There is nothing that would have mitigated the pain caused by Trayvon Martin’s murder. Sure, these things have been happening forever but, once we saw his face and knew the circumstances, and once the right jumped in to denigrate him and defend George Zimmerman, the stakes were raised. How one felt about Trayvon and Zimmerman became a litmus test about how one felt about basic equality and justice for African Americans.
Not long ago, acquittal would have been as predictable as the sunset.
But Barack Obama’s election to the presidency twice made some of us (not the smartest of us, I’m afraid, including me) believe that it was a new day. No, not that race no longer mattered but that virulent racism was dying.
That misapprehension started to erode when we watched the Republicans (led by Senator Mitch McConnell) assert flat out that they would not accept Obama’s legitimacy. It was no surprise that the right would not accept a Democratic president (its rejection of democracy became obvious during the Clinton years) but it was something of a surprise that Obama’s election legitimized racism for the GOP, for Drudge, Trump, Coulter, Carlson and the right in Congress. Didn’t they have to accept a president who won over 50% of the vote twice? After all, we accepted Bush even though he hadn’t won at all.
But no they didn’t. His black skin was infinitely more significant to the right than the fact that he is President.
And so it was clear, racism only increases when African Americans rise. Just like anti-Semitism in 20th century Germany, it is the very success of the hated minority that exacerbates hatred on the part of those who have nothing to take pride in except their precious racial status,
And the reaction to Trayvon and Zimmerman demonstrated it yet again. The President was exactly right. If Barack Obama had a son, he would have looked like Trayvon Martin. And that is the entire story of this horrific situation. They couldn’t get Obama. But they did get Trayvon.
And that is what the right is celebrating. The only thing better would be if they could get Barack Obama off that list of 44 presidents. But they can’t. And that is, for the right, the hurt that will last forever.
***
I have two sons. And they were typical teenagers. They got into trouble.
And we worried about them. A lot. Especially when they were hanging out in DC (their lives were the hip hop music scene).
But, to be honest, our worries focused on two things: car accidents and meeting up with some hopped up jerk with a gun.
Thank God, neither ever happened.
But they are white. Once, one son was unfairly picked up by a cop. He was with a black friend and they were taken to the police station. The cops called me and I came to the station to spring him.
The cops were as nice as can be. But, when my son came out, he was enraged. The cops had not called the black kid’s parents. He was still in there. And, unlike my boy, who got to call me and was just sitting and waiting for me, the black kid was handcuffed to a chair and his shoelaces were taken away. (Were they afraid he’d commit suicide with them?)
My kid was horrified. They both were doing the same dumbass thing. But his friend was treated like a gangster.
I remember thinking that I couldn’t stand it if my boys were black. In addition to all the other random dangers teens face, black kids have to worry about the cops too or pseudo cops like George Zimmerman.
This verdict only confirms what black parents already knew: it is not safe out there for their boys. The good thing: maybe now their sons understand what their parents are so anxious about. Black parents aren’t paranoid. They know that their boys are at risk. Everywhere.
As for the George Zimmermans of this country, they now know they can kill and get away with it. The cops even gave Zimmerman back the gun with which he killed Trayvon.
I doubt he’ll use it again. But rest assured other George Zimmermans will and more Trayvons will die. And a large percentage of the country will be just fine with that.
I am glad I’m not black. I just don’t have the courage for it.
Rosenberg, I hope, does see the sark difference between Germany and the US. Firstly, anti Semitsim was nothing new in Germany and ended up with 6 million slaughtered. Think about it,.
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And so it was clear, racism only increases when African Americans rise.
//QUOTE
What?!? Are you kidding me? The one thing does NOT lead to the other. As a matter of fact we celebrate those who succeed, not denigrate them!
The stupid….it burns.
I’m afraid what the “conservative” (in reality, neo-fascist) Republican base hates and resents most is the political success–and the great political sophistication–of Black people. They are the heart and soul of the Democratic party in southern and border states, and are already leading the economic fight for America’s families against the arrogant billionaires that run American media and society generally. And the Black middle class thoroughly understands the necessity of pushing back against the billionaires, a process that has the potential of bringing millions of independents into the Democratic party.
The Republicans are now going to concentrate on voter suppression based on race. There will be a huge fight over it for the next generation at least, perhaps two. The Republican state houses in the gerrymandered states will find a hundred and one different ways to exclude Black, Latino and Asian voters–and poor people generally–with their ID laws, restricted access for voting, and so forth. Democrats will try to replace the gutted Voting Rights Act with legislation, but the Republicans will use their gerrymander to fight it. Billions will be spent, and probably some lives lost, over this fight, which can end only with a comprehensive federal law for voting, taking it out of the hands of the states. The Republican base will say, “The right to vote isn’t in the Constitution, so voting isn’t a right, it’s a privilege.” That will force new federal legislation.
The only silver lining is that it will become clear to all that the Republican party is not only racist, but that its main message is all about oppression based on race, and to some extent class. This is the direct result of the Southern strategy adopted by the Republican leadership in the 1960s.
Few people understand the extent to which the Republicans have packed the courts. Once upon a time, candidates for the bench were liberals, centrists, and conservatives, but were chosen for their knowledge of the law–Democrats still choose people of all political persuasions. Republicans, however, began in the 1980s appointing only extreme conservatives from the Federalist Society, an extreme right-wing organization. (Such as Chief Justice Roberts, who was on the Executive Board of DC Federalists.) Therefore they have succeeded in packing the judiciary, by the simple expedient of appointing only extreme right-wing Republicans. These right-wing appointees are in no way separate from the other two branches of government, but are in close ideological cooperation with Republican allies in them. Modern conservatism, it seems, has one overriding goal, to reduce the American middle class and working families to the status of a new urban/suburban peasantry, with an oligarchy of unelected billionaires at the top running everything.
The way the whole Zimmerman case was framed, with the judge prohibiting any discussion of the racist language that was used by Zimmerman and his father, and the utterly insidious way that the defense lawyers used racism to blame the victim (and put all Black people on trial) is a typical example of the way racism is being used by the judiciary. Stand Your Ground laws will never be interpreted fairly. Whites with a gun will go free. Blacks with a gun will spend their lives in prison.
Applying appropriate, non-violent pressure on the judiciary, on law enforcement, and on government generally at this point, is absolutely appropriate, and in fact necessary, if we have any chance of pushing back the billionaires’ racist oligarchy and re-instituting democratic institutions.
Totally agree
Parallels between the US and Germany today are more significant in terms of comparative governments than in the past. The holocaust of WWII Germany took place after the Weimar Republic (democratic principles) was taken over by the small Nazi Party that precipitated the holocaust as we know of it today. Will this translate into a “Black Holocaust” in the US? Most likely not. We today have a black President…etc… is it a “storm flag” because of similarities, yes. Should people over react to a “jury decision” in Florida? It was a jury not a totalitarian edict. Though if you look at laws in the US they are certainly influenced and written by “interest groups” that take advantage of “fear” tactics that control demands and markets in our marketplace. The US media is controlled by six corporations!? So media is controlled and managed at the upper levels and few deserters in the business want to become a “whistleblower” due to the good pay and benefits… so where does that leave us? We are up against a corporate oligarchy not a dictator…it is now considered a “person” and controls our national legislature as was predicted by FDR and Eisenhower… remember the classic(model) move of a corporate HQ from one nation to the in war to another one…? can you guess? yes it was ITT from Berlin to NYC during WWII… corporate HQ’s are now moving to Dubai…
Our family is multicultural, and my son, who is biracial, is considered black. I feel blessed and rich that we have access to a wider world because of his father’s and my decision to have children. We live in NYC in a artistic intellectual community that is so progressive that my son once wrote a paper in his junior year of high school, saying that racism was finished in America.
Having lived 6 years since that paper, a more racist world has become part of his reality. I can only say that he has experienced the double standard of police treatment; being left in jail for a graffiti tag while his white schoolmates were able to leave the police station.
We have marched together when Travon Martin was first shot, silently, with thousands of other outraged families. He has protested economic inequality in the US, as a founder of Occupy Wall Street, and has still found the time to push for alternative transportation.
Had he been born white into a gated community, he might have been another clueless entitled brat. Instead he is an awe inspiring young man who transcends color. I am thankful that he is.