressing Trayvon without first addressing the absence of critical thinking in our schools, the lack of introspection, the reasons for our low tolerance and our country's skewed value system does nothing more than create a sounding board for the ignorant. So rather than facilitate more racism outcry, I'd like to address young black people specifically.
I believe we lost that trial for Trayvon long before he was killed. Trayvon was doomed the moment ignorance became synonymous with young black America . We lost that case by using media outlets (music, movies, social media, etc.) as vehicles to perpetuate the same negative images and social issues that destroyed the black community in the first place. When we went on record glorifying violent crime and when we voted for a president we never thought to hold accountable. When we signed on to do reality shows that fed into the media's stereotypes of black men, we ingrained an image of Trayvon Martin so overwhelming that who he actually may have been didn't matter anymore.
Don't you find it peculiar that the same media outlets who have worked so diligently to galvanize the negative stigmas of black men in America are now airing open debates on improving the image of black males in American media? Do you honestly think CNN is using their competitive time slots for philanthropy?
"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." -
Rahm Emanuel
If we really wanted to ensure Trayvon Martin's killing was not in vain, we'd stop perpetuating negative images that are now synonymous with black men in America. We'd stop rapping about selling drugs and killing niggas. The next time we saw a man beating a woman, we'd call for help or break it up, but one thing we would not do is stand by with our cellphones out -- yelling WORLDSTAR! Instead of rewarding kids for memorization, we'd reward them for independent and critical thinking.
We'd spend less time subconsciously repeating lyrics about death and murder and more time understanding why we are so willing to twerk to songs that bemean women and boast of having things we cannot afford. We'd set examples of self-love for our youth by honoring our own hair, skin and eye color. We'd stop spending money on designer gear that we should be spending on our physical and psychological health. We'd seek information outside the corporate owned-media that manipulates us. We'd stop letting television babysit our kids and we'd quit regurgitating pundits we haven't come up with on our own.
Education, introspection, self-love and excellence are the only ways to overcome the wrath of ignorance. So before going back to popping molly and getting
Turnt Up,
I urge you to consider the implications of your actions. Your child's life may depend on it.
--
Follow Romany Malco on Twitter: www.twitter.com/romanymalco |
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Thu Jul 25, 2013 8:02 pm |
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