Motley Moose – Archive

Since 2008 – Progress Through Politics

Justice is not color blind


photo next_zpsb58fda5e.jpg

As we continue to protest and question the acquittal of George Zimmerman for killing Trayvon Martin in cold blood, I’ve read a bunch of news stories, and comments touting the belief that “justice is color blind.” One of the people who shouted the loudest was hypocritical and hypobigotal Texas Governor Rick Perry.  

Those people who willfully ignore reams of data and statistics showing it is not, are those who are busy dismantling civil rights gains as fast as they can, from the Roberts Court 5, to states like North Carolina, which recently repealed the Racial Justice Act, which included dealing with racial bias in jury selection.

Let’s be clear. We don’t live in a “post-racial” America.  


All-white juries are still convened in areas where there are large numbers of African Americans.

The racial composition of juries affects outcomes, and the dispensing of unequal justice.

photo Duke_zps5afd36f9.jpg

This graphic from a Duke University study illustrates my point.

Claiming “color-blindness” is just another method of denying racism.

When I look at the photo above, “am I next” raises many questions. Next for what?

Next to be shot by a cop or vigilante? Next to be racially profiled stopped and frisked?  Next to die via gun violence? Next to go to a segregated school? Next to face unemployment? Next in the school to prison pipeline? Next to be stopped from voting?

Until this nation addresses racism in all its forms, the only thing I can answer this child is “yes, dear heart, you will be next.”

That does not mean, that we will stop trying to change the ugly system that perpetuates inequalities.

If anything has been learned by watching the travesty of “justice” enacted in a courtroom in Florida, it is that we have a long road ahead of us.

Get angry, channel that energy, organize.

Re-double your efforts.

Support organizations that are fighting back.

Take a good hard look at your community and ask, “what am I doing to move us forward?”

There are no easy answers. But without commitment there will be no solutions.


We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons

Is as important as the killing of white men, white mothers’ sons…

We who believe in freedom cannot rest

We who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes

Cross-posted from Black Kos

   


Categories: Uncategorized.

/ 52 Comments

52 comments

  2. Adept2u

    I’m done with that.

    You will see me.

    You will see every aspect of my experience the good the bad and every ingredient that made me who I am.

    I am a Black man.

    I’m done accepting the cultural genocide implicit in telling me you refuse to acknowledge what I am and consider yourself quite progressive for doing so.

  3. HappyinVT

    Short version: Yep, Trayvon was profiled. Because everyone knows young black males are violent criminals.  So don’t blame Zimmerman for being scared.

  4. JanF

    “At least this has started a national conversation about this important issue”.

    It seems like we have been talking about this for at least 40 years. It is time to go to all 50 states, and especially the states that have institutionalized racism, and elect people who promise that justice won’t just get lip service. That there will be laws in place to protect all of our children. That our justice system will be fair and that our prosecutors and judges will be competent.

    And above all we need to show those who have denied justice to people of color that we won’t be discouraged no matter how many barriers they put in our way.

    Thanks for writing this, Dee.

  5. bfitzinAR

    or even the “probably not” I could/did say to my white sons and my white grandsons.  And that’s just wrong.  Not that I can say “probably not” to my sons and grandsons, but that I can’t say that to the black youngster holding the sign.  All I can say to him is “I hope not” – and feel pretty helpless about my feeble efforts to change what is wrong with my country.

  7. JanF

    Holder: After Trayvon’s Death, I Talked With My Teen Son About The ‘World He Must Confront’

    “Trayvon’s death last spring caused me to sit down to have a conversation with my own 15-year-old son, like my dad did with me. This was a father-son tradition I hoped would not need to be handed down,” Holder said. “But as a father who loves his son and who is more knowing in the ways of the world, I had to do this to protect my boy. I am his father and it is my responsibility, not to burden him with the baggage of eras long gone, but to make him aware of the world he must still confront. This is a sad reality in a nation that is changing for the better in so many ways.”

    He went on to talk about his own “driving while black” encounters in New Jersey and Washington DC, one of them while he was a federal prosecutor.

    No one is safe as long as the lie of “color blindness” is perpetrated.

  8. DeniseVelez

    today was very powerful.

    Several BKos people are discussing it – I’m going to try to find video.  

  9. Adept2u

    I do.

    She was I think about 15 and went to a Korean grocer who blew her head off while she was trying to pay for some orange juice and a scuffle broke out.

    She had put the bottle in her backpack and had the money out to pay for it, but the grocer lady accused her of stealing it tried to grab her not the money when Latasha tried to get away she reached under the counter and shot her in the back of the head as she was trying to leave.

    The judge gave her probation and community service.

    This happened right around the time that Rodney King had his issue with magnetism for police batons.

    I don’t know what we have to do.  

  10. HappyinVT

    find various young white people killed by black men and claim the liberal media promoted Trayvon to lie to those of us too stupid to realize it.

    Yesterday it was Marley Lion.  Actual key difference?  Law enforcement in that case aggressively investigated the case, with assistance from the Feds, and arrested four men two months later.  There is also zero indication that the shooting had anything to do with race as it appears the attackers had been planning to rob a nearby sports bar and Lion tragically showed up at the wrong time.  The photo with the comparison prompted the NAACP to issue a statement:

    On the one hand, they were two young men who were minding their own business when it occurred. On the other hand, I think the problem in the Trayvon case is that the aftermath was different. In the case of Marley Lion, there was an immediate search for the killer, fairly rapid apprehension, rapid action. With Trayvon Martin … the police were aware of the killing, but there was no charge until there was national pressure. I think the reason the Trayvon Martin case made national news was the level of inaction in Florida. http://www.charlestoncitypaper…

    I had a bit of a back and forth with the person who posted the Lion/Martin photo on my wall because I was too stupid, slow, and/or retarded to understand that the Lion story NEVER MADE IT BEYOND THE LOCAL PRESS.  What the idiot poster didn’t understand was that the Lion case actually could be used to show that a white victim (who identified his attackers as black) garnered a much more aggressive investigation than the black Trayvon.  I unfriended the guy who I actually only knew from a Facebook game (no, not Farmville) when the insults started; he wasn’t interested in anything other than a both-sides-do-it and blacks are the real racists POV.

  11. plf515

    The Zimmerman verdict is a travesty of justice. It is a travesty precisely because justice is color blind, but the verdict was not.

    The American legal system does not mete out justice (although, to be fair, I don’t know of a system that does). It metes out justice distorted by race, class, sex and income.

  12. JanF

    An opinion piece from WaPo – Janet Langhart Cohen: After Zimmerman verdict, Obama needs to speak about racism

    We have waited and watched the president address issues of importance to women, gays and lesbians, Latinos and the security of our allies. We praised his boldness in speaking to the issue of sexual orientation during his visit to Africa.

    For the past four years, we have remained silent; some have been satisfied that Obama being the first black president was reason enough to seal our lips and muffle our voices.

    I am not sure that his weighing in would have much impact on such a bitterly divided country and might simply incite more “blacks are more racist than whites” twittering. I do remember his tremendous speech on race in America when he addressed the Rev. Wright “controversy” in 2008.



    (gawd, doesn’t he look young?)

    What do you think?  

  13. Jim in IA

    We can’t rid ourselves of it. It’s good that most people don’t show it much. Those who do are vile. They will always be with us in society. They want ways to lash out at people they hate.

    There are enough laws on the books to cover self defense situations. The ‘stand your ground’ laws are used as an excuse to ‘legally’ act on those attitudes of aggression. They aren’t needed to protect anyone. They are a ruse to allow that segment of society the means to strike out.

    I agree with Holder. These are laws that make many a lot less safe. They need to be eliminated. We all need to speak out in whatever ways we can.

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