The Lynching and execution of Black American Teenager Trayvon Martin
first some background and then commentary by Thom Hartmann and The Young Turks followed by my rant or perspective.
FLORIDA FAMILY SEEKS JUSTICE AFTER UNARMED TEEN SHOT BY NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH
Uploaded by copwatchnews on Mar 10, 2012
The family of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin is demanding answers after police have yet to release 911 tapes or make an arrest nearly one month after the unarmed African-American teenager was shot and killed by a white neighborhood watch captain in a gated Florida community.
Trayvon Martin was visiting his father, Tracy, who lives in a gated community in the Orlando suburb of Sanford, during NBA All Star Weekend. On Feb. 26, Martin went out to buy snacks during the game and was on his way back from a local convenience store, carrying only Skittles and an iced tea, when he was spotted by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman, a 26-year-old captain of the neighborhood watch, called the police to report a suspicious person in the area.
NOTE: According to the Martin family lawyer, Ben Crump, police told Zimmerman they would be there shortly and advised him to stand down, advice which he disregarded. Instead Zimmerman, whom Crump referred to as a "loose cannon," confronted the teen on the sidewalk near his father's home.
A police report indicated that Zimmerman, who was armed with a handgun, was found bleeding from the nose and the back of the head, standing over Martin, who was unresponsive after being shot. According to the report, an officer at the scene overheard Zimmerman saying, "I was yelling for someone to help me but no one would help me."
Despite his admission that he shot Trayvon Martin, Zimmerman was not arrested by police, only taken in for questioning, a move that has Martin's family infuriated.
NOTE: Further investigation by Crump revealed a past history of violence by Zimmerman, who was arrested in 2005 for resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer.
Tracy Martin described his son, who loved sports and dreamed of being an aviation mechanic, as "a real mild-mannered young man," who "never got in trouble, never had any trouble with the law." The family is calling for Zimmerman's arrest so that, in Tracy Martin's words, "Justice can be served."
"If Trayvon Martin had been the trigger man, he would have been arrested," said his father.
Local police declined to comment on the case at this time although they did provide ABC News with a copy of the police report. The 911 tapes, say police, will be released next week - 9 March 2010
Thom Hartmann is outraged by the way the shooting and killing of Trayvon Martin was handled by the police. He says the FBI is investigating but I would say that given the FBIs record it tends to favor the police over the complaints of the citizenry or the media. And there is no incentive to do otherwise .
Legal to shoot a black teen in FL, but illegal to shoot a dog?
Uploaded by thomhartmann on Mar 20, 2012
Thom Hartmann discusses Florida's "shoot first" law and how it apparently played a role in the death of a black teen, shot by a neighborhood watch captain.
The Young Turks Cenk Uygur discuss 911 tape of the Trayvon Martin killing in which the gun man self-styled neighborhood watch vigilante Zimmerman appears to say "F***ing Coons" when talking to police on the 911 tape in characterizing Trayvon Martin a black teenager .
Trayvon Martin 911 Call - Did George Zimmerman Say 'F*ng Coons'?
Uploaded by TheYoungTurks on Mar 20, 2012
Did George Zimmerman, the infamous yet-to-be-arrested shooter of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, say "fucking coons" in his 911 call? Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks share their take. Many already believe Zimmeran singled out Martin as 'suspicious' simply because he was black.
And now my perspective and rant on the murder execution style or lynching of Trayvon Martin.
It appears that racism is alive and well in the USA even though the President of the USA is himself black.
There are those especially the members of the Conservative Movement and the Republicans and some Democrats and pseudo-liberals who after the election of President Obama proclaimed erroneously that now America was post-racism .
Just because there is a black man in the White House does not mean that now there are no racist in America or that there are no politicians or members of the media who are racist.
Defeating the prevalent and systemic racism in America can not be done by merely wishing it away or by a wave of a magic wand or merely by using the power of positive thinking.
To many Conservatives in America racism supposedly was never that big of an issue anyway. They like to deny the devastating effect on African-Americans by the Ku Klux Klan or by racist who controlled most of the Southern states and almost all of the towns and cities in the South.
The Conservatives like to play down the absence of anti-Lynching laws in the South or the North.
The numbers of African Americans murdered by Lynching is also down played and even dismissed out of hand as if Lynchings were an aberration rather than a frequent occurrence in America from 1865 to 1965 . Some would claim Lynchings rarely took place after 1940 or so but this is only true if by lynching one means a mob grabbing a black man and hanging him from a tree. But a lynching could be carried out by a couple of white citizens out of view of the public. Sometimes Blacks were just disappeared . Some 12,000 mostly African Americans are recorded as being lynched. But there also incidences of outright massacres of African-Americans by enraged white mobs .
Lynching some would call a form of rough justice dating it back to the Wild West as if such lynchings were the only way to see justice done. This is far from the case in the Lynching or extra-judicial executions of African Americans. More often than not those who were lynched were not guilty of any crime. Lynching in part was a tactic to terrorize African-Americans to remind them that white people were the ones in positions of authority and that all African-Americans were not equal to white Americans and that they were therefore of a lower status and had no rights .
It was not until 1965 that the rights of African-Americans were finally put into law and protected by the Federal Government and the courts.
Since that time many African Americans have been harassed ,assaulted and murdered by police and by white American citizens across America in most cases with impunity. The police are more often than not defended by those in authority. And when police are made accountable it is only because there is some public outrage over the shooting but even then the punishment handed out were and are light and somewhat laughable .
The message to police by those in authority is to make sure there are no witnesses or someone video taping when beating up or murdering African-Americans.
As for the average white citizen who murders a black american often the cases are not brought to trial or if they are the trial is a sham more often than not.
Unfortunately these injustices are still carried out against African-Americans on a daily basis including harassment such as stop and search for being Black while walking and pulling over African-Americans on the streets and highways because they are guilty or suspicious because they are Black while driving , they are then often treated roughly physically or with verbal abuse and intimidation and the unfortunate they can be arrested beaten or just shot .
In Florida they have a law which permits anyone even in a public place to shoot and kill someone if they feel threatened.
This law instituted by Jeb Bush as governor of Florida five years ago and is referred to as the Stand Your Ground Law and it is easy to see how citizens could take advantage of this law and murder someone who is not really a threat .
This law is rather outrageous since the shooter doesn't need to be made to stand trial or even go before a judge to explain the circumstances surrounding the shooting.
So the law which allows one to shoot first and ask questions later is a re-introduction of permitting rough justice and therefore allows for someone to execute another person with impunity-this it could be argued is just a new form of Lynching aimed mainly at visible minorities including African Americans and Hispanic Americans.
This is so called justice in America. Unfortunately President Obama and his regime has done little to either investigate the prevalence of racist laws and racist motivated actions on the part of police forces or of individuals on a police force.
Obama should have if he were concerned about such basic issues of justice set up some sort of task force or Congressional committee or other such group for instance by the Department of Justice similar for instance to the one set up by Robert Kennedy as Attorney General to investigate the Mafia.
Is Obama reluctant to do this because white Americans and the Republican party would object or because he doesn't see the issue as that important since it mainly affects poor African Americans and other visible minorities such as Hispanic Americans or those who are for instance Muslim Americans.
It seems odd that the African American community is not calling President Obama out on this issue which they should.
But as we have seen with the police brutality meted out to members of the Occupy Movement that Obama doesn't see it as a major issue or that it is up to local police forces to police themselves or he just supports the police unconditionally and some might suggest that Obama has been giving 'a wink and a nod' to the use of brutal force against occupiers or any other dissident groups. So he's not going to step in when the police or vigilantes mete out justice in their own way as it were.
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