Tonight I wear My Hoodie . . . Again: The Verdict.

The Verdict is in . . .

I wrote about a year ago about my feelings regarding this Trayvon case and I was aghast then and I’m horrified now about this travesty called a 'verdict' . . . I need to preface the following ‘unloading’ by declaring loud and clear:

I DO NOT THINK THAT ALL WHITES ARE RACIST.

Got that? Let me 'rinse, wash and repeat':

I DO NOT THINK ALL WHITES ARE RACIST.

But you DO have some 'advantages' at your disposal that no other group can even take advantage of, at the unconscious and conscious level.  Some members of other groups like to ‘pretend’ they are 'like you' but reality is very different under the right conditions . . . more on that later.  I'm not blaming any White person in here who 'gets it' or doesn't, but I HAVE to get this off my chest and it’s a truth ALL need to become very familiar with if things are EVER to change.  This is why I'm going to humbly ask that well-intentioned, sympathetic whites recognize and not take offense when I declare:

Although you may not be able to see overtly the preferences you are given automatically in certain circumstances and in the social, business, and other societal strata . . . they are there. Denying it because you can't see it doesn't make it any less true.  They are available for anyone who is White or has become 'accepted' as such . . . if they choose and even if they don't.

Zimmerman has been taking full advantage of this from the start.

But I need to rant for a bit against all these right wingers and racists that tore Trayvon down mercilessly, essentially putting HIM on trial instead of Zimmerman.  To you I say this:

Fuck all you racist sons of bitches. Pray that you never feel what Trayvon's parents are feeling tonight before you WAKE UP!  It's like these anti-gay senators who were homophobic as fuck . . . until their daughter or son 'comes out'. You Republicans AGAIN find yourselves always on the side of The Ugly.  You conservatives keep drinking the mental piss that Hannity and others spray all over your willing, fearful faces daily . . . and in the process you tarnish your own humanity.  You lose the ability to recognize the humanity of a family who is grieving for the loss of a child.  You trample all over it like pigs trampling over pearls that were accidentally spilled into the oozing mud, as the hogs respond to a feeding bell . . .

Let me reference some history and make it little more personal in order to explain the outrage.  In my earlier post about this issue I referenced Emmet Till, which had similarities to this one . . .

"The trial attracted a vast amount of press attention. Bryant and Milam were acquitted of Till's kidnapping and murder, . . ."

. . . but unlike the Trayvon Trial this went down . . .

". . . but only months later, in a magazine interview, protected against double jeopardy, they admitted to killing him. Till's murder is noted as a pivotal event motivating the African-American Civil Rights Movement."

Zimmerman IS NOW protected by our Double Jeopardy Law and can say anything he wants now.  If he's smart he'll be 'quiet' until after the civil trial, but that is neither here nor there.

What so many of us out here of multiple ethnic 'stripes' including White, are pissed off about is that this sort of thing has been going on for too long.  So many cases like this have taken place over the decades even after the civil rights era, where a perpetrator of known or proven racial prejudice act on it and robs yet another family of a Brown(Hispanic or Black) Relative . . . and gets away Scott Free. THAT is why folks are upset.

"Not again!?"

Tell me you folks that are rejoicing at this verdict:

Just what IS IT about a dark-skinned, kid walking down the street, a toddler unsteadily making their way to and from their parents in a park, or at church . . . what is it about a little baby boy in a stroller . . . what is it about their potential 'future' that has you folk so 'scared'??

What is it . . . that would make it OK for You to assume my now baby boy, in the future, should be 'suspicious' just by the way he looks or dresses?  What sort of 'blood-thirsty' hubris made you think you're the final arbiters of Fate?

The precedent set by this verdict is that it's open season on Brown Males, just as much now as it was back in Emmet Till's time.  For that to be the case in 2013 is a tragedy of epic, multi-generational proportions.  We have a Black President now but nothing else has changed.  The 'cake' of this country underneath this well-spoken 'icing', it seems that is our POTUS, is still just as rotten as ever.

Melissa Harris-Perry had a very personal reaction to this verdict on her show the Sunday after.  She said she now lives in a country that make she want to 'wish her sons away'.  

"I will never forget... the relief I felt at my 20 week ultrasound when they told me it was a girl," Harris-Perry recalled on Sunday. "And last night, I thought, I live in a country that makes me wish my sons away, wish that they don't exist, because it's not safe."

Wow.  Sadly . . . I can't blame her.

Sincerely: Fuck You.

Fucking Florida.

The South = the Social Canker Sore of this nation when it comes to Race Relations.

This is Symptomatic . . .

We're like a very sick, feverish person in denial as a country.  The ferocity with which mainly 'White" conservative members of the punditocracy and the Conservative Entertainment Complex INSISTED that 'Race' was never an issue in this case, despite the glaring evidence to the contrary straight from Zimmerman's mouth, was very telling.  To us folks of color, it's too similar a song we've been told we should just 'sing' and 'be quiet' or else . . . time and time again.  Incredulously, if we insist on the truth of the prejudice coming out, these same folks, who impugn us forcefully with the suggested mandatory 'look away and be happy!' I just mentioned, will then flip the script and accuse US of being the Racists, because we insist on the ugly truth of the matter to come out.

BOTH actions are highly racist in themselves - the determined quest to bury the act and the absurd 'I know You are but What am I?' gambit that follows the former.

But this is 2013 and I've no more time for that sort of stuff anymore . . . enough.

Here's a stark truth and it’s no use getting mad or offended or even denying it, you need to accept it, face it and together we'll take it on:

In this 'arena', where Trayvon and many others have found themselves, if you're White you'll NEVER be profiled, stalked and killed in this country just based on your ethnicity and the stereotypical proclivities assigned to you over the centuries.  You get to be blissfully-unaware and exempt from this sort of disgustingly-fickle 'trigger' of potentially-fatal danger . . . if you so choose to be!

This is what is so messed up about this:

As a White person you either have had to be 'socialized' (grown up with, work with, etc) with non-whites to 'get it' . . . or through a 'conscious effort' to familiarize yourself.  My hat is off to those of you that fit into the above categories that have awoken and had their eyes and minds opened.  But . . . if you just 'exist' in this country the racial infrastructure will, for the most part, insulate you from even having to think about or consider a fate like Trayvon's, befalling you or your children.

That is just horrible. Why should you tell your kids something different than I'll have to tell my son to keep them safe, when we basically live side by side now?  Why must the Rules I spoke about in my first post endure even longer?

"1) Don't run in public

2) Don't talk back to the Police

3) When they are around make sure they can see your hands . . . even IF they are not necessarily focused on you

4) Don't be 'Too Black' around Them . . . don't make waves."

Here's another:

5) Make sure you have Special Radar 'on your person' so that you can detect when an overzealous, racist, bastard is nearby packing heat.  Once detected, make sure you forget about your sense of self-preservation , self-respect or dignity, and prostrate yourself before this person.  Deviate slightly and it can be fatal.

One more:

6) Stay away from Iced Tea and Skittles; don't carry them on your person especially when dark.  They are considered 'illegal' and a deadly force 'guarantor' in certain states.

Yeah. I'm livid right now.

I'm pissed at folks who are racists and the institutional racism that allows them to live in that bubble of perceived 'superiority' and Hate . . . and frustrated that they ALWAYS seem to have more money than dirt to propagate their ideology willy-nilly anywhere they choose.

I'm pissed at and sad for folks who ethnically or historically aren't or weren't 'considered 'White' . . . but have gone on to wear that horrible 'suit' of racism against the Brown/Black that past generations of racist whites(but not ALL whites) have 'sewn' so 'deftly' (Like Zimmerman).  I'm sad for these folks because the system that they bow in supplication to and prostrate themselves before, in some attempt at being 'accepted' as members of 'the ruling perceived default or pinnacle' . . . will NEVER 'give them or treat them' with true equality.  When the chips are down or when they screw up royally, they may suddenly find themselves thrust back roughly into the ranks of those they tried 'so hard' to distinguish themselves from.  That insanity makes you a trained animal, a pimped whore who goes back to her pimp over and over again, thinking that the black eyes and missing teeth are flukes, or are actually expressions of love from, who is really their abuser in so many ways and on so many levels.

And it's a shame.

I pray you never get that rude awakening that makes you realize:

"Damn . . . Am I really no different than 'The Black'?"

So again let me say: I'm not castigating White People with my rant here . . . but I am asking that you start accepting certain truths about your existence, not just here, but worldwide.  Only then can we truly 'lock arms' across the 'racial sea', as it were, and deal with this Serpent . . . who’s bite and the toxin released called Prejudice has claimed yet another brown soul egregiously, with seemingly as much worth as chaff blowing away with the wind . . . and as 'inconsequential' as ever.

So once again I’m wearing my Hoody . . . with still more tears wetting the front of it where the bullet ended Martin’s life.  I am You, could have been You Trayvon and I honor you.  

Light and Love always to your family.

(C) Dike Matthew 7/14/13