The George Zimmermann Trial
The George Zimmerman trial is an important trial. It deals with the family of Trayvon Martin and them having the right to receive closure including justice. For centuries, our people suffered through oppression and murder (especially by crooked cops and fake cop vigilantes). The prosecution and the defense teams in this case have fought each other tooth in nail as a means to find information that validates each other's own positions. I think that the Newsone website is doing a great in showing information about the case and they ought to be given praise in their actions of showing the world about the numerous facets of the George Zimmerman trial. A denial of justice for Trayvon Martin means that more police and other evil souls will try to execute potentially more extrajudicial murders against human beings. We know that after the trial, we have to cause a revolutionary change in preventing not only police brutality, but racial profiling including the murder of innocent black human beings. The fact is that George Zimmerman was told by the operator to not follow Trayvon Martin. He did followed the young teenager still, a fight came about, and Travyon Martin was murdered with one bullet wound to the chest. Trayvon Martin was murdered by George Zimmerman on February 26, 2012. Zimmerman was called by the defense as being soft, but he was trained for a while in MMA (in 6 hours a week in fight school. The defense is trying to portray Zimmerman as totally weak physically, which is not the case at all) and he assaulted a woman before. Well, he is soft morally for assaulting a woman though. George Zimmerman had an old Myspace page where he wrote a racist rant, which falsely linked Mexican Americans collectively to crime. He said that every Mexican he meets pulls knives on him, which is racial profiling. They found no skin, bruises or blood on Trayvon Martin during the autopsy, which is evidence that Trayvon Martin was not the aggressor according to the family of Trayvon Martin. Samford, Florida is the location of Martin's death. George Zimmerman is a 21st century vigilante like the old slavery era patrollers. We know the truth about the case. Trayvon Martin violated no laws while he was walking from the store. The unarmed Martin tried to flee Zimmerman. Zimmerman pursued him and a fight came about. Trayvon Martin had every right to defend himself from being assaulted by Zimmerman. Zimmerman should be found guilty of many charges and Zimmerman had no reason to stalk Trayvon Martin at all. Now, we see that Trayvon Martin is put on trial not Zimmerman by some in the media including the defense team. Zimmerman had a gun and Martin was unarmed. Rachel Jeantel was attacked in the most vicious fashion, but Zimmerman's contradictory testimonies and views has been ignored by the defense and others. It was by the strength and courage of Sabryna Fulton and Tracy Martin, Zimmerman would never have been charged. How can you curse a young teenage on the phone and then deny you have any malice intent on the shooting of Trayvon Martin? Zimmerman said that the screaming doesn't sound like him is very interesting. Later, he says that it is his voice explicitly, which makes him a liar. It seems like the switching of views by some is making the case more apparently clear. George Zimmerman is the type of sociopath that thinks that it is the will of God to murder a child. We know that the reactionary Florida Stand Your Ground law is a throwback to the laws of the 18th century militia that harmed black communities in early America. We must never give the enemy the right to shoot anyone for almost any reason. The tactic of the enemy is to make the victim the criminal and the criminal the victim as Malcolm X said decades ago. That is why the enemy obsesses with Martin's grades, possible drug use, education, etc. which has no relevance in the case. The case is about the incident at hand not Trayvon Martin's grades at all. Trayvon Martin's murder was an open attack on the black community. According to the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, about 300 black people have been murdered in the same manner of extrajudicial murder since Trayvon Martin was killed.
The jury has decided on the Zimmerman trial. Now, we should continue to fight for truth. The reactionaries lied and predicted massive riots in America. We know that to be a lie since most folks have been peaceful. Human beings have every right to protest about injustices in our community and to protest for the justice of the late Trayvon Martin. Many cities across the nation in San Francisco, New York, Sanford, Florida, Chicago, Los Angeles, and other places of the world have folks protesting for justice for the family of Trayvon Martin. Trayvon Martin is not here, but his memory lives on in us. We can respect his memory by doing the right thing. We can advocate ending unjust laws like Stand Your Ground. We can work to build up our communities and fight against violence including police brutality. We can go out and mentor the young as a means to fulfill their true potential. We should boycott in firm strategic ways that deal with ALEC or those that benefit from George Zimmerman's agenda. We may lost a battle, but we will not lose the war. In the end, we will be victorious. Yet, we have to work and work. We have a responsibility in the world to focus our energy to radically change society. We all realize the disparities that exist in the criminal justice system. We see many brothers and sisters in jail for huge time for Stand Your Ground related issues. We have seen the War on Drugs harm our communities harshly. Also, many humans of many ethnicities and backgrounds protested against the verdict and wanted justice for Trayvon Martin. That truth ought to be known here. Robert Zimmerman has the same agenda as his brother. He is a hypocrite by complaining about vigilantes, but his brother acted as a known vigilante. He ignores the corrupt system in the judicial sphere and other spheres of the nation as an excuse to justify his brother's actions. His tweet outlines the views of Robert. In the final analysis, folks like Robert could care less about our people. They only want blacks to be docile, compromising, weak, and aligned with the system. The system is corrupt to the core, so we should make a better system in the replacement of the current evil system. PS. One of Robert's biggest lies is that he said that America has the best judicial system in the world. Remember Lester Chambers being assaulted on stage for just singing a song in favor of Trayvon Martin recently.
One of the greatest enemies today is ALEC. This group is called the American Legislative Exchange Council. It is the reactionary group that has corporate backing. It tries to pass laws by recruiting members of the local government. ALEC helped to craft the evil Stand Your Grand law. This law is the basis a lot of human beings dying under controversial circumstances. The reactionaries tried to originally use Stand Your Ground as a justification for the evil murder of the unarmed 17 year old Trayvon Martin by the murderer (and assaulter of a woman) George Zimmerman. The President of the National Urban League named Marc Morial focused his attention to oppose ALEC. He wants that ALEC's corporate partners denounce the group. The good news is that some of its major supporters are withdrawing from the group. Morial said the following: "...There needs to be sunlight on what they’re doing, which what they’re doing is creating model legislation and spread the poison of stand your ground all over the nation. Those who support ALEC should withdraw from ALEC because this kind of thing and the use of stand your ground is why at the very instance the law enforcement there in Sanford, Florida, did not arrest George Zimmerman as they should have, at the very inception..." In the months after the killing of Trayvon Martin, over 46 groups like Wal Mart, Miller Coors, Best Buy, McDonalds, and Coca-Cola dropped their ALEC memberships. Stand Your Ground is not the only controversial law that ALEC has peddled to state legislators. The group has been responsible for bills that block workers from getting paid sick leave, efforts to stop whistleblowers trying to expose horrific agricultural practices, and other bills (mean to stop environmental regulation, etc.). They are financially tied to the Koch Brothers, who are billionaires who made their fortune in the oil industry. ALEC funded some of the toughest sentencing laws in America. These laws benefit the prison industrial complex not the common people in the world. ALEC worked to pass the Truth in Sentencing Act in 25 states by 1995. They worked to pass laws to grow the private for profit prisons. In These Times, they made an investigation to reveal that ALEC arranged secret meetings between Arizona’s state legislators and CCA to draft what became SB 1070, Arizona’s notorious immigration law. We have the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to approve the investigation of racial bias in Stand Your Ground laws (which ALEC and the NRA sponsored). A 2012 study found that defendants invoking the defense that they were “standing their ground” are significantly more likely to prevail if the victim was black. Other research has found that states with Stand Your Ground laws have more homicides, and that the laws do not deter crime at all. So, the struggle continues. We should fight for a real quality of life.
The death of Trayvon Martin is a part of the huge evidence of the extrajudicial killings of black people. It is so bad that about 313 black people have been killed in extrajudicial killings in 2012 alone. That is one in every 28 hours. Zimmerman's acquittal should wake up folks. If this doesn't wake up the sellouts, then nothing will. Some want to have a new civil rights movement, but the movement never died. It just grew. The jury believed that Zimmerman is innocent of second degree murder and manslaughter. Zimmerman had a history of racial profiling, assault, and possible child molestation. That makes him a degenerate and a man who is low in character. Zimmerman was an armed man with a gun and he stalked Trayvon in a threatening way. If he had followed the 911 operator's words, Trayvon Martin would have been alive today. These injustices are common in my community. The justice system is corrupt and wrong. Even a study entitled, "Operation Ghetto Storm" from the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement document this oppression against our community. The report found that a black man, woman, or child was executed by the police (including some security guards and self-appointed vigilantes) every 36 hours. These killings out pretext or legal consequences are like Jim Crow laws. The judicial system's racism is shown by Zimmerman's initial release without any charges filed. If Trayvon Martin can die, we can die in such a manner. It is a disgrace. State sanctioned murder has been commonplace since the inception of America. The Sanford police did a lot of corrupt actions and in the near future, I will mention their acts more. Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee was forced to resign, because of the death of Trayvon Martin. Now, the Federal Justice Department's Civil Rights Division opened an investigation to the killing. The enemy wants to change tactics as a means to contain popular revolt. The system of racial oppression in the world is strong, but our values are stronger than their evil. Mass organizing and unity are ways to start to fight back against evils. We need to end the reign of the economic elite harming the human race in the world. Mass actions for justice for Trayvon and all victims of abuse can bear fruit. We can win without fear via mobilization and organization. We must have Unity. We should be strategic also. We should be wise and act fairly in the Earth. We should also expose and oppose the evil actions from the corporate Democratic and Republican parties as well. We know that imperialism is immoral, corporate crime is evil, and we understand that warrantless wiretapping is still inappropriate. So, it is a continued fight for real justice for the entire human race.
Folks are talking about the juror B37. She admitted her agenda in her interview with Anderson Cooper. She said that George Zimmerman was justified in killing Trayvon Martin since he had Stand Your Ground legal justification, but that law should not be used in the case. The case dealt with self-defense laws in the state of Florida. She is a mother. She only spoke for herself. She wanted to have book deal, but one hero from Twitter (who is a Sister) prevented that since she was profiting from another human's death that was not her son. Her husband was a lawyer. She claimed that she knew nothing of the case and there were riots. She called Trayvon Martin a "boy of colour," so we can see her agenda a mile away. She gets her news from The Today show and does not trust Internet news. She should have not been a juror in the first, because of her huge bias. During the trial, she thought that one of George Zimmerman's friends was the medical examiner. She falsely believed that it was a Stand Your Ground case. She used the testimony that the judge told her to disregard and she was extremely confused by the laws she had to apply. She believed Chris Serino and not Rachel Jeantel. Jeantel was the closest that we have seen to Martin's side of the story. She believed that Zimmerman was not a wannabe cop, but he was overeager to help people. So, she believed in Zimmerman's story throughout the trial. She denied that race played a role in the case when the authorities made sure that there were no black jurors were in the trial.
President Barack Obama gave a historic speech on the African American experience and Trayvon Martin. It was a great speech by him. It was the most pro-African American speech that he has ever given in his administration. He should be respected on the commentary that he has gotten correct on his speech. He drew parallels between Trayvon Martin and his life, which is accurate. He was right to say that if he had a son, it would have been Trayvon. In his recent speech, he is accurate to say that he could have been Trayvon 35 years ago. I am a black man and I could tell you stories about my family facing discrimination and one member of my family facing racial profiling by the police. These stories are very common in the African American community. Racists downplay these stories as a means to cause lies and dissension in America. The reality is that racism is a serious problem in America. Poverty and corporate corruption are still serious issues in the world not only in America. So, we if want solutions, then we have to be honest and be compassionate toward the sufferings of African Americans. He is the first African American President. He wanted Americans to learn the stories from a diverse amount of Americans. So, we know the enemy. We know that we have to end the Stand Your Ground, laws end the War on Drugs, and to use policies to end the discriminatory policies against Black and Brown citizens of America (which is a travesty). He or the President should be commended for outlining the oppressive system that still plagues America. This doesn't mean that the administration should have a pass on other issues (like on foreign policy, civil liberties, neoliberalism, which I disagree strongly with the administration on) or that the administration is perfect. It does mean that we should continue to fight against racial oppression and a form of injustice inflicting the human race in general. Still, the legal system does not treat all human beings equally under the law. We have the stats to prove it. The reactionaries have no basis in criticizing Obama's speech since they offer no real solutions, except scapegoating the black community for problems in America (or they believe in the myth that the free market or privatization can solve all issues in the world). Obama is right to say that self-defense must never be used to downplay racial injustice. We need social development and real institutions to address these issues. There should be action by individuals, local, state, and federal governments as a means to have justice a reality. We should give real opportunities to human beings, so they can achieve their goals and potentials. Also, black human beings have the right to advance their interests publicly and have their own infrastructure (including independence, which deals with self sufficiency. I hate cartel-capitalism obviously, but self sufficiency among the black community is not a sin). President Barack Obama said a beautiful tribute to Trayvon Martin and his family. I wish Trayvon Martin was alive. It is a shame that I am older than Trayvon and I get to see a longer life than him. So, we should continue in fighting against evils. The struggle continues.
If we want to be free, we have to realize that the criminal justice system is corrupt and blatantly racist. We have to realize that racial profiling of human beings is evil and unwarranted. Racial profiling is against human rights and it is against the constitutional right of banning unreasonable search and seizures. Case closed. Stop and frisk effects mostly innocent human beings in NYC in the realm of almost 90%. You should be judged on the content of your character not on the color of your skin. No, I will never let pundits make me feel ashamed of being black. I will never be made a scapegoat for the great crimes of Western society. Most of us are not criminals. We are humans. We should be treated just the same. If these journalists think like this, then imagine what they think in private. Injustice should be opposed and justice ought to reign in the world. Even President Barack Obama was accurate to mention the following: “The African-American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws,” Obama said, “everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case." There is a huge racial disparity in Stand your Ground laws. When it deals with on white on black incidents, then the jury will find them much more justifiable than black on black including black on white. The stop and frisk actions of young black men is evil. In May of 2013, the Public Advocate for New York put out a report detailing the way that the city’s controversial ‘Stop-and-Frisk policy is unevenly applied. Not only did it find that Blacks and Latinos make up, on average, 85 percent of stops under the program, but it also conveyed exactly how skewed those numbers are compared to the city’s demographics. They found that the city is only 25 percent black and 29 percent Hispanic (including 33 percent white and 13 percent other). The number of White drug users is about the same as the number of Black users — but you wouldn’t know it from the arrest statistics. In recent history, Black people have been four times as likely to be arrested on marijuana charges. In Texas, about 40 percent of death row inmates are Black. Texas accounts for the most executions in the nation. Similar statistics are nationwide where black inmates make up a huge, disproportionate number of those sentenced to death despite the black population having a small population in the States. So, this disparity is astounding and disturbing. A lot of folks across backgrounds want justice for Trayvon Martin and an end to the evil criminal justice system that is blatantly racist. Many House Republicans have done extreme by dumping the food stamp program on many levels, loving the assaults on voting rights, and celebrating the tragic Trayvon Martin murder verdict. This proves that bigotry is still here. Many of these small government conservatives and libertarians want to cuts food stamps as a means to benefit agribusiness. So, the GOP shows government favoritism for the wealthy and cruelty toward the poor. In real life, I saw a nice couple in a grocery store just using food stamps to pay food for their family. This stuff makes me angry since they or some members of the GOP could give a single concern about the poor and those suffering in the economy. This piece of work Rep. Stephen Fincher tries to justify the poor to starve when Jesus Christ explicitly said that it is morally right to feed the poor and care for the needy. Ironically, Fincher was a recipient of several million dollars in farm subsidies. He had including $70,000 in direct payments in 2012 alone for doing nothing. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote on Monday, “I don’t think the word ‘hypocrisy’ does it justice.” The euphemism of free market, libertarian, contract rights, and small government have used by reactionary as a means to advance the lie of white supremacy. I am keeping it real here. States’ rights are never superior to human rights.
The enemy of us is white supremacy. It is a real system that has been talked about from human beings from across the political spectrum. Authors have written about it like Dr. Claud Anderson, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, Neely Fuller, the Umoja team, even Cornell West, and so many others. White supremacy is an evil system where the real elites advance a system where major social, economic, religious, and political infrastructures are unfairly dominated by certain white people (and this system executes injustices against non-whites, especially blacks worldwide). This system in its modern incarnation has been around since the Maafa. This reality is not in my imagination. It is a historical fact. Solutions can be solved among black people for many reasons. One reason is that for centuries we have made civilizations and advanced cultures among ourselves for thousands of years. When we created autonomous communities, white racists harmed those communities in Tulsa and Rosewood. So, any human being can form communities with effort, strength, and noninterference from the enemy. I call white supremacists in the 1 percent as the enemy. All other white people I do not have intense hatred of. I just do not have romance with them or extensive communication with them in a hardcore level all of the time. I like to be around my own black people and I love black women. People commit crimes, but many racists to blame us for the ills of America from Bill O'Reilly to Rush Limbaugh including other racists. That is a fact. Some are right that the rich elites have done massive evils to communities in America. What they do not get is that the rich elite use racial discrimination not just class oppression as a means to cause divisions and tensions in society. In communist and capitalist nations, darker skinned humans are treated more harshly than lighter skinned humans. This is a product of racial bigotry not just class oppression. The mainstream media causing much of the racial discord is accurate. All black people have the right to call for justice. Many white human beings suffer mistreatment, but they never have suffered as black people have suffered. Many blacks have prejudice, but in a white supremacist system, blacks never oppressed whites on a massive scale spanning continents over more than 5 centuries though. We as blacks can call for justice by boycotts, using our money to fund our own infrastructure, improving our health, having more Black Unity, and fighting for the end of the system of white supremacy. Allowing black people to define their own destinies in a positive direction is never racism no matter what others say. Racism is the belief of the inferiority of man based on skin color (including ethnicity) or unjust hatred of another human based on race. I subscribe to neither view. I love to use pretty words since I like to be eloquent. LOL. That is me. All of humanity in some form or another have suffered indignities, but blacks have suffered the brunt of white supremacy more than others. Racism now is not mostly media enhanced. The death of Aiyana Jones, Sean Bell, etc. was not media enhanced. These evil actions were done by brutes and evil human beings. Racism is an extensive injustice that must be eradicated. When Brothers and Sisters are being shot in code blood or when police brutality is in epidemic levels, then that is not media enhanced. These are stone cold truth of the world order now. I believe in independence (of black human beings having the right to develop their own infrastructure, businesses, and systems of living in a positive fashion) not Jim Crow segregation. I believe all humans should treat each other with respect, but we can never have a system of justice without white supremacy ending. It is as simple as that. I will treat my fellow person with respect irrespective of skin color, but I will not submerge or eliminate my black ethnic identity for the sake of being politically correct. I will never sellout my blood. Now, some wanting to end class oppression is fine with me. Economic justice is great and I support that wholeheartedly. Having universal education, universal health, and ending tax breaks for the rich are things that I agree with. We should get along, but many of our differences should be appreciated. If we were all the same, then the world would not be as dynamic as it is. I respect my similarities and differences within the human family. Wanting to end wars and use money to build the environment or to have safe energy solutions are great. I believe in the Savior, but even the Savior gave us a brain to fight for justice and to end white supremacy (We have to end it).
There is always the deception made by many establishment conservatives about out of wedlock births in the black community. The conservatives use this canard as a means to demonize the black community. The reactionaries distorts evidence about social pathology issues in black communities with regard to crime and out of wedlock childbirths. When the conservative talk about an illegitimacy crisis in black America and claim that rising out of wedlock birthrates are the real cause of black human beings' problems, they show a failure to understand statistics. The truth is that the birth rate of unmarried black women (or births per 1000 of such women of childbearing age) is dropping not rising. For black teenagers, the birth rate has fallen by half since 1970 and now at its lowest point ever. Black women are great human beings. Their out of wedlock birthrate is down by about a third in that same period of time. It is true that the percentage of births that are out of wedlock as a share of all black births has rising (nearly doubling since 1970 and now stands at just over 72 percent). Both of these things are true: declining birth rates and fertility rates for unmarried black women (i.e., unmarried black women are increasingly being more and more “responsible” in conservative terms, not less), and also a climbing share of out-of-wedlock kids as a share of all black kids born. So, the reality is that all single parents are never the product of misbehavior of single women and single men. It is about the fact that married couples are having even fewer kids than single women were. This is what is happening in America. Single black women have cut back on how many babies they have while unmarried and married black women have cut back even further. So if single black women have reduced their birthrates by a third, but married couples have cut theirs by over half, or even two-thirds (which is the case), then obviously the percentage of births in the black community that are out-of-wedlock will rise. That is why the reactionaries are unfair to seize on this issue without understanding the context. The reality is that the black community is cutting back on out of wedlock births in a dramatic way. In other words, the trend lines in that regard are positive. To suggest a pathological — and increasingly so — black culture when it comes to out-of-wedlock childbirth is entirely dishonest. If anything, “black culture” if we really want to suggest it is linked to the decision to bear children out-of-wedlock, must be improving, rather than regressing. We know that African American youth teenage pregnancy rates have fallen massively from 1991 to 2010. From 1991 to 2010, the rate of births to black teens, 15-19, fell by more than half, with a full 9 percent drop just between 2009 and 2010 alone. Likewise, from 1980 to 2008, the birthrate for all black women under 18 fell by more than half. Indeed, the birth rate for African American teenagers is now at an all-time low. So conservatives should be celebrating these trends. The big picture is that the reactionaries are blaming black people and black culture falsely for the crises facing the African American communities in America. This slander has increased after the George Zimmerman's verdict. Black human beings have every right to talk about and expose racism in the world. Racial profiling and poverty are scourges in the world. They or the enemy always hate black people. The violence in Chicago is a serious problem that we must address. Yet, the homicide death rates today are actually far lower for black men than in the past. In 1950, for instance, the homicide death rate for black males was 38 percent higher than in 2008, with 47 black males dying from homicide for every 100,000 black men in the population, as opposed to 34 per 100,000 in 2008. And although crime and homicide spikes in a few places like Chicago have been quite real, these seem to be outliers, as violent crime nationally (including crime committed by blacks) has continued to fall in recent years and now stands at rates that are well below those of twenty years ago. In some mostly black cities like Washington, D.C., homicide rates now stand at their lowest point in the past half century. This information refutes the lie that black culture is equivalent to cultural dysfunction (or hip hop is responsible for the problems in the black community collectively). There was no Lil Wayne in 1950 or in 1973 when the violent crime rate nationwide was more than three times higher than today. White reactionaries ignore the positive trends in the black communities of America and they ignore the much pathology in other communities like in some white communities too. One in seven white women, for instance, smoke cigarettes while pregnant, thereby endangering the health of their soon-to-be-born children: a rate that is 60 percent higher than the rate for black women. White women were also about 30 percent more likely than black women to drink alcohol when pregnant in 2010-2011, thanks to a significant reduction in gestational alcohol consumption among black women compared to previous years and a slight increase in such consumption among whites. There is much higher rates of suicide among whites than blacks. In 2010, for example, white men were nearly twice as likely as black men to die from an opioid overdose and white women were more than twice as likely to die from such an overdose as black women. So, all of the human family has issues. Black human beings being made the scapegoats for all evils in America is a lie.
George Zimmerman could have and should have been convicted under Florida law. We know that there is plenty of evidence of the Sanford vigilante was guilty of aggravated stalking, which is a felony in the third degree as shown by Florida law. He committed the predicate crime of stalking. Therefore, Zimmerman was responsible for the outcome of his actions. If he was charged and convicted of aggravated stalking, he would also been guilty of first degree felony murder. So, we know that a man willfully followed another unarmed person down the street. Zimmerman had a malicious intent to profiling an innocent teenager named Trayvon Martin. Trayvon Martin was murdered and the justice system refused to give some criminal offense towards George Zimmerman. Juror B29 expressed her real views on the Trayvon Martin trial. She was right that George Zimmerman was guilty or got away with murder. She made an error for saying that the law couldn't prove it. There is a Florida law that could have convicted George Zimmerman. In Florida: "A person who willfully, maliciously, and repeatedly follows [or] harasses ... another person and makes a credible threat to that person commits the offense of aggravated stalking, a felony of the third degree." Fla. Stat. § 784.048. “Willfully [and] maliciously” are evidenced by Zimmerman's own words to the police dispatcher. The word "repeatedly" is not defined in the Florida statue. But the statute does define the similar term, "course of conduct," “[which] means a pattern of conduct composed of a series of acts over a period of time, however short, which evidences a continuity of purpose." So "repeatedly" as used in the statute might simply mean "continuously" or "sustained." George Zimmerman (who assaulted a woman, the police, and he is accused of sexual molestation) did sustain his following of Trayvon Martin over a period of time. He targeted Trayvon Martin's legitimate and legal right to walk in the neighborhood. He repeated his following of Martin even after the dispatcher told him he did not need to do that at all. Zimmerman wanted to stalk Trayvon Martin in an attempt to bully him, to harass him, etc. Zimmerman intended to threaten a 17 year old who was in the street alone at night. That is a felony in Florida. Zimmerman knows about these laws. There is an Ohio law that deals with menacing by stalking. In Florida there is a very strict felony murder law that is designed to address just that concern, that when life is unnecessarily lost, even if unintentional, there should be heightened responsibility. Felony murder laws assure that if Zimmerman started something unlawful – namely felonious stalking – that got out of control for whatever reason, resulting in loss of life, he must take some responsibility for that loss of life. A civil law suit can come. Ironically, in real life, many law enforcement folks stalk minors all of the time and stereotype them as potential criminals all of the time. We know obviously that the justice system is racist and it is unfair also against the poor. If you are poor, you have to struggle to receive strong legal representation. The reactionaries scapegoats blacks all of the time while ignoring that whites commit about 85% of all DUI vehicular homicides in USA. That kills just as much if not more human beings that are murdered by guns. The white supremacist system obfuscates truth. The same neoliberal system is propping up NYPD Chief Ray Kelly (who advanced the stop and frisk policy in NYC when it harms mostly innocent citizens) as potentially being the new head of the Department of Homeland Security. The racist Wall Street bankster Mayor Mike Bloomberg recently said that Blacks and Hispanics are not stopped and frisked enough (when 90% of those frisked are humans of color) and whites are too frisked (when barely 9% of white people are stopped and frisked. Whites are 2 times more likely to be carrying illegal weapons and/or contraband when stopped). So, Bloomberg is a notorious racist authoritarian. In the 1930's inside of Berlin and Paris, innocent Jewish human beings were unfairly stopped and frisked by Nazis and now he wants my people to experience the same injurious, wicked treatment. It is a shame and a scandal. Zimmerman murders an unarmed black teenager and he walks while Sister Marissa Alexander is spending over 20 years in prison for not even shooting her attacker (whom she had failed a restraining order against) in her own home. Even Florida's Stand Your Ground law has the initial aggressor exception. As Zimmerman was the initial aggressor, it is what it is. SYG should still be gone, because of it ambiguous nature and advancement of vigilantism though. I blame the prosecution more than the jurors, because the prosecutors can bring in more charges from 2nd Degree murder, 1st degree manslaughter, aggravated stalking, etc. Jury B29 or the Afro-Puerto Rican woman should not be made the total scapegoat of the total corruption of the injustice against Trayvon Martin indeed as the Sister Trojan Pam eloquently wrote about. So, we are at war with the system of white supremacy. We have the right to defeat the system of white supremacy and replace that system with JUSTICE.
The Brazil Protest Movement
There is a strong, mass protest movement in Brazil. It came about in June of 2013. It has been the largest and most significant protests in Brazil in a generation. This movement has been growing large in its size. Many folks from the left, the right, and the government talked about this movement and they are caught by surprise. The movement began on June 6. This was when the radical left Free Fare Movement (or the Movimento Passe Livre or the MPL) started it. This movement was an autonomist, non party organization. It has been active in the country for several years. It led a small demonstration. They wanted the reversal of a recent increase of public transport fares in the city of São Paulo from R$3 to R$3.20. The movement was criticized by the press for blocking the traffic and making unrealistic demands, and the demonstration was attacked by the police. The MPL returned in larger numbers in the following days, and the police responded with increasing brutality, beating up demonstrators and passers-by indiscriminately, and wounding several journalists. The demonstrations grew in size in 2 weeks. They spread across Brazil. More than one million people in hundreds of cities and movements were still taking place almost every day. There was a large mobilization led by the left on July 11, 2013. Many students, middle class, poor, young workers, etc. Some of them wanted demands to be fair to bus drivers, lorry drives, health sector workers, etc. Some in the mainstream press and TV networks supported the movement. Some wanted to let the movement to expose corruption and state inefficiency in order for them to drown out the left and delegitimize the federal government. Some of the demonstrators became more white and middle class. They included other issues like drugs, spending, etc. There has been many police repression and some of the police pulled back. Some of the police and reactionaries have tried to infiltrate the movement. The left has made a coordinated effort to regain leadership of the movement. Some of the middle class and bourgeoisie hate it that Brazil has a more expansion of citizenship. The Brazilian elite hates this reality as well. The redistribution of income and the expansion of social programs have benefited millions of people. This has occurred in the past 10 years allowing some of the poor to own a car or travel in shopping centers. The middle class is slowing in growth because of neoliberal policies. Many protesters want to stop government corruption, basic services, and the squandering of billions in state funds on the construction of lavish stadiums of the Confederations Cup and World Cup soccer tournaments (instead of investing in education and healthcare). Dilma Rousseff is the new leader of the Brazilian government. In Brazil, there has been huge inflation and sluggish economic growth (in about 0.6 percent in the first quarter and with industrial production fallen triggering layoffs). The ruling PT Party has a lot of explaining to do. This mass movement should have a revolutionary political perspective or it risks co-option. At the new of the day, all of us have the right to advance revolutionary changes in the world, especially in Brazil.
The Afro-Brazilians are a great black people. They are our brothers and our sisters. As a black American, it is important to have solidarity with my Brothers and Sisters from Brazil including black human beings all over the world. So, there are a lot of links between Brazil and Africa. Now, this doesn't mean that everything is peaches and cream. We have to oppose many Afro-Brazilians being killed by genocidal police and militarized forces. About 90 percent of the Brazilian imports from Africa are oil and other natural resources. There has been a growth of African and Brazilian collaborations. This South to South linkage is growing. The North South alliance has been common too for a long time. Yet, mostly white or white passing leaders control the 37 Brazilian embassies in Africa. Even in Brazil, some black human beings are rarely shown in television or they are stereotyped in a sick, sexual fashion. Many poor Afro-Brazilians are killed by the police (after legitimate affirmative action policies have gone in Brazil). There is still mistreatment of continental born Africans who live in Brazil. Fernanda Polacow and Juliana Borges have documented the discrimination and racism that many African migrants face in Brazil (as also documented by Aljazeera. I saw a video on it recently in the Aljazeera website). Angolan immigrant Badharo instead finds barriers and even racism in Rio. Rio is presented as this cosmopolitan, progressive city. Many Africans from Angola come into Brazil. Ironically, Brazil and Angola were colonized by wicked Portuguese imperialists centuries ago. Ironically, Brazil has liberalized its immigration laws. The racism and violence has spiked in targeting the black population of Brazil including Angolan migrants. In June of 2011, an 11 year old Brother named Juan Moraes was killed by the Military police in June of 2011. Like Trayvon Martin, the value of young men of black African descent in the Diaspora is not respected by white racists. Mother of a young black man executed in 2006 by a death squad, in Santos, São Paulo, Débora Maria da Silva doesn’t see an improvement in the situation in the country. The street sweeper Edson Rogério Silva dos Santos was shot dead in May 2006, during a wave of attacks in the state of São Paulo, when he went to buy medicine. For the mother of Edson, blacks are the biggest victims, because they live in the poorest areas of the city. According to her, the state still maintains a racist posture, even 125 years after the abolition of slavery in the country. There have been young black men dying by murder and young black women dying from lack of health care. “Os jovens negros morrem e as mulheres negras também morrem (Young black men are dying and black women are also dying).” The Movimento Negro (black movement) is still fighting in Brazil against the genocide of black youth, the criminalization of poverty, and mass incarceration. There has been huge police violence in the state of São Paulo. So, women have the right to receive safe, affordable health care in Brazil indeed. Yalaorixá Yá Makumby Vilma Santos de Oliveira was brutally murdered on Saturday, August 3rd in Londrina. She was a great Afro-Brazilian woman. She was a long time leader of Movimento Negro (black rights organizations). Two other human beings died too at the hands of a sick man. Yá Makumby Vila de Oliveira Santos and Olívia Oliveira dos Santos, 10, also died by the sick man. Yes, he was not black. Now, Yalaorixá Yá Makumby Vilma Santos de Oliveira was a militant of the Movimento Negro (black movement) in Londrina for over 30 years. Well known in social movements, she was one of the militants that fought for the quota system in universities of Londrina. So, our war against white supremacy is not just in the States. It is everywhere. Black people are fighting for human liberation in the States, Africa, Brazil, and all over the world. Many European and American banks control much of the resources that flow in the world. Many Brazilian mining companies have caused violence in Mozambique. These acts are a product of the evil of the greed for coal, diamond, and oil resources.
By Timothy
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