The Ferguson Aftermath: More of the Same

The Ferguson Aftermath: More of the Same

 

Two years ago, the rabidly-leftist Center for American Progress (CAP) published a report by Sophia Kerby detailing the gross inequities in America’s justice system.

A self-described “civil rights and social justice advocate passionate about issues that impact communities of color and women,” Ms. Kerby is the Special Assistant for Progress 2050 at American Progress and serves as the Policy Associate for the Brennan Center for Justice working with “civil rights, social justice, and democracy organizations to develop policy goals and share information critical to advancing civil rights in federal policy.”

Unfortunately, though the information in her analysis of the comparative number of arrests, incarcerations, and executions of blacks as contrasted with whites in America cited a number of statistics, it omitted the reasons of those arrests, etc.

For example, Ms. Kerby references the fact that people of color, some 30% of the U.S.’ population, account for 60% of men in prison and that incarceration rates of men of color far exceed the rates of white men.

Among other damning facts, she correctly states that:

–A third of black men will end up in prison at some time in their lives and incur longer sentences than whites; 

–Individuals of color have a disproportionate number of encounters with law enforcement, attributable to racial profiling;

–Non-white students face more frequent and more severe punishment in our schools and are arrested more often than white kids;

–The war on drugs has been waged mainly in minority communities and people of color are usually charged with ”higher offenses”;

–Over the thirty year span of 1980 through 2007, a third of the 25.4 million adults arrested on drug charges were African-American;

–Voter laws prohibiting those with felony convictions from voting ”disproportionately impact men of color.” 

What Sophia Kerby curiously and egregiously fails to mention are the uncomfortable realities that people of color are disproportionately disposed to commit crimes and, by virtue of that fact, are treated appropriately in our courts of law and are being arrested, incarcerated, denied voting privileges, etc. just as whites would be. . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=38776.)

Trayvon Kicked to the Curb, Michael Takes Center Stage

Trayvon Kicked to the Curb, Michael Takes Center Stage

 

Remember Trayvon Martin?  Of course you do.

For those who don’t, Trayvon was the 17 year-old, unarmed Sanford, Florida black teenager who was shot and killed by white neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in 2012 and then crowned the new poster boy for black racist agitators, supplanting their previous hero, Rodney King.

Zimmerman was subsequently exonerated by a jury of his peers on the grounds of self-defense.  His exoneration didn’t mean a tinker’s dam to the agitators who continued to campaign for his assassination and inflamed the nation into an orgy of demonstrations, looting, and student strikes–all in Martin’s honor.

In point of fact, Trayvon Martin may have been a chronological teenager but he was also a muscular, six-foot one thug and an avid strret fighter with a record of drug use and possession of burglar tools, although none of those negative character features were brought up either at Zimmerman’s trial or by Trayvon’s chief fan club, the New Black Panther Party.

Instead, he was lauded in the mainstream media as an innocent, young kid who had been senselessly murdered and was then virtually adopted posthumously by Barack Hussein Obama when the president said, “If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”

Now, fast forward to 2014 and Ferguson, Missouri’s 18 year-old Michael Brown.

The unarmed Brown was shot and killed last Saturday by a Ferguson police officer but few other details on the circumstances of the shooting had been made public, not even the cop’s name or race.  Until today when the officer’s name was released.  

In view of the numerous death threats made against him and the murderous reputation of the New Black Panther Party which agitated for that information, that move might be tantamount to complicity in murder.

The police also released today videotape evidence that Brown wasn’t exactly your average black kid in Ferguson, unless the average black kid in the St. Louis suburb engages in stealing cigars from a local convenience store and strong-arming a white clerk half his size.

That surveillance video puts the lie to claims that Brown was simply . . . Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=38549.) 

Canonizing Trayvon Martin

Canonizing Trayvon Martin

 

With Pope Francis scheduled to officially recognize former Popes John XXIII and John Paul II as canonized saints in the Roman Catholic Church on Sunday, it’s appropriate that we pay homage to an unofficial American saint-in-the-making, black martyr, Trayvon Benjamin Martin.

If eventually secularly sanctified, Martin’s sainthood would be unique.

The fatal shooting of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old black man-child, by 29 year old, mixed-race neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in the early evening of February 26th, 2012, was an avoidable national tragedy, but hardly grounds for Trayvon’s sainthood in any sense.

It was avoidable because Martin failed to control his rage at being accosted and challenged and because of Zimmerman’s overzealousness in performing his volunteer job of protecting his Sanford, Florida community.
I
t evolved into a national tragedy, in fact, a national travesty, when Zimmerman was pre-judged guilty and threatened with execution by radical civil rights agitators. 

That unpunished, outrageous threat by the New Black Panther Party accompanied the mainstream media wildly sensationalizing and twisting the truth about the defendant and the incident and was further exacerbated by the president of the United States needlessly interjecting himself in a local affair, thereby intentionally or unintentionally helping ignite a national firestorm over race, prejudice, and the equity of “Stand Your Ground” laws.

(See graphic, including previously suppressed, photos of Martin and Zimmerman here http://tinyurl.com/k9blrzo.)

When George Zimmerman was totally exonerated by a jury of his peers in July, 2013 and the FBI regretfully conceded it found no racial bias in the shooting, overly optimistic observers assumed, hoped, that the unfortunate spectacle was over and done with. 

We naively felt that Martin would and should forever be fondly remembered by his family and friends and that  Zimmerman would and should be permitted to live out his life as an innocent, free man.

Of course, as often detailed in this space, none of those hopes came to fruition.

Following the not guilty verdict, black agitators like the New Black Panther Party, Al Sharpton, and Jesse Jackson reacted by ramping up their threats and racial hatred.  Obama’s MSM continued to publish pictures depicting Trayvon as an innocent 12 year old instead of the thuggish, menacing 17 year old he had become.  Martin’s memory was cynically transformed into a black cause of dubious merit.  And Zimmerman was forced to go into hiding to preserve his life.
Compounding those belated miscarriages of justice at the same time they demeaned the life and death of Trayvon Martin, . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=36827.)