Dear White America, close your eyes and imagine for a minute that this is how the Trayvon Martin incident!
On February 26th 2011, a young white boy was walking to his father’s house after coming from the store. He was wearing a hoodie and carrying a bag of skittles and ice tea, he was minding his own business.
Out of nowhere a grown Black man drove by and assessed that this white teenager was up to no good so he started following him. The teenager recognized that he was being followed so he ran, not knowing why this grown man was following him, he just knew that a creepy dude in a car was following him for no reason. Is it a crime for a white kid to go to the store to get some snacks? I think not! He was within his rights to be where he was and was doing nothing wrong, yet because he was he was immediately vilified by the Black guy in the car. This is evident in the fact that he decided to follow the kid because “he looked like he was up to no good”.
The black guy then proceeds to call 911 to report this “suspicious looking” white kid that was wearing a hoodie. He then told the 911 operator that he was following the suspect, and the operator immediately told him to stand down, do not follow him, the police are on their way. This grown Black dude then proceeds to get out of his car and follow the white teenager anyway, even though he was told not to. As he is following the teenager he can be heard mumbling about how they always get away with stuff. The call ends and he continues to pursue the white teenager.
By this time the white teenager has called his friend and is telling her that a creepy looking nigger is following him. He looks up and there he is, the Black man is standing there, and before he hangs up the phone with his friend, he is overheard saying “why are you following me”?
What happens next more than likely went like this! Continue reading
Where Was Trayvon Martin Shot?
After scouring through pages of info on the Trayvon Martin murder today, once again I noticed a glaring omission.
We know what Trayvon was wearing, the hoodie of course, what he had in his possession, Skittles and an Arizona Tea we know that he was suspended 3 times and was on a 2 week suspension for an empty marijuana bag.
We know that Zimmerman “reportedly” had a Broken Nose and Gash on the BACK of his Head, we know that he was kicked out of Seminole University, we know that his father is a retired judge, mother a court clerk, we know that he has been arrested 3 times; one for resisting arrest with violence, which is a felony, one for resisting arrest non-violently and one for domestic violence, we even know the make of the gun that he carried and used to commit this heinous crime.
There’s a great article on Think Progress chronicling this story.
But what we still don’t know is, Where Was Trayvon Martin Shot?
What body part did the bullet strike? Was he shot in the Chest, the Stomach? Where did the bullet strike him? Or was he shot in the Back?
If the latter is the case, then we know that what Zimmerman has been saying is a complete lie. But regardless of where he was shot he still was being pursued by an unidentified strange man with a gun, so he had the right to defend himself.
Update:
After being told where he got shot by someone on Facebook, I changed my search keywords to include where he got shot and I found a bunch of articles saying that he was shot in the chest at close range, Google be damned! Didn’t want people using the same keywords as I did and coming to the same erroneous conclusion as I did, where he was shot is known, it’s just not part of the narrative unfolding.
Stand Your Ground Trayvon Martin
As this story has been unfolding over the past month something is being lost in translation. We’re wearing our hoodies, we’re calling for justice and we’re angry that the system has failed us once again.
Black activist and leaders like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Tavis Smiley, Cornell West, and others have spoken out, and even President Barack Obama waded in on this tragedy that has galvanized the African American populace across the nation. The New Black Panther party has even put an ill advised $10k bounty on George Zimmerman’s head, because if something happens to him the BPP will be blamed for it and will be promptly arrested which will bring tension to it’s highest point since OJ’s trial. And still something has been looked over in the narrative that is unfolding.
Even with Geraldo Rivera’s idiotic, down right hypocritical stance against the hoodie no one has mentioned that George Zimmerman was the aggressor. By his own admission in the 911 call, when he told them that he was following Trayvon, he should have been pegged as the aggressor, arrested and locked up for first degree murder.
The law that police say is keeping them from arresting Zimmerman should be applied to Trayvon Martin with 100% impunity. Continue reading