One can hope that Obama will himself change from being dismissive or complacent or in denial of how widespread and deeply held racism is in America. Unfortunately the Trayvon Martin killing is not an isolated incident but rather part of a pattern of the killing of African -Americans and other minorities.
But also part of this pattern is that of police forces from Portland California to New York City to Denver to Florida to Arizona inventing a multitude of excuses for harassing African Americans and Hispanic Americans . The NYP uses a stop and search program in which they have stopped thousands of African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans not just late at night but in the day time insisting they the police have the right to do this even when there is no reasonable cause . The police it appears believe that the color of one's skin makes one a suspicious character. So the NYPD uses this tactic on predominately Blacks and Hispanics.
But police officers and police forces across America act as if the members of these minority groups do not have the same rights as other ie caucasian Americans.
So in order to defend their actions police lobby for laws that will give them the freedom to treat certain groups of citizens differently than others.
As is well known the American prisons hold a disproportionately larger number of Blacks and Hispanics compared to whites even though time and again studies show that all three groups commit crimes at the same rate. So blacks and Hispanics are no more likely to break the law than white Americans. Yet the prisons are filled with African and Hispanic Americans and is just an extension of Jim Crow and keeping minorities in their place.
These are issues which President Obama must address if he really wants to create a more just America. So the laws of the land are enforced differently given the color of one's skin.
As has been mentioned many times that the War on Drugs has become in the USA a war on African and Hispanic Americans. These laws are enforced rigorously on these minorities while are enforced a lot less rigorously on White Americans.
The shooter in this case was not a police officer but rather a vigilante who held racist views in which he stereotyped all young black men and teenagers as a threat to the community. Trayvon was not doing anything except walking back from the 7-11 to his father's house in a Gated Community. Zimmerman followed Trayvon and then shot him. Zimmerman made some racial slurs while on the phone to police saying those F... Coons so he was probably predisposed to not trust black people in general. His story that he shot Trayvon in self defense makes no sense since he was the one armed.
We also know now that Trayvon had called his girl friend on his cell phone telling her he was a bit frightened because some strange man was following him.
According to Geralo Rivera and Fox panel Hoodies are evil and Trayvon Martin put himself at risk by wearing a hoodie. Jeraldo Rivera blames the hoodie as much as the vigilante racist Zimmerman for Trayvon's death. By extension Jeraldo and the Fox News Channel panel blame the parents for letting their children wear hoodies or saggy pants. It's like blaming the rape victim for wearing seductive or sexy clothes and so forth so these bozos claim she was asking for trouble.
Geraldo Rivera Blames Trayvon Martin (Or His Parents) For Wearing Hoodie
Geraldo Rivera: Hoodies to Blame for Trayvon Martin Killing
Sam Seder attacks Geraldo's Hoodie Defense
Uploaded by SamSeder on Mar 23, 2012
From the Majority Report, live M-F 11:30am EST and via daily podcast at http://Majority.FM:
Guns didn't kill Trayvon Martin. George Zimmerman didn't kill Trayvon Martin. Hoodies did, at least, according to Geraldo Rivera...
The reason the shooter racist vigilante Zimmerman wasn't arrested or more thoroughly questioned was because of Florida's outrageous "Stand Your Ground Law" The law says that a person even in a public place is permitted to shoot someone they feel they are threatened by . So the average white racist may feel threatened whenever they see an African American or Hispanic American and so could shoot someone who was approaching them asking for directions, or the time or who may have mistook them for someone else.
Geraldo makes matters worse by talking about Muslim Americans dressing like Muslims or Arabs and having untrimmed beards. So Muslim Americans and Sikhs or Rastafarians should cut their hair and beards to look more like average white Americans so they are not arrested or shot based upon their appearance. So much for individual rights ???
In response to this people outraged by the killing and the excuses for it including what Trayvon was wearing to protest against such stereotyping held a million hoodies march.
*Countdown with Keith ...: Ben Jealous of the NAACP demands justice for Trayvon Martin, resignation
Uploaded by Current on Mar 21, 2012
Ben Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, describes his concerns about the Sanford Police Department in the aftermath of the Trayvon Martin shooting and calls for the resignation of Sanford, Fla., Police Chief Bill Lee. "In Sanford if you kill a dog you end up in jail the next day. Trayvon Martin was killed, this beautiful boy was killed, and his killer has been allowed to walk the streets for weeks," Jealous says.
New Lynching Style laws put into practice -Shoot first ask questions later
When Lynches were carried out mainly in the Southern States more often than not local police and other people in positions of authority and power the notables took part or turned a blind eye. The people who took part in lynchings were just a cross section of local white citizens . Lynching supposedly is no longer condoned but it has been replaced by police officers who believe that either overtly or are tacitly given permission to carry out what is tantamount to an Execution where the police officers act as judge, jury and executioner and more often than not they the police being on the side of the white elites in America get away with these extrajudicial killings especially if the person killed is black or hispanic.
This Stand Your Ground law in Florida and 16 other states is a way to give average citizens the same rights as a police officer to shoot someone rather than walking away or calling for help or phoning the police whether the incident occurs in a shopping mall or or on a sidewalk or in one's own home.
So as Thom Hartman and others point out such laws are brought about by people who believe that crime is on the rise when in fact it has been going down steadily since 1990.
Though I believe this is just racist attitudes being reflected in legislation which favors whites over visible minorities.
One can easily surmise if the police arrived on the scene of Trayvon's murder if instead it was a black man or black teenager holding a gun standing over a dead white teenager or white man the Black man would be arrested and roughed up unless instead the police decided to fill the Black man or teenager with lead .
It was Jeb Bush as governor of Florida who passed this new lynching style law in Florida some five years ago . It has led to a number of deaths for which the shooters were allowed to walk claiming self-defense.
Maddow defends Trayvon Martin; BLASTS Florida GOP for 'Stand your Ground' Law
Uploaded by orangecountyfldems on Mar 21, 2012
Rachel Maddow reviews the facts in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, and connects the dots to Jeb Bush allowing the 'stand your ground' law to pass in Florida. The tragic consequences of his lapse in good governance now overshadows the good press he'd hoped to offer Mitt Romney with an endorsement. -- TRMS
Though I would add as a side-bar:
Though it should be added that these police forces have been used to attack, harass, beat up, pepper-spray people taking part in the Occupy movement especially notable in New York, in Portland, Chicago on University campuses etc.. But in those cases the violent response of the police has been noted in part because groups of white Americans demonstrating are not usually treated that way.
But let me add that the police brutality meted out against Occupiers is not justified and for unknown reasons President Obama and AG Eric Holder have said and done nothing to investigate these obvious cases of police brutality and the contravention of the civil rights of these American citizens. This just goes to illustrate that the USA in certain ways is no better than some third world countries where the government and elite are indifferent to the treatment of citizens by police or military . The needs of the majority the 99% are sacrificed to the needs and greed and corruption of the 1% and their upper class enablers in this case including the majority of politicians, the government , the Pentagon and military industrial complex and Security and intelligence agencies.
The OWS protesters have been marginalized and demonized as a real threat to America .The thing is that these white mainly middle class university students or graduates being roughed up and gassed or pepper-sprayed/Maced, beaten, corralled or kettled during a peaceful protest is a shock to them since they have usually been treated better than those who are black or Hispanic. Now they get a better idea of how minorities are treated on a daily basis in America by those in positions of authority.
The police forces across America since 9/11 have been granted more leeway in the manner they treat any American citizen. It appears that the police act as if they are at war with their fellow Americans whatever the color of their skin .
Just go to Youtube for instance and watch the thousands of videos of police abusing citizens and ignoring their basic rights as guaranteed in the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights and court decisions affecting those rights.
For more on the subject of racism, police brutality and the mass incarceration of Black and Hispanic Americans see this selection of my earlier posts :
MLK's Dream Deferred : USA Apartheid and Democracy Now! "The New Jim Crow " by Michelle Alexander 1/2 at Gord's Poetry Factory,Jan.15,2012
Racist Jim Crow Laws Replaced By Mass Incarceration of African-Americans at Gord's Poetry Factory,May 09,2011
2 Million and Counting & The Racist Motivated War On Drugs: The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander at Gord's Poetry Factory ,March 11 2010
Democracy Now & PBS Freedom Riders & Jim Crow Apartheid America at Gord's Poetry Factory, May 8,2010
Sheriff Joe Arpaio The Big Winner With The Passage of Arizona's Apartheid Style Anti-immigrant Law at Gord's Poetry Factory, May 02,2010
" Is Racism A Mental Illness ?" Conservatives Defend Offensive Racist Cartoon Slandering President Obama while Sarah Palin Calls Obama A Traitor at Gord's Poetry Factory,April 17,2010
#OWS Update: Stop Racist Mass Incarceration & Prisons For Profits Meanwhile Consumers Getting Robbed, Ripped-Off & Screwed By Investors and Oil Companies at Gord's Poetry Factory, February 23, 2012
Slavery, Racism, Segregation, Lynchings & The Celebration of The Confederacy of Southern United States at Gord's Poetry Factory, April 19,2010
American Apartheid: The Civil Rights Movement, "Jim Crow " the KKK & The 1979 Greensboro Massacre at Gord's Poetry Factory, September 22,2008
Glenn Beck's Hate Project: "America For Americans " & " Obama's Thugocracy" Part 4 at Gord's Poetry Factory,September 27, 2009
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