Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

132 comments

  2. Kysen

    A grown man, after being told to stay put, gets out of his car with a loaded/chambered gun to chase down an innocent teenager…kills said child…walks free.

    Pathetic.

    /shakes head

  7. Jk2003

    I just hope his family can find some peace somehow.  I have no idea how that is possible.  Sad.  

  9. PadreJM

    “. . . for they said, ‘There is no truth or justice in them, for they have violated the agreement and the oath that they swore'”          — I Maccabees 7:18 (NRSVCE)

    O Eternal Light of the World, you have breathed into all peoples the breath of life.

    It is your will that they be gathered together

    as one family in yourself.

    Fill each heart of mankind with the fire of divine love

    and with the desire to ensure justice for all.

    By sharing the good things you give us,

    may we secure equality for all

    our brothers and sisters throughout the world.

    May there be an end to division, strife and war.

    May there be a dawning of a society

    built on love and peace.  In your Holy Name, Amen.

  10. JanF

    Someone mentioned that the NAACP Annual Convention starts today in Orlando and the National Association of Black Journalists Convention begins July 31 in Orlando.

    Do we boycott the state and risk harming the working people of Florida who are probably as disgusted with this awful law as we are?

    A lot of groups canceled Arizona conventions after SB1070. It got the attention of the businessmen who own the Republican party.  

  11. fogiv

    fuck this.  it’s simple:  trayvon is dead — he shouldn’t be.  i can’t say anymore about this w/out blowing my fucking top right now.  and the msm is soooo worried about blacks rioting.  it’s me they should be worried about.

  12. HappyinVT

    momobaggins Jul 13, 10:48pm via Twitter for iPhone

    What I’ve been taught by the gov’t in the last 24hrs: having an abortion is murder, but shooting an innocent black kid is not.

  15. ILS 27L

    More wannabe cops are now free to go kill all those “a**holes” (as long as they’re black) to make themselves feel powerful. That sucks.

    Meanwhile here in Texas we’ve made it easier to kill women who have the nerve to not want to be pregnant. Men afraid that they would have been aborted driving that gem.

    I’m just glad that I don’t have any kids who will have to live through the conservative police state that this country is becoming.

    Damn

  17. louisprandtl

    he was charged with. We must be living on different planets.

    Unfortunately Trayvon Martin’s killing is an American story replete with racial profiling, racist prejudices, continued societal sanctioned violence against African Americans, trigger happy killer with access to unlimited number of guns, terrible laws like stand your ground, travesty of justice, unequal treatment of Americans under our laws based on race and class.

    Justice Roberts, what were you saying, again?

  18. JG in MD

    Dear God. I didn’t follow the trial, not one word. Then last night…. I feel dead inside.

    All those who don’t riot today deserve to sit at the right hand of God.

  19. JanF

    Just like the “union thugs rioting” in Madison WI in February with palm trees in the background … “footage” of a riot last night in Miami went viral.

    The Riot That Wasn’t

    Except there was no riot in Miami. The video was from the 2011 Stanley Cup Riot in Vancouver, Canada. The debunked video has since been deleted, but that probably won’t matter. After all, two store windows were broken in Oakland, prompting this reader response:


       blacks are animals this wasn’t a big surprise that they riot

    (snip)

    So white people who kill black teenagers shouldn’t even go to court. Because blacks are violent … even if conservatives have [to] use video of rioting (white) hockey fans in Vancouver to prove it.

  20. Chris Blask

    Issues of guns and issues of race.

    The flat reality is that without the gun in the situation we would have two living parties instead of one. If the shooter had not brought a gun he wouldn’t have been in fear of anyone taking it from him and shooting him. The net of this case is that as long as you bring a gun everything is self defense.

    The other reality is that if the child was white none of this would have happened. That if it had, and the shooter had been an adult black man, the case would have been handled differently before the smoke from the shot had cleared.

    I don’t think it is because there is an overt racism on display among the jury. Rather that we have racial injustices woven into many layers of our culture. So many that by the time we layer them all together we have a dead child and an adult who does not have to take responsibility.

  23. creamer

    were not given equal protection under the law. I applaud Trayvon’s parents for their composure. I’m not sure I could have been so restrained. Part of me would want revenge.

      I found it strange to listen to O Mera praise the Sanford PD last night. Sounded like they were on the same side.

       Racial profiling, blacks in hoodies, punks with guns, 6 person jurys. Feeling really proud of America today.

  24. raina

    No Innocence Left to Kill

    he talks about his daughter

    Last night, and I am writing it down so that I will not forget – because I already know she will not – my oldest daughter, who attained the age of 12 only eleven days ago, became an American. Not in the legal sense. She was already that, born here, and – as a white child in a nation set up for people just like her – fully entitled to all the rights and privileges thereof, without much question or drama. But now she is American in the fullest and most horrible sense of that word, by which I mean she has been truly introduced to the workings of the system of which she is a both a part, and, at the same time, merely an inheritor. A system that fails – with a near-unanimity almost incomprehensible to behold – to render justice to black peoples, the family of Trayvon Martin being only the latest battered by the machinations of American justice, but with all certainty not the last.

    To watch her crumble, eyes swollen with tears too salty, too voluminous for her daddy to wipe away? Well now that is but the latest of my heartbreaks; to have to hold her, and tell her that everything will be OK, and to hear her respond, “No it won’t be!” Because see, even though she learned last night about injustice and even more than she knew before about the racial fault lines that divide her nation, she is still a bit too young to fully comprehend the notion of the marathon, as opposed to the sprint; to understand that this is a very long race, indeed that even 26.2 miles is but a crawl in the long distance struggle for justice. And that if she is as bothered by what she sees as it appears, well now she will have to put on some incredibly strong running shoes, because this, my dear, is the work.

    What a rude awakening for young people.  

  25. Nurse Kelley

    While I am personally struck mute with sadness and too many other hard emotions to list, it’s comforting to have a place to gather.

    Today we Motley Moose weep.

    photo tears_zpse5e3129b.jpg

  26. nrafter530

    We have to admit that racism is still widespread and our system exists to keep it that way.

    I spent most of the afternoon trying to explain to my family that black people are all criminals to get the response

    “How come whenever we see a crime on TV, it’s always committed by a black man.”

    Poverty begets crime, most people living in poverty are minorities. At some point every white American has to decide whether or not that’s true because our society is rigged to make it true – and if so, what do we do about it, or because we believe black people are not capable of being decent human beings.

    I think most white folks who feel sympathy toward the Zimmerman end would say the latter, but not admit it, and they need to admit it. Because if that’s true, then we have a systematic problem with racism that is still plaguing our country.

    I’ll be honest. I believe most white people are racists, and many just do a good job hiding it because they know its wrong. It needs to come out in the open. They hide behind the Lee Atwater created bullshit. Why else do we feel like we’re powerless against poverty, because they don’t believe its solvable. They believe black people are poor because they’re lazy criminals.

  27. bfitzinAR

    “…America! America!

    God mend thine every flaw,

    Confirm thy soul in self-control,

    Thy liberty in law!”

    And from the Pledge – “…with liberty and justice for All.”

    We’ve just played “chutes and ladders” with what racial progress we’ve made in the last several decades.

    I totally disagree with the jury.  Probably cause was answered by Zimmerman getting out of his truck and following Trayvon.  Period.  The media I’ve seen tries to portray Zimmerman as law enforcement (“neighborhood watchman”) and of course if he’d actually been law enforcement rather than a self-appointed vigilante (there’s a reason why in all those old John Wayne movies when things were getting bad the 1st thing the good guys did was enforce a “check your guns when you come into town” rule), Trayvon might be just as dead considering the racial bias in “profiling” but he probably wouldn’t be because Trayvon wouldn’t have tried to defend himself in the same way.  And meanwhile I’ve been having nightmares of some of our faculty/athletic advisers being shot as they walk through somebody’s neighborhood because those athletic advisers are a lot bigger than Treyvon and the self-appointed vigilante would be so frightened they wouldn’t even get out of the truck to stalk before shooting.  

  28. creamer

    that might make one wonder about him having a gun. The follow is from an Orlando paper.

    The neighborhood crime watch volunteer who shot and killed Trayvon Martin last month, called 911 dozens of times in the months that led to the fatal shooting.

    This afternoon six of the calls made by George Zimmerman were released by theSeminole County Sheriff’s Office.

    In four of the recordings Zimmerman called police to report “suspicious” persons – all of whom were black – in or near the Retreat at Twin Lakes neighborhood.

    He called once to report his neighbor’s open garage door. And in the sixth call, Zimmerman reports children are “habitually” playing in the street at dusk and running in front of cars. He asked dispatchers to take his complaint anonymously, but provided his name and phone number.

    None of the newly released calls are related to the Feb. 26 shooting inside the gated neighborhood.

    Many of the calls start the same way – Zimmerman mentions the recent rash of burglaries in the area and identifies himself as a member of the neighborhood watch.

    “We’ve had a lot of break-ins in our neighborhood recently and I’m on the neighborhood watch,” Zimmerman said during one call.

    “There’s two suspicious characters at the gate of my neighborhood, I’ve never seen them before. I don’t know what they are doing. They are hanging out…loitering.”

    That day, the “characters” are two black men in a white sedan, Zimmerman tells the dispatchers. An officer is sent to check out the call, but it’s unclear if anything suspicious was uncovered.

    Another time he calls two report two black teens who match the description of suspects in recent break-in, who his wife saw and identified for police.

    Zimmerman and his wife, who can be heard in the background, believed the suspects were back in the neighborhood and walking near the neighborhood’s back gate. Zimmerman said he’d be waiting at the back gate to let an officer in.

    On Feb. 26, Zimmerman called the non-emergency line to report a suspicious person – Trayvon Martin.

    Zimmerman mentioned the break-ins, reported a young black male in his neighborhood who he didn’t recognize and thought was acting suspiciously.

    Minutes after that call, while officers were in route, Trayvon was shot and killed. Zimmerman said he acted in self defense. Officers have not arrested or charged him.

    Records show Zimmerman, 28, called the cops 46 times between January 2011 and Feb. 26.

    Many of the calls appear related to his crime-watch volunteer role. The most frequent reason for his calls – nine times – was to report a suspicious person, according to Sanford Police Department records released last week.

    Was Zimmerman an overt racist? I don’t know, but he does appear to be profiling, young blacks that he doesn’t know are suspicious. And he might be a little paranoid, sounds like someone the police might find a nuisance, except he has a gun.

     To me this case highlights so many things in our society that are wrong. Race, profiling, gun laws, the insane drug laws and their unequal enforcement that put so many young black men into the system(that feeds the young blacks are criminals meme. And more than anything, the lack of empathy and feeling of shared responsibility from so many white Americans.

  29. anotherdemocrat

    how this man thought someone walking down the street owed him an explanation. Of anything. This is not South Africa in 1983. No one needs a “pass” to walk down any street they choose, ever. How did Zimmerman come to believe that Trayvon Martin owed him an explanation of his presence?

  30. HappyinVT

    Jurors knew that Zimmerman was an overeager would-be cop, a self-appointed guardian of the neighborhood who carried a loaded gun. They were told that he profiled Martin – young, black, hooded sweatshirt – as a criminal. They heard that he stalked Martin despite the advice of a 911 operator; that the stalking led to a confrontation; and that, in the confrontation, Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest.

    The jurors also knew that Martin was carrying only a bag of candy and a soft drink. They knew that Martin was walking from a 7-Eleven to the home of his father’s girlfriend when he noticed a strange man in an SUV following him.

    To me, and to many who watched the trial, the fact that Zimmerman recklessly initiated the tragic encounter was enough to establish, at a minimum, guilt of manslaughter. The six women on the jury disagreed.

    Those jurors also knew that Martin, at the time of his death, was just three weeks past his 17th birthday. But black boys in this country are not allowed to be children. They are assumed to be men, and to be full of menace.

    I don’t know if the jury, which included no African Americans, consciously or unconsciously bought into this racist way of thinking – there’s really no other word. But it hardly matters, because police and prosecutors initially did.

    The assumption underlying their ho-hum approach to the case was that Zimmerman had the right to self-defense but Martin – young, male, black – did not. The assumption was that Zimmerman would fear for his life in a hand-to-hand struggle but Martin – young, male, black – would not.

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/…

  31. Chris Blask

    “Black boys denied the right to be young”

    Our society considers young black men to be dangerous, interchangeable, expendable, guilty until proven innocent. This is the conversation about race that we desperately need to have – but probably, as in the past, will try our best to avoid.

    …

    To me, and to many who watched the trial, the fact that Zimmerman recklessly initiated the tragic encounter was enough to establish, at a minimum, guilt of manslaughter. The six women on the jury disagreed.

    Those jurors also knew that Martin, at the time of his death, was just three weeks past his 17th birthday. But black boys in this country are not allowed to be children. They are assumed to be men, and to be full of menace.

    And what strikes me, the father of an 18 year old boy, most tellingly:

    If anyone wonders why African Americans feel so passionately about this case, it’s because we know that our 17-year-old sons are boys, not men. It’s because we know their adolescent bravura is just that – an imitation of manhood, not the real thing.

    We know how frightened our sons would be, walking home alone on a rainy night and realizing they were being followed. We know how torn they would be between a child’s fear and a child’s immature idea of manly behavior. We know how they would struggle to decide the right course of action, flight or fight.

    Nearly every word of Eugene’s article is worth repeating. He captured the issues like, well, a Pulitzer Prize winning author.

    The conversation we need to have is about how black men, even black boys, are denied the right to be young, to be vulnerable, to make mistakes. We need to talk about why, for example, black men are no more likely than white men to smoke marijuana but nearly four times as likely to be arrested for it – and condemned to a dead-end cycle of incarceration and unemployment. I call this racism. What do you call it?

    Trayvon Martin was fighting more than George Zimmerman that night. He was up against prejudices as old as American history, and he never had a chance.

  32. HappyinVT

    If Trayvon Martin had been a white kid wearing ipod earbuds instead of a hoodie, he would be playing xbox right now with his friends. Maybe even smoking a joint and eating skittles. And what the fuck is your problem with that?

    http://www.balloon-juice.com/2…

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