Cause and Consequence: Trayvon Martin's Death

It's been three weeks since Trayvon Martin was murdered and his parents have yet to see the man responsible arrested.  The 911 tapes have been released and they show that Trayvon was targeted and that he was not killed in self-defense.  This was a hate crime.  This young man did not have a chance against this person that was intent on ending his life.  He was walking back from the store after buying a bag of candy and an iced tea.

Black men have been propagandized to be the most feared in the world but they are definitely not the most dangerous. Why?  Because a society that is conditioned to go out of it's way to allow white males/white-identified males to grow up in a world that will justify and condone their horrific actions makes white males the most dangerous and all non-white people are at risk.

When the white supremacist power structure spends centuries making sure that the world believes you to be a threat to personal safety (from birth) then you create a world that is capable of anything to ensure your elimination.  Trayvon Martin is one of many Black children that have died due to racially motivated assaults.  

Black parents have a very real problem on their hands.  Black children are not safe because their lives are not valued.  We can continue to believe that it's "that child" and "it won't be my child" but we will do so risking our children's lives in the process.  It could have been any of our children!  Teenagers wear hoodies all of the time (male and female) so it could have easily been my daughter in Trayvon's position.  This a civil rights, child welfare and personal safety issue.  

When white males are allowed to write and enforce laws that disproportionately ensure that they will be allowed to do anything that they please with impunity then we have created society's most dangerous individual.  White males consumed with the white supremacist power structure are the ones that pose a threat to all of us and cause the most harm.  To be silent is to be complicit.  Sign the petition.

Trayvon Martin did not deserve to die but George Zimmerman deserves to be punished.

   

Black people should never tolerate white privilege!

1500's- (murdering and enslavement of black Africans by white Europeans)

Declaration of Independence 1776 (didn't include black people)

U.S. Constitution 1787 (included black people as property)

Emancipation Proclamation (September 22, 1862 and January 1, 1863) (freed black people from bondage on paper but wasn't federally enforced)

Thirteenth Amendment 1865, abolished and prohibited slavery

Civil Rights Act of 1866, extending the rights of emancipated slaves

Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act (to combat them organizing to kill black people)

Civil Rights Act of 1875, prohibiting discrimination in "public accommodations"; found unconstitutional (1883)

Jim Crow Laws 1876-1965

Civil Rights Act of 1957, establishing the Civil Rights Commission to ensure black voting rights

Civil Rights Act of 1960, establishing federal inspection of local voter registration polls to ensure black voting rights

Civil Rights Act of 1964, prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin by federal and state governments as well as some public places

Civil Rights Act of 1968, also known as the Fair Housing Act

Civil Rights Act of 1991, providing the right to trial by jury on discrimination claims and introducing the possibility of emotional distress damages, while limiting the amount that a jury could award

Five centuries later, I have the tolerance level of a people who have spent the last 500 years being treated and portrayed as inferior to those that share the skin tone of white European slave owners who enslaved black Africans.  

Black people have continually had to fight for everything that is our right as human beings and American citizens and those very rights we fought for are now enjoyed by many non-blacks.  Yet, in this screwed world sharing the skin tone of people who committed genocides on numerous countries around the world is far more prized than sharing the skin tone of those who fought to level the rights for all of us.

Non-white people should NEVER defend, excuse, perpetuate or succumb to white privilege.

The goal of slavery was to create a system that would continually feed the ideal that to be anything other than Anglo is meant to be shamed and destroyed.  The media(print and broadcast), texts, social history and policy have now taken the place of slavery in the mistreatment and enslavement of black people.  White privilege was spawned from the racism of white cowards that felt inferior without it, including America's forefathers.

Any non-white or white person that champions, defends or excuses a white person's ability to maintain a privilege in this world based on the color of their skin is a foolish enemy to us all.