Tag Archives: George Zimmerman

Point of View Columns

Weekend Edition – February 8, 2014

It is the nature of bad taste that there are no limits to how bad it can get. So it may come as no surprise that a sin-stained child killer (George Zimmerman) and a washed up rapper (DMX) will stage an exhibition boxing match – but still…. Meanwhile, the George Washington Bridgegate scandal is turning out to be The Death of a Thousand Cuts for Chris Christie. And finally, in a monumental tribute to insensitivity, Turner Classic Movies aired “Gone with the Wind” on the first day of Black History Month. Really???

Just Say No!

It has been said that no one ever lost money underestimating the intelligence of the American people. It can also be said that it is hard to lose money selling bad taste to the American people.

A case in point – George Zimmerman, the acquitted killer of Trayvon Martin, who should forever hide his face in shame and beg his God for some measure of forgiveness, is slated to appear in a celebrity boxing match. DMX, an outdated has been of a rapper, who has spent more time in prison than on stage in recent years, will be his opponent.

This is wrong on so many levels it is impossible to know where to start – the promoter, the faux pugilists? There is certainly a special place in Hell for whoever came up with this idea.

In the meantime, we should keep in mind that it is possible to ignore this obscenity and not watch it as it sinks into to the immoral slime from which it came.

Christie’s Circus

Clearly, at some point in the recent past, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie decided that, instead of trying to run for president he would pursue a career in comedy. That is the only explanation behind the dumb as a bag of hammers move by someone in his office to close the George Washington Bridge followed by a cover up that makes the Nixon Administration look positively Machiavellian by comparison.

And now, the Christie administration has brought up the 11th grade record of a possible accuser (and former Christie appointee) as a means of attacking that person’s credibility. Please reread the prior sentence because it is so stupid that it has to be true.

Clearly Chris Christie believes that when you are in secondary school there really is such a thing as a Permanent Record.

Turner Classic Ignorance

For those of you who pay attention to such things, Black History Month, also known as African American History Month, began on February 1st. Either the big brain executives at Turner Classic Movies didn’t know that, or they just didn’t care.

In any event, TCM decided that February 1st was a great evening to air that racist slavery fantasy, “Gone with the Wind”. We should be glad that “Birth of a Nation” was presumably not available.

Have a great weekend – stay strong and be great!

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Point of View Columns

Here’s What’s Wrong with Cornel West

It appears that ever since he did not get the prized inaugural tickets that his massive ego demanded, Cornel West has been determined to claw and gnaw at the presidency of Barack Obama. While he is free to permanently and totally disagree with any and all of the policies espoused by President Obama, it might be useful for Dr. West to remember that with freedom comes responsibility. And in that regard Cornel West has come up short – so to speak.

From the time that he took office Barack Obama has been subjected to ridicule and disrespect rarely seen in modern times. While it is true that John Adams was labeled a “hermaphrodite” and Abraham Lincoln was called a “baboon” and a “gorilla”, one would be hard pressed to recall another president who was called a “liar” from the floor of the House of Representatives by a member of the House of Representatives. President Obama’s wife, children, mother and mother-in-law have been fair game in the game that is being played by the right wing of the right wing.

Part of this has to do with the mud and dirt that one must endure when entering the political arena – just ask Bill Clinton or read about the full frontal attacks on Franklin D. “Rosenfeld” by the right wing of another era. But, as has been noted many times, there is a sharper and barbed edge to the arrows shot in the direction of Barack Obama and it is not being overly sensitive to suggest that this is because he is the first black President of the United States.

It is, therefore, odd and troubling that someone like Cornel West, a self-styled intellectual and self-anointed spokesman for oppressed black people, has taken it upon himself to castigate, demonize and trash the Obama legacy. One would think that there are enough white right wing zealots available to do that job – and then there are always the two Alans, Alan West and Alan Keys, if there is a need to add some color to the attack tag team.

As an accomplished academic, Cornel West has taught at Princeton and Harvard and is currently on the faculty at Union Theological Seminary. Although his multiple degrees do not include history or political science, it is fair to hold Dr. West to a higher standard of awareness than the man or woman on the street – wherever that street might be.

And by that standard it is incomprehensible that a presumably intelligent and educated man like Cornel West would engage in hurling playground invectives and insults at Barack Obama in the hope of…..what? Is he seeking to encourage thoughtful discourse and criticism regarding the policies of the Obama Administration? That is hard to believe when he labels the first black President of the United States “a lap dog for Wall Street”.

When he calls the man for whom over 90% of voting black Americans selected – twice – “a Rockefeller Republican in blackface”, exactly what point is he trying to get across? Aside from the very clear point of making sure that the name “Cornel West” stays in the media spotlight no matter how irrelevant he is becoming.

And in the middle of the distress and dismay following the despicable and damnable verdict in the George Zimmerman case did Dr. Cornel West offer some solace to the parents of Trayvon Martin. Did he try to put the case within the historical context of the seeming devaluation of black life by American institutions?

Of course not. Cornel West, a clear master of self-promotion, chose that very sad and somber moment to label President Obama “a Global George Zimmerman”, whatever the hell that is supposed to mean. In doing so Cornel West misdirected attention away from serious consideration of the Zimmerman trial and verdict to…..you guessed it, Cornel West. And one can be certain that this attention helps Cornel West as he charges $30,000 – $50,000 per speech as an advocate for poor black people. The irony is simultaneously inescapable and miserable.

The truth of the matter is that when the history of the Obama Administration is written decades from now, or next year, Cornel West will warrant something less than a footnote. He is a self-promoting and self-serving rhetorical provocateur who continues to do more harm than good every time he opens his mouth.

Perhaps one day Dr. West will come to grips with the fact that with freedom of speech comes some sort of responsibility for what one says. But don’t hold your breath.

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Point of View Columns

Weekend Edition – July 19, 2013

The aftermath of the wrongheaded and racially stained verdict in the trial of George Zimmerman leaves black parents in a real quandary – what survival lessons should be taught? Meanwhile, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has fashioned himself as some kind of avatar of Washington gridlock, and he is proud of it. And finally, the City of Detroit has filed for bankruptcy. This is a sad story that may also be a precursor of things to come.

What is the Lesson Plan?

In her first interview since the Zimmerman trial, Sybrina Fulton, the mother of Trayvon Martin offered a heartbreaking observation – one shared by black parents across this country. She said that she had “no clue” what to tell her surviving son regarding the best course of action to take to stay in alive in circumstances similar to the one that cost Trayvon Martin his life.

Clearly walking down the street in a lawful fashion is not enough to insure that a young black man will come home alive. Just a clearly, taking notice, much less offense, to being followed by a suspicious or “creepy” white man could be a fatal decision.

In the event that her surviving son is confronted by a white man with no apparent or stated affiliation with law enforcement, he is supposed to………….what? Assume that all white men are well-intentioned and submit to detention and questioning? Should he run for his life? Should he resist as most young white men are taught to do?

It is a shame that there are no useful answers to these questions. And it is shameful that the Zimmerman case will not be the last of its kind in these United States.

The Champion of Dysfunction

When he first took his oath of office as a United States Senator Mitch McConnell swore to uphold the Constitution of the United States. A thorough search of the Constitution will not reveal a provision that gives anyone the right to impair and impede the orderly function of the federal government for purely partisan reasons.

Yet, as Minority Leader of the Senate Mitch McConnell has instigated over FOUR HUNDRED FILIBUSTERS in order to impair and impeded the operations of the federal government. Everything from legislation to routine presidential appointments are held up, sometimes for years, at McConnell’s behest, serving his goal of crippling the Obama Administration and diminishing its legacy.

When Barack Obama was inaugurated on January 19, 2009, he swore that he would do everything in his power to make sure that President Obama was a one term president. We all know how that turned out.

Now, McConnell’s goal is loftier – the systematic destruction of the federal government by employing strategies of delay, obstruction and more delay.

Mitch McConnell is a political terrorist who wears a filibuster vest instead of a bomb vest.  

As Detroit Goes So Goes…….?

In the 1950’s Detroit was one of the largest cities in the United States with a population of 1.8 million people. Today Detroit has a population of 700,000 people and has filed for bankruptcy.

There are a lot of reasons for this disastrous decline of what was once one of this country’s greatest cities – governmental mismanagement, relocation of core businesses (including the automobile industry), the flight of the middle class (black and white) and seemingly no sustainable vision for the future.

The structural dysfunction of the city’s finances occasioned by pension costs cannot be ignored as well. Many cities, counties and states will be watching the outcome of the Detroit scenario as the mayors, managers and governors know that they could be next.

Have a great weekend and stay strong!

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Point of View Columns

Twelve Lessons from the Zimmerman Trial

It took approximately sixteen hours for the jury in the trial of George Zimmerman to arrive at the verdict that acquitted him of all charges related to his having killed Trayvon Martin. This stunning demolition of the concept of “justice for all” has a sad and macabre “Groundhog Day” quality to it as American history reeks with the stench of the tradition of black men and women being killed without criminal consequences for the killers.

Conscientious black parents in this country give their children American Survival lessons at a very early age lest they run afoul of the third rail of racism that lies hidden just below the surface all throughout these United States. The Zimmerman verdict provided yet another mandatory teachable moment. Ever since the jury of five white women and a Latina determined that the killing of Trayvon Martin did not warrant any punishment whatsoever, it has been important to think about twelve lessons that black parents need to be teaching their children until they can recite it by rote:

  1. For over two hundred years it was impossible for a white person to be arrested, much less convicted for killing a black person in the American South.
  2. Until the Civil War, very few white Americans did anything to prevent this ritualized and legalized slaughter of black human beings.
  3. For over one hundred years after the Civil War black men and women were routinely lynched by white terrorists. These lynchings took place not only in the South but in places like Indiana and New York’s Long Island. Records do not indicate that any white person ever faced legal consequences as a result of participating in this terrorist activity.
  4. During the wholesale lynching frenzy, most white Americans went about their business and there is no record of any Congressional action outlawing lynching despite a few pathetic efforts to do so.
  5. During the classic years of the Civil Rights movement so many black Americans were killed without the killers ever being arrested, much less prosecuted, the United States Congress passed a law in the early part of this century empowering the Justice Department to reopen so called “cold cases”. Not surprisingly, most of the perpetrators have either died or continue to walk the streets.
  6. Despite the history of institutionalized, routinized and culturally acceptable violence being perpetrated against black people in America, the myth of the barely controllable black brute has become a part of white American reality justifying the routine use of deadly force, capital punishment and the imposition of crippling prison sentences through mass incarceration.
  7. In any encounter with the police or any other law enforcement representative, a black male can anticipate being held to a different standard regarding his conduct as his mere existence can be seen as a potential threat and he is considered to have the inherent capacity to become a wild and dangerous brute at any moment.
  8. In order to survive encounters with law enforcement representatives, a black male must be fully conscious of the perspective of those representatives, recognizing that raising his voice, gesticulating or looking angry could be seen as sufficient reason for the use of deadly force.
  9. Because of the prevailing myth of the black brute, black males must be self-aware in their interaction with white people who are not a part of law enforcement given that there are over 300 million firearms in the United States and the overwhelming number of them are owned by white Americans.
  10. The combination of the myth of the black brute has combined with “stand your ground” statutes to produce a toxic environment for black males where any argument, confrontation, fight or contentious encounter with a white person can have lethal consequences that will be deemed legally justifiable.
  11. The principles of self-defense in the American justice do not apply to black people when the presumed attacker is white. It is clear to all rational observers that if the “black George Zimmerman” had shot and killed the “white Trayvon Martin” and claimed self-defense he would have been arrested on the spot, convicted of killing the “white Trayvon Martin” and he would have begun serving his second year in prison by now.
  12. As a black male, you are not assured of a right to safety or to be free from random acts of lethal violence even if you are smart, college educated, well-spoken, well dressed, polite,  aware and law abiding. To stay alive you will also have to be lucky.

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Point of View Columns

Weekend Edition – July 12, 2013

Last weekend a train carrying fuel oil crashed and nearly destroyed a town in Quebec, Canada. Perhaps there is a lesson to be learned? And while the U.S. has moved from #1 to #2 in the world’s obesity rankings (thanks to Mexico), the United States remains #1 when it comes to the largest incarcerated population in the world. And finally, while we await the verdict in the Zimmerman trial we can take a moment to wonder what would happen if the script had been flipped.

The Price of Progress

When a hand brake slipped on a trainload of fuel cars, the train crashed into a small town in Quebec, Canada killing at least fifty people and virtually destroying a huge section of that town. The accident appears to have been caused by human error or mechanical failure.

What we know about this modern era in which we live is that, despite all the safeguards and backup systems, there will always be accidents caused by human error and mechanical failure. Which has to make the idea of adding huge pipeline systems in this country is such a good idea.

We know that there are already serious safety concerns being expressed regarding the proposed XL Pipeline. Maybe we should look north to consider the potential consequences of disregarding those concerns.

Undisputed Champion

Thanks to the proliferation of sugar, junk and empty calories in the American diet this country has held the unenviable title of being the world’s most obese nation. But there must be something in those tacos because now Mexico is #1 while the United States has waddled to the #2 position.

However there is still an area where the U.S. is the undisputed champion. The largest incarcerated population in the world resides in the United States. Certainly a major reason for this dubious distinction is the farce of a so-called War on Drugs that is going into its fifth failed decade.

It is clear that imprisoning so many people has done very little to eliminate drug use in this country. It is also clear that violent explosions are still commonplace throughout this country.

Perhaps it is finally time to consider alternative approaches to law enforcement other than “locking them up and throwing away the key”.

Flip the Script…..Please!

The Zimmerman trial is lurching to an end and we await a verdict. Whatever the verdict it is useful to ponder an undisputed truth.

If George Zimmerman was black and Trayvon Martin was white the “black” Zimmerman would have been arrested on the spot for killing the “white” Trayvon Martin. Right now the “black” Zimmerman would be well into serving the second year of what would certainly have been a very long prison term.

Have a great weekend and stay strong!

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Point of View Columns

Lessons from the Zimmerman Trial

There is something about America and trials and court decisions. The 1733 trial of Peter Zenger in New York City laid the foundation for the First Amendment. The Dred Scott decision in 1857 shamefully affirmed the legitimacy of slavery in this country. The Brown v. Board of Education case in 1954 began to finally dismantle the infrastructure of institutionalized racism in this country.

There have been many “trials of the century” – Sacco-Vanzetti, the Scopes “monkey” trial, the trial of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg – but there was something about the murder trial of O.J. Simpson which mixed a rich combination of circus plus drama plus the most prodigious exploitation of racial taboos since the heyday of the Ku Klux Klan. That O.J. Simpson was acquitted of killing a blonde white woman has struck many white Americans as the greatest miscarriage of justice in the history of the planet.

This bit of retrospective is important in looking at the Zimmerman trial because even though a black man is not on trial, the defendant’s perception of black men is a central factor in this case. Unlike the O.J. Simpson case the Zimmerman case is not a whodunit. It is clear and freely admitted that George Zimmerman intentionally fired the fatal shot that killed Trayvon Martin.

The question in the Zimmerman case is whether the defendant had the legal right to kill Trayvon Martin. The defense has argued that his fear and mistrust of a “suspicious” black person caused him to confront the murder victim. The defense has further argued that once he engaged in a confrontation with Trayvon Martin he had a right to kill him since he was in fear of his life.

It is important to note that in the South it was legally impossible for a white man to be convicted of killing a black man until 1865. After that it was virtually impossible for a white man to be convicted of killing a black man and the number of exceptions to this brutal rule would not take up much space in this column.

The Zimmerman case must be seen within this historical context – in the South white men (including Latino white men) have had an historical right to kill black men even if they are the aggressors, the instigators or even the terrorists (see the Ku Klux Klan). The fear of inherent blood lust that resides in every black man has been seen as sufficient justification for killing black men who talked back to a white man, looked askance at a white man or struck a white man.

Seen within this context, it is understandable how the local police did not even arrest George Zimmerman at the time of the murder. It is understandable how the laws and public perception work in another of the benighted former Confederate States so that the killing of a young black man is considered justifiable simply because the shooter said so.

The toxicity of this situation is compounded by the almost ubiquitous presence of guns in America and in Florida in particular. Combined with the “Stand Your Ground” law which no longer requires individuals to try to avoid confrontation, it is perfectly understandable how Trayvon Martin was killed and why George Zimmerman shot him. And it is perfectly clear that if there was no gun Trayvon Martin would still be alive as it is doubtful that George Zimmerman would have ever approached him in the first place.

The only remaining question is whether the jury – a six member panel comprised of six women, five of whom are white – will somehow find George Zimmerman to have some responsibility for the death of Trayvon Martin. It is hard to believe that the devaluation of the lives of black men, a tradition that dates back to slavery, still slithers through the subconscious minds of too many white Americans.

For those who would argue against this assessment consider the Martin-Zimmerman fact pattern and reverse the racial identity of the actors. Does anyone doubt that the “black” George Zimmerman would have been arrested for killing the “white” Trayvon Martin?

The answer may be the harshest lesson that we learn from the George Zimmerman trial.

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