The Mindset Which Killed Trayvon Martin:

I have four sons my eldest is now 26 years old, I guard­ed my sons like a Penguin guard it’s eggs, I nev­er acqui­esce to the argu­ment that moth­ers are more nur­tur­ing than men. I nur­ture my sons, I dis­ci­pline my sons, the two are not mutu­al­ly exclusive.

The Trayvon Martin cas­es com­menced in a Florida court-room today. I watched Tracey Martin use a piece of nap­kin to wipe tears from his eyes as pros­e­cu­tors and defense attor­neys talk about his son, nei­ther men knew Trayvon, yet they will explain to an all white female jury, who Trayvon Martin was. Some women from the very pool have expressed the view that George Zimmerman the defen­dant who killed Martin should go home because he is innocent.

One female juror referred to the peace­ful demon­stra­tion of inter­est­ed par­ties who demand­ed the arrest of Zimmerman as a riot.

Many argue women are kinder, gen­tler more con­sid­er­ate, so much for that, I guess they weren’t around for Margaret Thatcher, they have nev­er heard Michelle Bachman’s views, in essence race trumps gender.

Yet, despite all of this, Tracey Martin and Sabrina Fulton are forced to sit there and hope that the American crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem will do the right thing, the very jus­tice sys­tem which was unable to find a black man or woman , or a black judge to hear this case.

They will have to put their con­fi­dence in a sys­tem which did not arrest Zimmerman until there was nation­al out­cry and out­rage. One of the great­est chal­lenge fac­ing young black men in America is their exis­ten­tial fight for sur­vival. Interestingly the threat to their lives does not come from the Klu Kluk Klan as much any more, but from police offi­cers who see them as sus­pects sim­ply on the basis of being black.

It is an out­rage, the record­ings of George Zimmerman’s com­ments to the 911 dis­patch­er and what he mut­tered under his breadth, which the pros­e­cu­tor out­lined in open­ing argu­ments this morn­ing, goes to a deep­er mind­set among police in lit­er­al­ly ever cor­ner of America regard­ing young black men.

There are many who will argue that one of the great­est threats to young black men are, young black men, they will hear no argu­ments from me on that. However peo­ple should not live in fear of police offi­cers who are paid to pro­tect them.

Zimmerman was a vig­i­lante, he is a wannabe cop, like many who joined police depart­ments all over America, he had pre-con­ceived notions about cer­tain peo­ple. Even as Tracey and Sabrina are forced to sit and lis­ten to lying defense lawyers try to demo­nize their son, we must rec­og­nize the men­tal­i­ty which caused them to be sit­ting in that court-room.

It is a mind­set which sees young black men as sus­pects in their black skin.

Sheriff’s Deputies pulled young man over he had slight­ly dark­er than usu­al tint. Observe one cop still in the car , the kid had the dri­ver side win­dow down to speak to him , yet one cop is at the pas­sen­ger side win­dow demand­ing that he open that door, that amounts to a breach of this kids rights, it is an ille­gal search.

The young man is ordered out of his car and is lean­ing against the Patrol car with one cop talk­ing to him , he is bare­ly vis­i­ble, his view of what’s going on is blocked by the cop speak­ing to him while the first cop is now at the dri­ver’s side dig­ging through his car

Here’s one cop talk­ing to the young man now vis­i­ble, while the oth­er con­tin­ues to rum­mage through his car with­out his consent.

In the end what did they find? Nothing ille­gal, this whole episode hap­pened in my view as I clicked away, my doing so prob­a­bly saved him a whole lot of headache. As if the ille­gal search was not bad enough, they lost his Registration some­where between the seats in the vehi­cle they drove, they sim­ply shrugged and told him he will have to apply for another.

I saw him the next day he told me he called the Dutchess County Sheriff’s Office and was told that his reg­is­tra­tion was lost between the seats of the vehi­cle . They out­lined what it would take to retrieve it, and told him curt­ly, they were not about to do that. Just one more case of racial pro­fil­ing and egre­gious abuse by police offi­cers when it comes to young men of color.

There are nev­er any cries from Amnesty International, none from the Inter American com­mis­sion for human rights about these every-day occur­rences of abuse police vis­it on young African American and Latino dai­ly. They find them­selves in coun­tries like Jamaica where they grand­stand and pon­tif­i­cate about Human Rights