Lord during my darkest hour I lean on you. You are all that I have. At the end of the day, GOD is still in control. Thank you all for your prayers and support. I will love you forever Trayvon!!! In the name of Jesus!!!
(Words tweeted by Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon Martin’s mother, following the verdict, acquitting the man who shot him to death.)
Saturday night. A few hours after a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman of second degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin. I'm on the living room sofa with my wife and son, in between picking another netflix movie, checking the facebook messages and tweets on my iphone.
A compilation of these posts, the gist, among several of my friends and followers is this: "The jury found Mr. Zimmerman (love that, Mr. Zimmerman. What have they been watching? Hannity?) innocent. Let's respect the jury's decision. The facts were presented. The jury had the evidence and Mr. Zimmerman is innocent. Please, let's have no more killing. Riots are not needed."
Okay, so they (read: black people) had their day in court, the system worked, let's embrace it and please don't pull anyone out of their cars and start beating them to death, bust a storefront window or steal televisions. In other words, trust the established order and stay in your place.
People in this country who enjoy the perks of wealth or a light skin tone sure have a habit of telling people, not so privileged what's best for them, whether its billionaire Charles Koch trying to dissuade the poor masses from fighting for minimum wage or people of my skin shade telling our darker brothers and sisters how to behave.
If you're poor in this country, but you're white, you still have something going for you. Add to that a penis and well, there's at least two things in your favor. Oh I've heard it all. The white conservative victim card. Freakin' NAACP, ACLU, NOW. The white male is the most discriminated against person in America. I took a fitness walk at around 5 a.m. today. Sun wasn't up. I was in a reasonably nice neighborhood. Nobody reported me as a "suspicious person."
And I wasn't even dressed especially nice.
It's true, the jury was limited in the evidence presented before it. The cops bungled the case in Sanford, Fla. right from the get-go. Zimmerman was charged and issued a warrant for his arrest nearly two months after the Feb. 26, 2012 killing of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an African-American kid wearing a hoodie.
Authorities sure didn't take Zimmerman in for questioning the night of the murder, just took his word that the gun was fired in self-defense. He'd been bleeding from the head and nasal cavities. Must've been the case. I wonder if they would have rested so easily on Zimmerman's word, had his and Martin's colors been reversed. That's okay, they charged him eventually after the FBI, Justice Dept. and national media became interested. http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/05/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-fast-facts
Yup, that's your race card on the part of law enforcement and the prosecution.
Those reverse racist smear artists were out to make an example out of Zimmerman. They called out the other side's grandstanding, making this Trayvon Martin kid out to be some martyr. We heard about how the kid got suspended from school and smoked marijuana. Not reasons to justify killing him, I wouldn't think.
The kid had not been in trouble with the law, unlike Zimmerman who had to take anger management classes due to such things as assaulting a police officer and having a restraining order filed against him by his ex-fiancee. Those things weren't admitted into evidence. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425
Trayvon Martin was the one put on trial for his own murder.
All that aside, the evidence wasn't there to convict. Not enough to declare Zimmerman guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We can't second-guess the jury, we don't know what was going through their minds and what they had to work with. So we have to defer to their wisdom.
Except for one little thing.
Juries, as a branch of the just-us system in America, have a long history of coming down punitively against African-Americans in vast disproportionate numbers. All those travesties of justice that took place 50, 100 years ago. Or how about one year ago.
In the state of Florida.
Marissa Alexander, a 31-year-old mother, trying to defend herself and protect her children fired a warning shot to ward off her estranged husband, a man with a documented history of domestic abuse against various women. A jury sentenced her to 20 years in a Florida prison.
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/14/why-did-marissa-alexander-get-a-20-year-sentence-despite-invoking-stand-your-ground/ http://gawker.com/5910700/stand-your-ground-ladies-you-have-no-ground-to-stand-on
Nobody was injured when Alexander fired that handgun. The man who admitted in a sworn deposition to abusing her when she was pregnant -- he wasn't hurt. Alexander had a permit to carry the gun. She was a law abiding citizen, had never been in trouble. She'd earned a master's degree and was an asset to her community, but Florida's "stand your ground" law wasn't applied to her case. I guess the U.S. criminal justice system hates women about as much as it does, black people.
Alexander is African-American. Oh, you better believe it. There was one lone, beleaguered defense attorney sitting at Alexander's table. The cops and prosecution team were an army.
So you see why I might be a little skeptical, cynical actually, about the court system, including the jury system. And I love that system. I want it to work. Citizen juries are a bulwark against tyranny. I hate seeing them used as tools by that system they're supposed to guardians over.
A system that's moved Jim Crow from the plantation to the coffee counter to the prison industrial complex. But oh no, just listen to my enlightened facebook friends.
Mr. Zimmerman is the victim here.
Et tu, America?
(Tweeted by Trayvon's brother, Jahvaris Fulton, following the verdict.)
Saturday night. A few hours after a Florida jury acquitted George Zimmerman of second degree murder in the death of Trayvon Martin. I'm on the living room sofa with my wife and son, in between picking another netflix movie, checking the facebook messages and tweets on my iphone.
A compilation of these posts, the gist, among several of my friends and followers is this: "The jury found Mr. Zimmerman (love that, Mr. Zimmerman. What have they been watching? Hannity?) innocent. Let's respect the jury's decision. The facts were presented. The jury had the evidence and Mr. Zimmerman is innocent. Please, let's have no more killing. Riots are not needed."
Okay, so they (read: black people) had their day in court, the system worked, let's embrace it and please don't pull anyone out of their cars and start beating them to death, bust a storefront window or steal televisions. In other words, trust the established order and stay in your place.
People in this country who enjoy the perks of wealth or a light skin tone sure have a habit of telling people, not so privileged what's best for them, whether its billionaire Charles Koch trying to dissuade the poor masses from fighting for minimum wage or people of my skin shade telling our darker brothers and sisters how to behave.
If you're poor in this country, but you're white, you still have something going for you. Add to that a penis and well, there's at least two things in your favor. Oh I've heard it all. The white conservative victim card. Freakin' NAACP, ACLU, NOW. The white male is the most discriminated against person in America. I took a fitness walk at around 5 a.m. today. Sun wasn't up. I was in a reasonably nice neighborhood. Nobody reported me as a "suspicious person."
And I wasn't even dressed especially nice.
It's true, the jury was limited in the evidence presented before it. The cops bungled the case in Sanford, Fla. right from the get-go. Zimmerman was charged and issued a warrant for his arrest nearly two months after the Feb. 26, 2012 killing of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, an African-American kid wearing a hoodie.
Authorities sure didn't take Zimmerman in for questioning the night of the murder, just took his word that the gun was fired in self-defense. He'd been bleeding from the head and nasal cavities. Must've been the case. I wonder if they would have rested so easily on Zimmerman's word, had his and Martin's colors been reversed. That's okay, they charged him eventually after the FBI, Justice Dept. and national media became interested. http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/05/us/trayvon-martin-shooting-fast-facts
Yup, that's your race card on the part of law enforcement and the prosecution.
Those reverse racist smear artists were out to make an example out of Zimmerman. They called out the other side's grandstanding, making this Trayvon Martin kid out to be some martyr. We heard about how the kid got suspended from school and smoked marijuana. Not reasons to justify killing him, I wouldn't think.
The kid had not been in trouble with the law, unlike Zimmerman who had to take anger management classes due to such things as assaulting a police officer and having a restraining order filed against him by his ex-fiancee. Those things weren't admitted into evidence. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/04/25/us-usa-florida-shooting-zimmerman-idUSBRE83O18H20120425
Trayvon Martin was the one put on trial for his own murder.
All that aside, the evidence wasn't there to convict. Not enough to declare Zimmerman guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. We can't second-guess the jury, we don't know what was going through their minds and what they had to work with. So we have to defer to their wisdom.
Except for one little thing.
Juries, as a branch of the just-us system in America, have a long history of coming down punitively against African-Americans in vast disproportionate numbers. All those travesties of justice that took place 50, 100 years ago. Or how about one year ago.
In the state of Florida.
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/14/why-did-marissa-alexander-get-a-20-year-sentence-despite-invoking-stand-your-ground/ http://gawker.com/5910700/stand-your-ground-ladies-you-have-no-ground-to-stand-on
Nobody was injured when Alexander fired that handgun. The man who admitted in a sworn deposition to abusing her when she was pregnant -- he wasn't hurt. Alexander had a permit to carry the gun. She was a law abiding citizen, had never been in trouble. She'd earned a master's degree and was an asset to her community, but Florida's "stand your ground" law wasn't applied to her case. I guess the U.S. criminal justice system hates women about as much as it does, black people.
Alexander is African-American. Oh, you better believe it. There was one lone, beleaguered defense attorney sitting at Alexander's table. The cops and prosecution team were an army.
So you see why I might be a little skeptical, cynical actually, about the court system, including the jury system. And I love that system. I want it to work. Citizen juries are a bulwark against tyranny. I hate seeing them used as tools by that system they're supposed to guardians over.
A system that's moved Jim Crow from the plantation to the coffee counter to the prison industrial complex. But oh no, just listen to my enlightened facebook friends.
Mr. Zimmerman is the victim here.
Et tu, America?
(Tweeted by Trayvon's brother, Jahvaris Fulton, following the verdict.)
