Thursday, March 22, 2012

Here we go again...

Here we go yet again with the staggering pain that we feel about the loss of life for this baby; Trayvon Martin and all the Trayvon Martins in America and the world over its unmanageable. There is nothing to compare with the loss of a child and I will confess that being a mother of a child who can ”pass” I cannot fathom what it means to be a mother of a child who cannot “pass” and what daily fear exists in ones heart as our boys make their way through life. I hope justice is served and Mr. Zimmerman is arrested and treated properly. It isn’t just the fact that Trayvon’s body was kept unidentified in the morgue for three days because no one imagined that he belonged to anyone. What is wrong with this picture? How evil is racism in America and with the presidency being a polarizing contest and the issue of race ‘up” it still doesn’t answer so many questions we need to be asking ourselves. If you are not ethnic I ask you how diversified are your friends? If there is little or none you need help. Because we self segregate it creates untruths both ways. I know African Americans who don’t believe there are honest trustworthy Caucasians so it does cut both ways. Diversification is an answer a very good one. The entire south but especially in Florida with its suspect racial history needs an overhaul. A physical and spiritual and political overhaul, I hear many comedians complain that Florida is home to the lowest common denominator of human kind, maybe. I won’t go that far but these cases as well as the many on the book of unsolved missing person cases that seem racially charged in Florida aren’t helping the state. It’s a shame we are still here fighting for decency. One child walking back from the store with candy to watch a sporting event loses his life because the neighborhood nut job has a ‘thing” against “African Americans. It makes me wanna scream, cry and hang my head in sadness, in fact I spontaneous cry for the family of Trayvon martin and for myself and all of us who know what it feels like to be “other”. We need to do better than this, all of us.

7 comments:

Dwane T. said...

That kid’s death has me so torn up. Many people who don’t understand the situation are already fed up with the attention. Some have pointed out various cases where some black kids have attacked an innocent white kid. And I can understand their frustration. The black kids attacking white kids crimes are horrific like any innocent kid being attacked. But I’ve never heard of a case of it happening where the police knew about it and didn’t arrest the assailants and hold them until they were bailed out. Also, this was not a case of kid on kid crime. This was a grown man killing a teenager. A teenager he chased after the police told him to stand down. A teenager who weighed 100 lbs. less than him (to put that in perspective, its greater than the difference between my weight and the weight of my five year old daughter). So I am heartbroken, and millions are outraged because he wasn’t even taken to the station for a formal statement. So if he ever goes to trial, he can change his story without contradicting his “original statement”. All he has to say is the cop he spoke to misunderstood. And the truth is, since the police didn’t take his gun, we don’t even know what gun actually killed Trayvon. Worst of all, the police didn’t use Trayvon’s cell phone to call his family to tell them he was in the morgue. What parent can imagine the police having their child for three days and not even attempting to contact them.

Beyond the loss of this young man to his parents, and the child who was waiting at home for Trayvon to come back with his Skittles, my heart aches for my son and other Black males. I explained the case to my 16 year old the other night, and as always he was worried whether the police would think he’s important enough to protect. The next morning I found a link to an article about the case on my Facebook page sent by my 18 year old son, with the added caption: “I hate this place.” Being taller and darker than his brother, he has dealt with racial hostility more often to the point where he is already jaded. I love my country, and it hurts that my son hates this place. I know at any time I can get “the call” about one of my chidren. The father of every Black male has this either in the back of their mind, or the forefront of their mind every day. And my sons live in an upscale suburban neighborhood, and only around 10% of their neighborhood and school population are Black. They know they are just as in endangered in a rich neighborhood as a poor one, because green money does not override Black skin.

For those white folks who may feel you are under attack and being lumped together with people like Zimmerman despite your innocence of any racial hatred, I do feel for you. If you imagine for a minute that the words you hear and read were bullets, you will understand a little better how young innocent kids like Trayvon feel.

mario said...

u know wat struck bout well alota things but wen u mewntioned how diversified ure friends r,...happy mine come from all over the world even tho i was born in australia, my blood lines r eastern eurapean hailing from yugoslavia..i get to my point ussies can be very racial not all but alot...its like a friend i known from a long time saying 'wog' in front of me not directed at me but talking bout someone else..here i am thinking to myself 'doesnt he kno thats wat i am? he's known me for a long time yet says that'? funny that left me feelin a lil insulted. the aussie here like to think they own australia like its theres but they forget its not its the indigenous people who were here before us the aboriginal...ive tried many times to fit in wth them but find it easier being wth my diversified group..like i cant relate and its not an individual thing more like a cultural...its like they fear something different..

mario said...

sorry few spelling errors ther...id lov to know how the whole world and all its people can com together...it seems soooo simple lov respect one another and our differences yet its soo hard for som to do

Unknown said...

OMgoodness yes its all about the idea of fearing for our children noto0nly from the kooks and criminals but law enforcement.This is a little off point but I notice that a lot of the leadership who are speaking up are hard to understand or they in trying to be articulate use words they may be less familiar with making me also realize how shoddy public school is for everyone and that it bothers me that our community leaders some who hold public office still don't understand how to be articulate and how to look for meaning in the words they use. I know people are very emotional right now still I wish to encourage those who feel the need to speak up for "us" to think before they speak and use words they are familiar with and enunciate. Listening to these emotional people who are misusing words and whose diction is rather rough makes me even more sad because it is living proof, a reminder (not that we need it) that education in American "sucks".

Unknown said...

Forgive me for being so picky....but I cannot help it.

Suzi from Ojai said...

I cannot believe that things like this, in this day and age, could be happening! Maybe I am a bit naive, growing up in the Ojai Valley. You have been here Rae Dawn and I'm sure you know what I am talking about.

When I was growing up in the '50's and 60's, this was pretty much an all White community. I went to elementary school here, but when it came to going to Jr. High (now called middle school) we were bussed down to the Avenue in Ventura where we went to a school that actually had more African Americans than hispanics at that time. We made many friends, but the two closest were two African American girls. We even brought our good friends home to Ojai to spend the night in our home and didn't think anything of what anyone would think, because they were a different race. We all got along in school and I wish every place could be like it was here! We remained friends until one friend passed and one moved away.

The only comparison I can relate to as far as pregidous goes, is that I married out of my own race and when I went to a store where the woman behind the counter was the same race as my husband (latino) She literally threw the change from the cash register at my husband, because he was with a white woman. I was so shocked by this, because I grew up with so many friends and relatives that were not white and we surely weren't use to anything like this! Some of my (now X) husbands own family treated my son badly because he was half white. So you are right, it does cut both ways. But I still have friends from all cultures and it doesn't change the way I feel about having friends from all walks of life! I just wish that people would get a clue! This absolutely makes me sick!!

Dwane T. said...

Rae Dawn, I am totally with you on the "who speaks for us" issue. Sometimes it's cringe-worthy. Those community leaders are often folks who took the wrong path, or half-stepped on the right path, early in life. They turned their lives and focus around, but they didn't go back and get the skills they passed on earlier in life. I wish more of them understood that they would make a greater impression on the youth they love if they gave a living example of self-improvement in education and articulation in addition to social consciousness. But they are on the front-line, so I accept the flawed presentation of their powerful message.

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