Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

47 comments

  1. spacemanspiff

    Please read this post by Tim Wise:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/

    Empathy — real empathy, not the situational and utterly phony kind that most any of us can muster when social convention calls for it — requires that one be able to place oneself in the shoes of another, and to consider the world as they must consider it. It requires that we be able to suspend our own culturally-ingrained disbelief long enough to explore the possibility that perhaps the world doesn’t work as we would have it, but rather as others have long insisted it did.

    Empathy, which is always among the first casualties of racist thinking, mandates our acceptance of the possibility that maybe it isn’t those long targeted by oppression who are exaggerating the problem or making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill, but rather we who have underestimated the gravity of racial domination and subordination in this country, and reduced what are, in fact, Everest-sized peaks to ankle-high summits, and for our own purposes, rather than in the service of truth.

    Denise on the Million Hoodie March:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/

    Check out her other diaries on the subject, especially the last Black Kos diary.  

  2. I wonder if anyone on DK recognizes the conjunction of their management banning and disciplining Black voices who demanded the kind of institutional respect that got Trayvon killed.  I can’t help but remember one of the diaries I was trolled by their front page in regarded my little treasure I’ve been celebrating.  I was again hounded for suggesting racism was a bigger threat to him than the suspension of some environmental regulations.  I got told that what I discussed there was Schtick got called Nat X and to see and I do see the hypocrisy  is stunning.  

  3. Moose I really should turn my blog back on, but like I said before I can’t get the word motherfucker out of my mouth and mind and well here’s just an example

    http://nationaljournal.com/201

    Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich harshly criticized President Obama for commenting on Trayvon Martin’s race as he extended condolences to the 17-year-old shooting victim’s parents on Friday. Obama said, “If I had a son, he would look like Trayvon,” a remark that Gingrich said he found “disgraceful” and “appalling.”

    “What the president said, in a sense, is disgraceful,” Gingrich said on the Hannity Radio show. “It’s not a question of who that young man looked like. Any young American of any ethnic background should be safe, period. We should all be horrified no matter what the ethnic background.

    “Is the president suggesting that if it had been a white who had been shot, that would be OK because it didn’t look like him. That’s just nonsense dividing this country up. It is a tragedy this young man was shot. It would have been a tragedy if he had been Puerto Rican or Cuban or if he had been white or if he had been Asian American of if he’d been a Native American. At some point, we ought to talk about being Americans. When things go wrong to an American, it is sad for all Americans. Trying to turn it into a racial issue is fundamentally wrong. I really find it appalling.”

    Later, at a campaign event in Kenner, La., the former House speaker elaborated on his remarks, and made mention of dangerous “neighborhoods” for young people without expressly acknowledging the particular dangers for African-American youths targeted by whites.

    The words and mechanisms of hate are inconsistent with my ascended values.  However there is no way I’m sanguine sharing the same air as these people

  4. I can’t help contrasting this powerful tragic story (and the powerful image above) with the joyful story of adept2u’s grandchild.

    Obama pitched it perfectly with his response. My son would look like Trayvon.

    And I can’t help contrasting this powerful tragic story with Chris’s terrific diary about the extreme religious right-to-lifers calling contraception a kind of murder.

    Who really believes that life is sacred.

    The rhetoric and reality of this election season has proved it beyond doubt.  

  5. Strummerson

    posted pics of Martin and Zimmerman side by side, with Trayvon dressed in “gangsta” fashion and Zimmerman in a suit.  Only the “gangsta” pic wasn’t Martin.  

    Also, Zimmerman apparently said “fucking goon” not “coon.”  And “goon” is a term of endearment in contemporary slang.  Showing he intended to give Trayvon Martin a cuddle.  I guess Martin responded to Zimmerman’s affection by trying to take his life with skittles.

  6. It’s a really good summary of the latest info on the case.

    From Tim F. on BJ:

    If the Sanford, Florida police department did not stink before, it positively reeks now. I’m iPad blogging and don’t have the time or energy to dig up each link, but today I learned that the cops coached witnesses to say that they heard the shooter crying for help, that someone has systematically leaked private information to smear the victim’s character and that the Martin’s body did not have any sign of the kind of hand and knuckle injuries that you get when you severely beat someone with your bare hands, especially someone with a hundred pounds of muscle on you. I learned that the morgue identified the young victim right away but filed him as a ‘John doe’ until much later when his father filed a missing persons report. I read that the Sanford city council asked the DOJ to step in after they were utterly overwhelmed by police racism complaints at their last meeting.

    The Martin/Zimmerman police report said that the shooter had a broken nose and grass all over his clothes, and Zimmerman claimed that his victim banged his head repeatedly on the road. Now ABC news has video of the night when they brought Zimmerman in for questioning and – surprise! – his shaved head looks pristine, his nose looks fine and his clothes look like he just washed them. If the cops thought he might have blood on him then protocol requires them to touch him with gloves. They seem fine with bare hands.

    Anyone care to explain how this does not stink as bad as it seems? Anyone?

  7. His result: It was not George Zimmerman who called for help.

    Tom Owen, forensic consultant for Owen Forensic Services LLC and chair emeritus for the American Board of Recorded Evidence, used voice identification software to rule out Zimmerman. Another expert contacted by the Sentinel, utilizing different techniques, came to the same conclusion.

    Zimmerman claims self-defense in the shooting and told police he was the one screaming for help. But these experts say the evidence tells a different story.

    ‘Scientific certainty’

    On a rainy night in late February, a woman called 911 to report someone crying out for help in her gated Sanford community, Retreat at Twin Lakes.

    Though several of her neighbors eventually called authorities, she phoned early enough for dispatchers to hear the panicked cries and the gunshot that took Trayvon Martin’s life.

    Hi! Remember me?

Comments are closed.