IT’S ABOUT “HATE” NOT STAND YOUR GROUND !

The not guilty ver­dict in the mur­der of 17 year-old Trayvon Martin ‚ignit­ed a spark in the nation . I hope it will burn into a flame which will light a brush-fire of con­scious­ness in the way African-Americans see them­selves in America.

The par­ents of Trayvon have vowed to ensure their son’s life will be a cat­a­lyst of change for the African-American com­mu­ni­ty. Many point to the class and grace with which Tracy Martin and Sabrina Fulton has han­dled them­selves hav­ing lost their son in that man­ner. This cou­ple is bet­ter than me, giv­en sim­i­lar cir­cum­stances those would not be the adjec­tives used to describe me.

The death of Martin has sparked a debate about “stand your ground laws” in Florida and oth­er states, in some states they are actu­al­ly called “make my day laws” obvi­ous­ly ref­er­enc­ing the old Clint Eastwood movie line. Black lead­er­ship has latched onto “stand your ground” laws, as the rea­son George Zimmerman saw fit to pro­file and even­tu­al­ly kill Young Trayvon Martin.

Even as they argue among them­selves, there are oth­er cas­es which are just as egre­gious as the Trayvon Martin case, which are not gar­ner­ing sim­i­lar nation­al attention.

Jordan Davis:

Jordan Davis, an unarmed black teen the same age as Trayvon Martin. Davis, 17, was shot to death by Michael Dunn.Dunn told police that he asked Davis and three oth­er teens, who were parked next to him at a gas sta­tion, to turn down their music. Dunn claims he heard threats from the teens and saw a gun in their car. He says he feared for his own safe­ty, and that’s why he grabbed his gun and fired into the vehi­cle. Police say they found no guns inside the teens’ vehi­cle and that Dunn fired his gun eight or nine times.

A Port St. Joe, Florida man arrest­ed for shoot­ing his neigh­bor in the face alleged­ly admit­ted his crime to police, with a strange excuse.
Walter Henry Butler, 59, was arrest­ed by Gulf County Sheriffs deputies after shoot­ing Everett Gant, who is black. Gant was shot in the face after he con­front­ed Butler about using racial slurs to address chil­dren liv­ing in the apart­ment com­plex where the two men reside.Deputies said Butler admit­ted to shoot­ing the vic­tim, and even called 911 him­self to report it, after which he report­ed­ly went back to cook­ing his din­ner. According to reports, offi­cers on the scene said Butler seemed annoyed by the arrest and told offi­cers, “I only shot a ni — r.Butler was charged with attempt­ed mur­der and a hate crime. He is being held at the Gulf County Jail. Gant is said to be in sta­ble con­di­tion and is expect­ed to survive.

These are just two oth­er cas­es in the state of Florida, where dead­ly force has been used against African-Americans, by non-blacks. Where is the evi­dence that these shoot­ings and the accom­pa­ny­ing nar­ra­tive has any­thing to do with stand your ground laws? The African-American com­mu­ni­ty as always, is chas­ing after the pen­nies while the dol­lars flut­ter away.

There were no stand your ground laws dur­ing the civ­il rights wars of the six­ties, it was­n’t stand your ground laws which killed Emit Till, It was­n’t stand your ground laws which killed Doctor King, or Malcolm X.

HATE DID !

There is pal­pa­ble and overt hate com­ing out of the Political Right toward African-Americans, this is noth­ing new. It became more ampli­fied after Barack Obama was elect­ed President. The expressed and implied hatred they have for Barack Obama has been trans­ferred to peo­ple of col­or in America, and more so to African-Americans. The Republican right has decid­ed that it will not embrace a pol­i­cy of inclu­sion. They have employed a scorched earth pol­i­cy toward peo­ple whom they char­ac­ter­ize as “oth­er”.

Pundits and talk­ing heads argue that includes all non whites, I dis­agree. The Republican hate machine has gone after every demo­graph­ic which formed Barack Obama;s coali­tion. They went after women who vot­ed over­whelm­ing­ly for Obama with restric­tive laws at the state lev­els, lim­it­ing a wom­an’s abil­i­ty to chose or decide how she han­dles her repro­duc­tive rights.

They went after African-Americans with laws designed to sup­press and nul­li­fy their vote, with the help of the United States Supreme Court, which sav­aged the vot­ing rights act for absolute­ly no rea­son. This is not all they also have passed laws designed to lock-up and keep black men in prison. They have attacked blacks with food stamps, hous­ing, and in oth­er ways.

They have gone after Immigrants by erect­ing a cost­ly and pre­vi­ous­ly Un-American fence on the Nation’s south­ern bor­der, bely­ing every­thing America once stood for. They fol­lowed that up with refus­ing to help Obama pass a Comprehensive Immigration Bill which would allow the esti­mat­ed 15 mil­lion peo­ple liv­ing in the shad­ows, unable to ful­ly par­tic­i­pate in the American economy.

Immigrants made America great, fresh ideas, ener­gy, and ide­al­ism is what made America. They went after young peo­ple by refus­ing to low­er inter­ests on stu­dent loans. Many of the dam­age done by Republicans at the state lev­el are done because Democrats refuse to go out and vote in off-year elec­tions as well as ger­ry­man­dered con­gres­sion­al dis­tricts which wiped out Democratic dis­tricts and heav­i­ly padded oth­ers with white Republicans.

Republican strat­e­gy for deal­ing with their shrink­ing white-male base is to sup­press the black vote, toss out Immigrants put women back in the kitchen and lock up every­one else. They fun­da­men­tal­ly believe they do not have to com­pete for every­one’s vote, if they can pull of the aforementioned.

They do not want a mul­ti-cul­tur­al coun­try. Ever since Obama was elect­ed President they have been on a cru­sade to quote:” take their coun­try back”.

They believe they do not need to reach out to racial minori­ties. They fun­da­men­tal­ly believe in build­ing and main­tain­ing a homo­ge­neous white soci­ety. If you have any doubt, watch FOX tele­vi­sion or lis­ten to to right-wing talk radio.

What black America is expe­ri­enc­ing is hate, not just Barack Obama the man, but for Barack Obama the black-man who occu­py the most sacred place they believed impreg­nable, the last bas­tion of white exclu­siv­i­ty, the epit­o­me of white accom­plish­ment and suprema­cy, this is the back-lash.

Reuters pho­to:

The killing of African-Americans occur dai­ly. Police do it using laws and poli­cies that are inher­ent­ly slant­ed against blacks. The courts do not con­vict them, in may cas­es they are not even pros­e­cut­ed. School dis­tricts do it.

African-American kids are locked up when in sim­i­lar sit­u­a­tions white chil­dren are sent to the prin­ci­pal. Blacks are arrest­ed and pros­e­cut­ed dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly more than whites for sim­i­lar offences.

When con­vict­ed for a crime blacks receive much more severe prison sen­tences than whites who com­mit sim­i­lar offences. Police offi­cers are much more like­ly to employ force, to include dead­ly force against blacks when they inter­act with them. In fact they approach black men afraid , tense and pre­pared to use force. In many cas­es they esca­late sim­ple sit­u­a­tions that nev­er war­rant­ed force , just so they may employ force with African-American men.

In many instance police depart­ments are more dan­ger­ous to black men than the Klan ever was. How do you defend your­self against some­one who come in the name of the law? The killing of Trayvon Martin did not hap­pen because of stand your ground laws, it hap­pened because of hatred.

The Black com­mu­ni­ty has failed dis­mal­ly it has fed into every stereo­typ­i­cal box they have been placed in.

(1 Refusing to get edu­cat­ed, going to school , mak­ing sure their kids are being edu­cat­ed properly.(2 Refusing to read , not stay­ing con­ver­sant with the issues.
(3 Not vot­ing in their num­bers, and with the fre­quen­cy they should.
(4 Not sav­ing and invest­ing in their chil­dren’s future.
(5 Not sup­port­ing busi­ness­es that have own­ers who look like them.
(6 Not build­ing and main­tain­ing com­mu­ni­ty Organizations to ser­vice their needs.
(7 Not sup­port­ing each other.
(8 Spending their hard earned cash on com­pa­nies with own­ers open­ly hos­tile to them.
(9 Allowing them­selves to be divid­ed and used against their own, in the fur­ther­ance of the agen­da of others.
(10 Committing crimes and then blam­ing oth­ers for putting them in jail.

Over fifty years after the strug­gles of the 60’s and the death of Dr. King and oth­er stal­warts, blacks have squan­dered the gains made on the blood of our heroes. Many are so stu­pid they allow their ene­mies to tell they who their lead­ers should be, they allow oth­ers to use them to tear down those ded­i­cat­ed to their up-liftment.

After awhile we will have no one to blame , that time is here.