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Posted by Mike E on March 29, 2012
The rulers and enforcers don’t give a fuck about a Black life….
….But the people are showing that Trayvon’s life was cherished
by Nat Winn
So much for a post-racial United States.
The murder of Trayvon Martin has put front and center the fact that a young Black man is risking his life simply by walking out of his front door. It has also demonstrated in front of a national audience that the authorities in this society don’t give a fuck about the life of a Black person.
Trayvon was visiting his father’s fiance in a gated community. He stepped outside during halftime of a basketball game to buy a snack. He was young. He wore a hoodie. He was Black. These facts were enough to make him “suspicious” to the neighborhood watch vigilante George Zimmerman.
Those things were enough to cost Trayvon his life.
The brave and outspoken parents of Trayvon Martin, Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin.
And what about the way the police have responded to Trayvon’s death. From the start they have attempted to cover up facts, defend the reputation of a racist killer, and destroy the character of a seventeen-year-old high school student.
The fact that the authorities had ways of identifying Trayvon including possession of his cell phone and yet they declared him a John Doe, leaving his family in the dark attests to the utter worthlessness of Black life in the mind of this society’s heartless police enforcers.
Then there is the fact that a witness at the scene, Mary Cutcher, gave evidence to the police that contradicted Zimmerman’s story. She tried to give a longer statement was not allowed to. And the police then went to the family and to the media and stated there was not enough evidence to convict Zimmerman.
To add further insult they drug-tested Trayvon’s body, but not the body of the crazed man who killed him! The killer was never arrested. He was simply sent home. His gun license was not revoked. Apparently the police do not consider a man who stalks and then shoots Black children (on the sidewalk without provocation!) any serious threat to the community.
Now we can only imagine how the police would have responded to Trayvon at the scene of the crime if, in the apparent struggle between Trayvon and Zimmerman, if Trayvon would have somehow won and ended up shooting Zimmerman (who was a strange man following him from a convenient tore and brandishing a gun when confronted).
Adding insult to injury
Trayvon Martin (reportedly his My Space profile photo)
To add insult to injury, we get the customary media campaign to destroy the character of the victim.
Pictures have surfaced with Trayvon wearing gold fronts in his mouth. Ooh, scary looking Black kid with gold fronts.
Reports of “trouble” in school are surfacing. Trayvon was (allegedly) found with traces of marijuana in his school bag by a school guard. Ooh, he may have smoked weed…. he must then be a drug dealer or a common criminal!
They are even saying that Trayvon was found with a tool at his high school in Miami (a long distance from where Trayvon was murdered in Sanford, Florida) that could have been (!) used a burglary instrument.
The police department has apparently been behind leaks to the media justifying a portrayal of Zimmerman as a victim, and Trayvon as “a perp.”
It is clear that the authorities will go to whatever lengths to destroy the victim and uphold the code of supremacy.
Throughout this whole ordeal the utter disdain and disregard for the value of Black life by the authorities of this society and certain a section of society who cast their lot with those who oppress them becomes clear and unmistakable in moment where the whole country and even other countries are paying attention.
To paraphrase Kanye West, the rulers and their enforcers in this society don’t give a fuck about Black people!
Suspecting Trayvon in Everyday America.
As a light skinned man of mixed race, I cannot relate exactly to what it was like to be in Trayvon’s skin. However having lived as a teenager in a mostly suburban neighborhood as someone who wasn’t automatically perceived of as a black man I got to really see the mentality of folks like George Zimmerman.
I’ve heard of kids in the neighborhood beating up Black folks in the neighborhood. I’ve been told by people who didn’t know my race talk to me about how when Blacks moved in it fucked up the neighborhood.
I’ve been in situations where I and friends of mine were stopped by police and scolded us for “acting like niggers.”
As I got older and became much more conscious I would call out racism when I felt it from people I considered as friends, I would remind these folks that I was half-Black and they would “friendly” try to talk me out of such a self-identification.
I bring this up because I was someone (and this remains true I guess even for Black people who go into the police force or join the army) who could have identified with this empire. I could have taken advantage in some situations of my lighter shade. If I had a son he probably would have looked more like George Zimmerman.
supremacy is a complex thing. It is built into our day to day existence under this oppressive society. It is not so important that Zimmerman wasn’t , he loved and apparently had delusions of grandeur of being a police officer. He took sides and identified himself with the imperialist and racist oppressor. And he hated “coons.”
And because of this the system is trying to protect him.
Supremacy in “the American Way of Life”
It is clear that even with the election of Obama, basic American realities have not changed.
From slavery to Jim Crow to to mass imprisonment; from the enslavement of Dred Scott to torture-murder of Emmett Till to vigilante execution of Trayvon Martin, supremacy is a key and vital part of the social structure.
So we have seen clearly how the rulers and their lackeys don’t give a shit about Trayvon or any young Black man or their families.
But Trayvon’s life is valuable to other to us!
And it may be that his murder has lit a fire under the forces of love and progress in our society.
Millions of us all over the country have responded to Trayvon’s murder with righteous indignation and screams for justice. Many thousands all over the country have come out into the streets. AMillion Hoodie Movement has emerged and we all now see the hoodie as symbol of injustice and oppression against young black people.
We have worn our hoodies in church, taken photos in our hoodies and posted them as our facebook profiles, and signed petitions demanding the arrest of George Zimmerman.
As a sign of support many people have seen the injustice of Trayvon’s case. A poll shows that 73% of Americans believe that Zimmerman should be arrested. The Occupy Movement has spoken out for justice for Trayvon and participated in mass protest for justice for him.
Perhaps Trayvon’s death actually marks a new beginning. Out of this moment of grief and sorrow combined with righteous anger and the demand for justice, a new movement both militantly antiracist and multiracial can now emerge on the scene with its arrow pointed at this unjust and heartless system that continues to show such disregard for the ones we love.
