Good morning. I am taking a departure this morning in faithfully copying the a full text post from Amari Blaize, my dear friend on the Zimmerman Verdict. You can visit her blog at
http://amariblaize.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/a-racism-that-lusts-after-kill.html?spref=fb
A Racism that Lusts After the Kill
In the wake of the Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman verdict, an image of Martin Luther King Jr. in a hoodie has been circulating on social media. Said to have been tweeted by former Obama advisor, it has taken the internet by storm over the past few days, receiving over a thousand retweets.[1]
Compare the Zimmerman ‘not guilty’ verdict with that of a black woman in the very same State, sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting her husband during a violent confrontation. Her lawyers invoked Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law (the Zimmerman defence) yet the jury sided with prosecutors in deciding the woman’s actions were not in self-defence.
It reminds me of an old dark place that I stepped away from some years back. I have ceased being actively engaged in hand-to-hand combat around racism, particularly with those key agencies (the 3 P’s) in the criminal justice system – Police, Prosecutors, and Prisons; and I'm not forgetting the judges.
There are so many horror stories rolling down the centuries of our lives where systemic racism and xenophobia ends in tragedy…
before and after America's First Nation buried its heart at Wounded Knee...
before and after The Middle Passage (the longest, hardest, most dangerous and horrific part of the journey of the slave ships)…and KKK lynchings..
before and after the Holocaust...and the massacre inSrebrenica...
before and after the deaths of Stephen Lawrence and Trayvon Martin, both of which have fallen into the category of 'cause célébre', for better or worse.
No doubt the horror stories will continue well after I’m dead, and into the lives of my great-grand children; of that I have little doubt. It appears that we all need something through which to purge the darkness in the human psyche.
Kwame Kwei-Armah, British actor, playwright and broadcaster, now Artistic Director of the CentreStage Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, wrote the following about how he should respond to his young ones’ question about why Trayvon Martin had to die:
"Spent the day talking to my sons and daughter, nephews and nieces about the Trayvon Martin case. It was hard on the heart, hard on the mind, but even harder to hear the younger ones ask in their under ten curious fashion – "So is this racism then?"
One of the hardest parts of raising a black child is this moment. 'To use, or not to use the dreaded R-word?'
The question is however is there any protection in not naming it, or rather in doing so does it single them out? Raise their head above an already shallow parapet? I've been thru this three times already; this fourth is whipping my ass.
Maybe because I'm older, maybe because when I was younger I was hoping that it would be done by now, at least in this most blatant form. Or maybe it's because I feel a little embarrassed that my generation failed to solve the problem and that I am handing it down to them to fix, in ALMOST the exact the same fashion as it was handed to me.
And I know how angry I was at the previous generation for that. End of soul purge."
Systemic racism is not 'your problem to solve’ Kwame; although it is a problem for you, but that is quite a different matter. Neither was it one for the previous generation, nor is it for the next to put right. How could/can they? It might have been a problem for at least one member of the jury who exonerated Trayvon Martin’s murderer, but they cannot 'solve' it either.
The solution cannot come from any one individual even if their name is Kennedy, King, Mandela, or even Kwei-Armah, although like the Hundredth Monkey Effect theory of social change, they can spearhead the revolution.
What we can do, all of us, is teach our children to love, and to aim always for the best that they can be. In any event, the descendants of the Middle Passage era get the platinum medal for long distance running and the peace prize for non-retaliation.
However long the run turns out to be, the solution must come from the very soul of those who hate and fear, those who collude and condone, and the silent majority who, in their many and different ways, pass by on the other side.
At the end of the day the solution can only come from a growth in human consciousness. Right now the Reptilian Coping Brain is in control, and a racism that lusts after the kill gets a free pass.
An interesting question for debate though is what do we make of CNN commentator Abigail Thernstrom’s view that Obama’s response was a mistake
http://amariblaize.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/a-racism-that-lusts-after-kill.html?spref=fb
A Racism that Lusts After the Kill
In the wake of the Trayvon Martin/Zimmerman verdict, an image of Martin Luther King Jr. in a hoodie has been circulating on social media. Said to have been tweeted by former Obama advisor, it has taken the internet by storm over the past few days, receiving over a thousand retweets.[1]
Compare the Zimmerman ‘not guilty’ verdict with that of a black woman in the very same State, sentenced to 20 years in prison for shooting her husband during a violent confrontation. Her lawyers invoked Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law (the Zimmerman defence) yet the jury sided with prosecutors in deciding the woman’s actions were not in self-defence.
It reminds me of an old dark place that I stepped away from some years back. I have ceased being actively engaged in hand-to-hand combat around racism, particularly with those key agencies (the 3 P’s) in the criminal justice system – Police, Prosecutors, and Prisons; and I'm not forgetting the judges.
There are so many horror stories rolling down the centuries of our lives where systemic racism and xenophobia ends in tragedy…
before and after America's First Nation buried its heart at Wounded Knee...
before and after The Middle Passage (the longest, hardest, most dangerous and horrific part of the journey of the slave ships)…and KKK lynchings..
before and after the Holocaust...and the massacre inSrebrenica...
before and after the deaths of Stephen Lawrence and Trayvon Martin, both of which have fallen into the category of 'cause célébre', for better or worse.
No doubt the horror stories will continue well after I’m dead, and into the lives of my great-grand children; of that I have little doubt. It appears that we all need something through which to purge the darkness in the human psyche.
Kwame Kwei-Armah, British actor, playwright and broadcaster, now Artistic Director of the CentreStage Theatre in Baltimore, Maryland, USA, wrote the following about how he should respond to his young ones’ question about why Trayvon Martin had to die:
"Spent the day talking to my sons and daughter, nephews and nieces about the Trayvon Martin case. It was hard on the heart, hard on the mind, but even harder to hear the younger ones ask in their under ten curious fashion – "So is this racism then?"
One of the hardest parts of raising a black child is this moment. 'To use, or not to use the dreaded R-word?'
The question is however is there any protection in not naming it, or rather in doing so does it single them out? Raise their head above an already shallow parapet? I've been thru this three times already; this fourth is whipping my ass.
Maybe because I'm older, maybe because when I was younger I was hoping that it would be done by now, at least in this most blatant form. Or maybe it's because I feel a little embarrassed that my generation failed to solve the problem and that I am handing it down to them to fix, in ALMOST the exact the same fashion as it was handed to me.
And I know how angry I was at the previous generation for that. End of soul purge."
Systemic racism is not 'your problem to solve’ Kwame; although it is a problem for you, but that is quite a different matter. Neither was it one for the previous generation, nor is it for the next to put right. How could/can they? It might have been a problem for at least one member of the jury who exonerated Trayvon Martin’s murderer, but they cannot 'solve' it either.
The solution cannot come from any one individual even if their name is Kennedy, King, Mandela, or even Kwei-Armah, although like the Hundredth Monkey Effect theory of social change, they can spearhead the revolution.
What we can do, all of us, is teach our children to love, and to aim always for the best that they can be. In any event, the descendants of the Middle Passage era get the platinum medal for long distance running and the peace prize for non-retaliation.
However long the run turns out to be, the solution must come from the very soul of those who hate and fear, those who collude and condone, and the silent majority who, in their many and different ways, pass by on the other side.
At the end of the day the solution can only come from a growth in human consciousness. Right now the Reptilian Coping Brain is in control, and a racism that lusts after the kill gets a free pass.
An interesting question for debate though is what do we make of CNN commentator Abigail Thernstrom’s view that Obama’s response was a mistake
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