White People, You Will Never Look Suspicious Like Trayvon Martin
White People, You Will Never Look Suspicious Like Trayvon Martin
I will never look suspicious to you. Even if I have a black hoodie, a pair of jeans and white sneakers on...in fact, that is what I wore yesterday...I still will never look suspicious. No matter how much the hoodie covers my face or how baggie my jeans are, I will never look out of place to you. I will never watch a taxi cab pass me by to pick someone else up. I will never witness someone clutch their purse tightly against their body as they walk by me. I won't have to worry about a police car following me for two miles, so they can "run my plates." I will never have to pay before I eat. And I certainly will never get "stopped and frisked." I will never look suspicious to you, because of one thing and one thing only. The color of my skin. I am white.
I was born white. It was the card I was dealt. No choice in the matter. Just the card handed out by the dealer. I have lived my whole life privileged. Privileged to be born without a glass ceiling. Privileged to grow up in the richest country in the world. Privileged to never look suspicious. I have no guilt for the color of my skin or the privilege that I have. Remember, it was just the next card that came out of the deck. But, I have choices. I got choices on how I play the hand I was dealt. I got a lot of options. The ball is in my court.
Thanks for sharing this, F55. What a truly horrible story.
What Everyone Should Know About Trayvon Martin (1995-2012)And so on...
(Of course, we should keep in mind that this sort of thing happens all the time in some variation or another. We've only heard about Martin because he is palatable to white middle-class mores. If he actually was a thief or a drug dealer, we'd have never heard of this story.)
I was surprised that it was hitting the headlines so long after the horrendous incident. At least the MSM are covering the fact that Zimmermann was never booked or jailed and that the police messed up the crime scene. God help us. It's bad enough with the police on the loose, and people with PTSD hallucinating they're surrounded by enemy soldiers. Now the vigilantes are out there too.
Its so sad , and i believe it is racially motivated, but to say that a white person can "never" look suspicious just undermine the argument against white privilege..
Martin's grades are irrelevant. His cheerful personality is irrelevant.
What's relevant is systemic racism kills men and women of colour, with impunity, over and over again.
A white resident could not imagine or conceive that a young Black man could be allowed to walk about in his (gated) community.
It doesn't get much clearer than this.
P.S. I read that excellent blog from the OP and posted it on my Facebook wall. It's excellent.
this is pretty much the same thing as the klan. A bunch of armed, aggressive racist white guys hunting down and murdering innocent black people.
Back then theyd say he looked at a white girl, now they just say he's "looking about"....
Actually, there's another take on this story. George Zimmerman's mother is a Latina immigrant.
When I googled his name and "latino" (since I thought he looked Latino) I was instantly directed to the Conservative Citizens Council site (neo-KKK, neo-nazi), where contributors went out of their way to express indignation that he was identified as "white" and indulged their anti-Hispanic racism. This is interesting because in Florida there have been numerous cases of African Americans being shot or abused by Latino policemen, who enjoy relative impunity. There have even been calls for the investigation of the mayor of Miami for his reluctance to address the issue.
I wouldn't even venture to guess at the reason, but anti-Black sentiment seems to be high among Latinos. "Euro-American" racists enjoy the spectacle of minority-on-minority violence.
Anyway, Zimmerman strikes me as being a rather disfunctional person, with identity problems of his own that he takes out on African-Americans.
The story (democracynow.org, March 20) is appalling for various reasons, from the failure of the police to detain Zimmerman and their failure to use Martin's cellphone to trace his identity, leaving his body in the morgue for days while his parents filed a missing persons report, to MSM giving credence to Zimmerman's father's story of his 250-lb son being pursued by an unarmed 160-lb 17-year old. The FBI and the Justice Dept. are on the case, finally. Let's see how it plays out. I'm afraid it's a lose-lose situation, as the white racists will go out of their way to play up Zimmerman's Hispanic/immigrant background.
This is not about Zimmerman.
Even in the States, the Klan types going on about Zimmerman being Hispanic is extremely marginal. Most people will never even hear it.
The story just oozes out racism. [And the denial that goes with it- but not that nutty stuff.]
KenS, racism has been denied in this very thread.
On the 911 tapes, Zimmerman (known hereafter as RP (racist prick)) admitted that Trayvon was running away (most likely alarmed at being followed by a cop wannabe yahoo) and then ignoring the 911 dispatchers advice, RP chased him down. He went out of his way to provoke a confrontation, contrary to what RP's father tried to say.
One of the 911 tapes is very chilling and horribly sad. The female caller was reporting the struggle behind her house. You can hear Trayvon pleading for help, crying, begging "no, no, no", followed by a gunshot and then silence. The female caller seemingly realized what had happened and started to cry.
The witness reports indicate that the guy on top during the struggle was wearing a white shirt - not what Trayvon was wearing. One of the witnesses claims that RP had risen to his feet when he shot Trayvon who was still laying on the ground. RP suffered some facial lacerations, etc., because undoubtedly Trayvon knew he was fighting for his life, so one could surmise that a very pissed off RP could very well have stood up and executed Trayvon.
The story has been in the news for a while but at first there was more information coming out about Trayvon's background than anything else - i.e. make excuses for the RP. So what if Trayvon had been suspended from school for a few weeks??? I was a straight A student and I was suspended a few times and expelled once - one time for calling a teacher a hypocrite, another for smoking pot, another for having fun in the bathroom with my beau, etc. Being suspended does not indicate violent tendencies or anything along those lines, despite the initial spin was that the suspension may have been for a violent incident, drug use, etc. Even if those allegations were true, that does not give RP the right to execute a young man.
One (or more) congressional representatives are trying to get the US deparment of justice involved to force the hand of local authorities to lay charges. Supposedly the local DA is reviewing the case and will render a decision in a few weeks. One wonders why the decision will take a few weeks. Certainly there is more than ample information to issue an arrest warrant, or at least there would be enough information for an arrest if the shooter were a young black man.
Thanks Kara. Great post.
Ta-Nehisi Coates: The Sham Investigation Into Trayvon Martin's Killing
and
Sanford's Police Chief Is the Real Victim of Racism
That conversation was played on democracynow.org today. The whole program was devoted to the case.
I agree with you, Maysie... up to a point.
The racist fringe wants to make it about him, and I hope they don't manage to. Some Blacks might pick up on the fact that he is one more Latino who had it out for them, like the Mayor of Miami and the police (I'm talking perception here, in the context of a string of Latino on Black attacks over the past several years). And it might well become about Zimmerman once it gets to court and the psychiatrists start duking it out about his insecurity and his own identity problems... I'd bet that the defense will try to come up with an argument along those lines... But you're absolutely right: this is not the time to speculate about what will be made of Zimmerman, but to mourn for his victim and to condemn the heinous crime and the heinous conduct of the Sanford police.
25 years ago, when I was living in the US south, an unarmed child (aged 12) was shot to death in a pinball arcade by a police officer with a record of racist brutality. The cop got off. This sparked a riot in the poorest of Black communities in the city -- Overtown, a stone's throw away from the very chic Coconut Grove in Miami, Florida.
It's been so long, but just thinking about it still pisses me off.
How did this yahoo get a license for a semi automatic handgun in the first place?
Remember, this is a state that has drive-through liquor stores and a gun shop on every corner. It's beyond fucked up.
Here's another interesting article on this case from John McWhorter about "What the Trayvon Martin Case Tells us About Being Black in America"The very nature of being black in the United States is now marked insidiously and essentially by the perceived reality of constantly being forced to deal with malevolent police forces. Indeed, a representative example of the black condition is what black journalist Deborah Mathis, in her syndicated column in 1997, called "Blackmotheritis": "a nervous disorder afflicting millions of black women with adolescent or teenaged children, particularly the mothers of boys." Mathis explains how she told her son:
Keep your hands out of your pockets. Don't reach under your shirt. If there's an itch, just live with it. In winter, keep your jacket open.
Mathis wasn't kidding:
The other day, on a brief shopping foray, Joseph popped his hand beneath his shirt to rub a mosquito bite. "Joseph!" I shouted. My son's name fell hard from my mouth as if it were a pain to say it. "Get your hand ..." "Okay, Ma," he said impatiently, then muttered something that seemed, at once, mad and sad. "I just don't want ..." I began, ruefully. "I know, Ma, I know. I'm sorry."
http://www.tnr.com/article/101840/trayvon-martin-race-injustice?google_e...
Trayvon Martin: The Lingering Memory Of Dead Boys
Surely not because of that.
Assassinations At Home and Abroad - by Jenina Pierre
http://www.blackagendareport.com/content/assassinations-home-and-abroad
"The rule of law is everywhere in retreat. Racist vigilante justice trumps Black's right to life in Florida and a growing number of 'shoot first' states, while the US president claims the right to kill at will, internationally. 'The Florida laws are the local articulation of a US foreign policy that deploys murder and mayhem at any sign of a threat.' Eric Holder, the nation's top lawman, can order assassination without trial, yet is now tasked to investigate Trayvon Martin's murder.."
If I actually I took that sort of logic to heart, I suppose it could go some way towards explaining much; as I do indeed patronize a drive-thru liquor window. Obviously when you're getting wine such a convenience caters well enough to the undiscerning palate.
[White]Homeowner won’t be charged for killing [Black] 20-year-old hiding from police
Super video from men of Howard University
“Contrary to what America has led many to believe all young black males are not suspicious, we don’t deserve to be harassed, murdered, prosecuted or denied the protections of the justice system all because America thinks we are suspicious,” say one Howard alumni as images of other black male students scroll through the screen.
For more information visit the Howard University Students for Justice Facebook page.
You got a problem? Well, now you do.
Read the whole thing.
Hoodies, Hijabs and Homicides
Trayvon Martin, Troy Davis and the 20112 Election - by Bruce Dixon
http://blackagendareport.com/content/trayvon-martin-troy-davis-and-2012-...
"When Obama likened Trayvon Martin to his imaginary son, and that there ought to be a national debate about something or other, what did that mean? It might mean that he wants the votes of those outraged by the murder, but Obama isn't prepared to do much of anything to deserve them beyond claiming to feel our pain...
On the other hand, in the interests of making some whites feel better about themselves, the hacks at CNN sought out the tiny and deceptively named 'New Black Panther Party' which seems to exist purely to be called upon by the likes of Sean Hannity and Anderson Cooper when they need a comic black racist bogeyman.."
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/story/2012/03/29/trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-police-video.html
Self defence my ass. No sign of a broken nose, no sign of injuries to the back of his head - no sign of anything.