Tag Archives: Trayvon Martin

Political Rants

Making a killing.

I’ll keep this short, because there’s stuff to do. My advice to anyone who wants to kill someone (non-white) with impunity is simply to follow these three steps:

  1. Invite said person down to Florida
  2. Take them somewhere where no one can observe you closely, perhaps the Everglades, and shoot them dead
  3. Claim they made you feel threatened, thereby invoking  the “Stand Your Ground” law (signed by noted moderate Jeb Bush)

That’s pretty much all you need to know. Watching the Zimmerman trial, I can’t help but feel like he’s going to walk through that massive legal hole opened for him by bullet-brained state legislators (fueled by ALEC) and Big Jeb. I am struck by that sense, and by the overwhelming irony of the defense’s efforts to frame Zimmerman as the target of racial profiling. Cross examination of Trayvon Martin’s friend Rachel Jeantel was ludicrous. The girl did not want to be there, but felt she had to. She lost her friend, and she was herself being stereotyped on the stand. The insinuation that her use of a very standardized form of African American Vernacular English (AAVE) was just bad speech, uneducated muttering, etc., was quite simply racist. Watching the defense attorney, surrounded by white people, disrespecting this young lady was truly nauseating.

Regardless, though the Zimmerman defense team seems less than stellar, their fight is downhill all the way. All they need to do is sow doubt. It’s Zimmerman’s word against the silence of a dead young man. Seems like there was a time when a jury might take one look at this 200-plus pound vigilante, look at the slight kid he shot, and toss him in the slammer.  That time, if it ever existed, was before “Stand Your Ground”. (I’m not certain it ever existed when the young man was black and the shooter white, particularly in a place like Florida. )

Color me disgusted. On a week when they’ve gutted the voting rights act, it’s appropriate that we should be reminded of our deep cultural racism.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Commierat.

Another challenging week for those who value sanity. Let’s see what we’ve got in the old political grab bag:

Go West. Channeling Joe McCarthy, congressman Allen West name tagged the entire Congressional Progressive Caucus as members of the communist party this week. Interesting choice. Is this dude trying to lead us back bravely to 1952? Because if he does, he will not be a congressman at the end of that process. Black people effectively did not have the right to vote in Florida back then, let alone represent their constituencies in Congress. Do go there, Congressman! Stay in this decade, at least.

Memento Santorum. Well, this is disappointing. Just when I was getting used to the knock-down drag-out fight that was the Republican primaries, they come to a screeching halt. My guess is that someone got on the phone to old Rick – time to pack it in, old man, and let Mitt start kicking at his general election strategy. Perhaps Mr. Friess made the call himself – suggested Rick hold his ambition between his knees, so to speak. Probably good advice. Looked like the voters of Pennsylvania were prepared to reject him and his bigoted politics for a second time in six years. Nasty S.O.B., that one. Still…. disappointing. Now it’s all Thurston Goodhair Car-Elevator the Third. Even the banker-Republicans are a little disenchanted, but … they’ll rally.

Gun Play. The alleged killer of Trayvon Martin George Zimmerman was arrested and arraigned this week on charges of second-degree murder. They are essentially accusing him of driving a truck through the truck-sized hole in Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law – the one that essentially legalizes murder for anyone with enough brains to arrange shooting their victim without any witnesses. This law is cousin to similar legislation passed or being introduced in state legislatures across the country through the good offices of ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council), basically an instrument of the NRA in these cases. Inasmuch as the left has all but completely folded on the gun issue, the gun lobby needs to justify its existence by pressing for ever more absurdly permissive legislation on gun ownership, gun toting, and gun use.

“Stand Your Ground” in Florida amounts to standing any ground at any time; a society of vigilantes reminiscent of the film-inspired myths of the 19th Century American West. What could possibly go wrong?

Crime of the Century. A guy in Utica just attempted to rob three banks armed with a toilet plunger. This followed by what sounds like a keystone-cops type of chase by local law enforcement around an ATM. Who says all of the truly big crimes happen in big cities?

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

American take-away.

It’s official: if you get pulled over for an out-of-date inspection or soft tires … or perhaps nothing at all, you can be strip searched. Thank you, Anthony Kennedy. Thank you, George W. Bush.

Why George W. Bush? Because he appointed a right-wing chief justice when Rehnquist had to step down in 2005. In truth, I should blame voters in the 2004 election for reelecting a right-wing imbecile to the presidency – one who would be there to appoint Scalia clones as needed. The Roberts appointment was particularly crucial in that Supreme Court Justices – who are imagined to be somehow magically apolitical – always seem to delay their retirement until the presidency is held by someone who shares their ideological world-view. Because of failing health, Rehnquist would have retired in 2005 no matter who won the 2004 election. Ergo, that election was our last opportunity to shift the balance of the court back from right-wing extremism, and we basically blew it.

That’s as it may be. But this FLORENCE v. BOARD OF CHOSEN FREEHOLDERS OF COUNTY OF BURLINGTON ET AL. decision is truly odious, particularly at this moment in our political-cultural history. Think of it: we are in the grips of a national debate about the Trayvon Martin killing – a young man who likely would be alive today if he hadn’t been black. The Martin case is far from unique. Democracy Now! has been reporting on a remarkably heinous police killing of a 68-year-old Marine veteran with a heart condition who rolled over on his medic-alert badge – a false alarm that for some reason brought on the equivalent of a SWAT team from the White Plains PD. (He too was, of course, African-American.) It seems our society is going out of its way to demonstrate how little it values the lives of black people in general, and black men in particular.

That’s how the Supreme Court made a bad thing worse. The “Florence” in Florence v. Board is Albert Florence, a black man riding in the passenger seat of his BMW (his wife was driving) when they were pulled over by the White Plains police. They arrested Florence for a purportedly unpaid fine – which he had paid, and for which he had proof of payment handy when stopped by the police – and took him in, strip searching him (twice) before releasing him after the error was confirmed (presumably by a trustworthy white person). This was just fine with the 5 conservative justices on the court. Now, every black person in America knows what this means – it’s a green light for abusive practices in custody, the humiliation of repeated strip searches. And it will fall disproportionately on them, because they are arrested at a much higher rate than are white people.

It’s the cherry on top of the shit sundae. Just more confirmation of the thesis of The New Jim Crow and Slavery by Another Name. Criminalization of blackness is once again validated at the highest level of our “justice” system.

luv u,

jp