Tuesday, July 16, 2013

Revving up Racism...

This Trayvon Martin case and verdict of innocence for George Zimmerman who shot and killed him is once again raising the ugly head of the USA's racism quotient. The actions of most everyone involved in this case show the lack of interracial understanding in America...even when we have a mixed race President. Billions of dollars have been spent to promote civil liberties for all, de-segregation of our public schools, equal opportunity employment and even rewriting history books to include a more balanced history of minority's contributions to building our great country.  Yet, today it is obvious to me that all of this has done very little to foster mutual understanding and trust between the various races that make up our melting pot in America.

These violent reactions to the innocent verdict seem very hypocritical to me. If people get their way in courts, they think justice has been done. If they don't get the verdict and "blood" they want from courts and juries...they want to take justice in their own hands and continue these violent, racial tirades. Ignorance and violence is perpetuated by these racial reactions and emotions.  Blacks didn't riot in the streets when OJ Simpson was pronounced innocent of killing his Caucasian wife, and in my recollection, neither did whites. Where is the balance here?

It once again appears to me that the "powers that be" want to continue these racial divides.  I think I can actually see sinister motivations from many sides in keeping racism alive in America.  Number one, "a country divided cannot stand" as was often said during the Civil War and the Civil Rights movements of the 1960s. Politicians and race leaders love to stir the pot of racism to maintain the cause that keeps them in office or in the media spotlight. Whenever there is an incident such as this involving two different races, you get the ever spinning heads of all sides coming out of the woodwork like roaches to a garbage heap to have their two minutes in the sun spouting off with extreme racial positions.  The manipulation and sensationalism of these events is what perpetuates the racial divides in our culture. Ignorance reigns in all colors of this theme. People focus on the differences versus similarities.  They continue to focus on the injustices versus the great strides that have been made in equality of our systems. Instead of focusing on these advancements, these spokespeople continue wanting more and more reparations for unjust actions of past generations.  They keep everyone focused on the past instead of a more hopeful future.

I was really dismayed when President Obama early on entered the fray of public opinion when this incident happened.  No one knew the facts that early in the affair...and to speak out as he did only intensified public reaction to appearances of racism.  It obviously doesn't take much to open up old wounds. It seemed to me a very politicized reaction to a terrible tragedy...but these Politicos don't really care about due process of law or objectivity.  They just want to stir up their hidden cause and agenda...on the back of such a tragedy and loss of life.

It is also my opinion that my black brothers and sisters need to find some new spokesmen to represent the race overall. To allow the Jesse Jacksons and Al "not so sharp" Sharptons of the world to speak for you in the public domain does not in my opinion advance the call for interracial understanding.  These guys have built their whole lives on continuing the racial divide through sensationalism and race baiting...and there are so many other, better educated, rational and reasonable black minds out there who can speak much more intelligently.  Thomas Sowell, Condelessa Rice, Colin Powell...where are these experienced and educated black leader's voices when it comes to dealing with this case?  Why do we only hear from the most profane and bigoted of all black leaders in the media? They are building walls, not bridges, of human understanding. If I were a black man, I would be appalled at these people who speak out as my representative.  For me it is like accepting the Ku Klux Clan to speak out as my representative for the white race.

This is just another example of institutionalized control and manipulation of the masses. There are always people who profit from these divisions...on both sides of the race divide. The politicization of race is endemic to our country's past. I don't know what all happened that dark night in Sanford, Florida when Zimmerman shot Trayvon. Neither do you.  I don't think anyone from judge to jury, after weeks of court hearings, know 100% of the story either.  We may never know the true motivation of Mr. Zimmerman pulling that trigger.  But, for now our country's laws dictate respect for the outcome of this trial.

It is a travesty that Eric Holder, our black Attorney General, has already pandered to the NAACP this week, stating that the Federal Government is considering continuing a case again Zimmerman.  This is obviously a politicized and racist reaction to a bad situation...and our constitution does not support Executive branches of our government to intervene on the judicial branch in this manner.  It is the wrong reaction at the wrong time by the wrong person.  It seethes of reverse racism, sponsored by our federal tax dollars.  I am calling this administration out on this right now.  If they keep this up, they will have a return of the 60s era racial conflicts and riots in the streets.  At that point it will have nothing to do with Trayvon Martin, and everything to do with just unleashing the combined and continued hatred and anger on all sides of this racial divide. Everyone in America will lose what advancements we HAVE made in uniting the melting pot that is the USA.  I hope that does not happen.  We need some true leadership from all sides of this situation.

(As an afterthought...I conclude with this article today from Thomas Sowell, in my opinion a great contemporary black intellectual leader...)

"There are no winners in the trial of George Zimmerman. The only question is whether the damage that has been done has been transient or irreparable.
Legally speaking, Zimmerman has won his freedom. But he can still be sued in a civil case, and he will probably never be safe to live his life in peace, as he could have before this case made him the focus of national attention and orchestrated hate.
More important than the fate of George Zimmerman, however, is the fate of the American justice system and of the public's faith in that system and their country. People who have increasingly asked, during the lawlessness of the Obama administration, "Is this still America?" may feel some measure of relief.
But the very fact that this case was brought in the first place, in an absence of serious evidence -- which became painfully more obvious as the prosecution strained to try to come up with anything worthy of a murder trial -- will be of limited encouragement as to how long this will remain America.
The political perversion of the criminal justice system began early and at the top, with the President of the United States. Unlike other public officials who decline to comment on criminal cases that have not yet been tried in court, Barack Obama chose to say, "If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."
It was a clever way to play the race card, as he had done before, when Professor Henry Louis Gates of Harvard was arrested.
But it did not stop there. After the local police in Florida found insufficient evidence to ask for Zimmerman to be prosecuted, the Obama administration sent Justice Department investigators to Sanford, Florida, and also used the taxpayers' money to finance local activists who agitated for Zimmerman to be arrested.
Political intervention did not end with the federal government. The city manager in Sanford intervened to prevent the usual police procedures from being followed.
When the question arose of identifying the voice of whoever was calling for help during the confrontation between Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman, the normal police procedure would have been to let individuals hear the recording separately, rather than have a whole family hear it together.
If you want to get each individual's honest opinion, you don't want that opinion to be influenced by others who are present, much less allow a group to coordinate what they are going to say.
When the city manager took this out of the hands of the police, and had Trayvon Martin's family, plus Rachel Jeantel, all hear the recording together, that's politics, not law.
This was just one of the ways that this case looked like something out of "Alice in Wonderland." Both in the courtroom and in the media, educated and apparently intelligent people repeatedly said things that they seemed sincerely, and even fervently, to believe, but which were unprovable and often even unknowable.
In addition, the testimonies of the prosecution's witness after witness undermined its own case. Some critics faulted the attorneys. But the prosecutors had to work with what they had, and they had no hard evidence that would back up a murder charge or even a manslaughter charge.
You don't send people to prison on the basis of what other people imagine, or on the basis of media sound bites like "shooting an unarmed child," when that "child" was beating him bloody.
The jury indicated, early on as their deliberations began, that they wanted to compare hard evidence, when they asked for a complete list of the testimony on both sides.
Once the issue boiled down to hard, provable facts, the prosecutors' loud histrionic assertions and sweeping innuendos were just not going to cut it.
Nor was repeatedly calling Zimmerman a liar effective, especially when the prosecution misquoted what Zimmerman said, as an examination of the record would show.
The only real heroes in this trial were the jurors. They showed that this is still America -- at least for now -- despite politicians who try to cheapen or corrupt the law, as if this were some banana republic. Some are already calling for a federal indictment of George Zimmerman, after he has been acquitted.
Will this still be America then?"

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