Looking Under the Hoodie: Lessons from Trayvon Martin’s Death
Hudson traced the roots of intolerance in D.C. to a segmented city where there’s little interaction between neighborhoods.
He drew upon his experience as a marketing professional in educating his kids about how to carry themselves in the world.
“My sons are wearing the brand of an African-American man every time they walk out into the street,” Hudson said. If their pants are sagging, “pull them up,” he said, stressing that it’s a parent’s responsibility to teach youths “to carry themselves in a manner to show the world that they are productive individuals.”
“Make sure that all young men see what they can be… then the rest of the world will see what’s under the hood,” Hudson added.
When the floor opened for questions or brief statements, a sizable chunk of the crowd quickly jumped into line. Youths were urged to get at the front of the line so they could get home early on a school night. Those who stepped to the mike one by one were like a microcosm representation of D.C.’s African-American community.
You had the college students who had found a way forward and wanted to help others from their neighborhoods do the same. You had a couple guys urging “black nationalism,” with one calling blacks in Congress “Uncle Toms.” You had deacons and activists encouraging community members to get involved and “become a part of the city, not just your street,” in Hudson’s words.
One question asked of the panel was what life skill would give youths the best chance of coming home alive each evening.
“Love ‘em. Teach them right and wrong,” Rawlings said. “We’ve just got to keep on loving them.”
Hudson added that kids need to be taught the law and their rights. “They also have to be able to trust the police,” he added, and call upon them when trouble arises. “Make those calls quickly and not take matters into their own hands… you need to quickly get yourself out of that situation.”
Audience members had advice to add that included having the phone numbers of your kids’ friends to not shying away from the “tough conversations.”
“Father, be fathers,” one said. “Teach our young men how to present themselves in the community.”
“When you get to college, you must stay involved,” one Brown University graduate said. “You must look out for each other.”
Another college student, studying for his PhD at Columbia University, told the crowd that he was a high school dropout who had spent time in jail.
“Tell people they have value,” he passionately stressed. “Get up tomorrow and make a difference in your life!”
While one audience member chided blacks for not speaking openly because of the smattering of whites in the crowd, another countered that “there are more than just black people who are going to make a difference in this area.”
Norton noted the lively discussion as the forum drew to a close as a sign that the event had “lived up to its expectations.”
“You know you’ve had a good forum when everybody speaks what’s on their mind,” she said. “…There were comments that were critical and there were comments that were self-critical.”
“There’s no excuse for profiling, but there’s no excuse for inviting it, either,” Norton added.
She also stressed that the “more difficult” issue of black-on-black violence must be confronted. “Most of it’s not cops shooting us,” the representative said. “There are lots of issues for us to work on in our community.”
That includes dealing with “the last remaining, most serious form of discrimination in this country.”
In an effort to do that, Norton is introducing a racial profiling bill when Congress returns Monday.
“It’s a bill that would give grants to local jurisdictions in order to help them develop laws and programs that can combat racial profiling. I have tried in the past to get a national law against racial profiling but have been unable to do that, so this is my fallback,” she told PJM after the event.
“And I don’t see how anybody could be against this,” she added. “You don’t have to take the grant, you don’t have to participate, but if you want help, and some cities need help, they don’t know what to do, then you can get help through this grant funding.”
Norton hopes Republicans will see that the bill is “benign and it’s something that I think some jurisdictions would like to see.” She’ll be circulating a Dear Colleague letter on Monday to collect co-sponsors. “I think I’ll get a lot,” she said.
One woman at the forum expressed frustration that through the discussion there was “no one point made that we can all pick up on.”
But a deacon who stepped up to the microphone seemed to reflect the most unifying sentiment in the crowd and on the panel. Expressing that he was “tired of going to forums like this,” he advocated that more youth programs be made available to help parents.
“When are we going to get out there and grab these young people and teach them?” he said.
I’m waiting to hear our Teleprompter in Chief use the line;
at one of his never ending campaign stops.
You do know that Reagan was also a “Teleprompter in Chief?” He made prolific use of the device during his tenure, or is that a fact you conveniently forget? Besides, that debunked line is so last year …
Yes, Reagan used a teleprompter. But Reagan was a great communicator who successfully worked with a Democratic Congress. While Obama is ineffective by comparison (look how he flopped on healthcare), and a failure in working with a Republican Congress. Reagan was greatness personified. Obama (the anti-Reagan) is a medicocre one term blunder.
For many years, Ronald Reagan wrote his own speeches. Obungler can’t even read a Teleprompter with any fluency. Pathetic.
Well there you go again Cynical.
Truth is that Reagan was known for using index cards (just like we used back in high school debate class) as much if not more than any teleprompter.
And Reagan wrote or co-wrote a lion’s share of his speeches.
Next lie you would like exposed?
Dear Consummate Masturbater;
“Prolific” is the term you apply to yourself, and it’s accurate in describing your immaturity.
How can you suck on your thumb and type at the same time? Did your momma buy you some voice to dictation software so you wouldn’t be deprived of your thumb?
Now that he’s admitting to campaign stops, do we still pay for the gas for that 747 thingy?
Ms. Johnson quoted (we presume accurately) a (also presumably) black teenager at the community meeting saying, “When I heard about Trayvon Martin I was upset but I definitely wasn’t surprised because I know that stuff like this happens all the time.” The youth did not clarify (we presume, again) whether he meant racial profiling – the subject of the immediately previous sentence – or mixed-race self-defense killings of black attackers “happens all the time.” As of this writing, the totality of all publicly available evidence suggest the latter of those two “happenings” is happened in the Zimmerman/Martin incident.
Readers who are not aware of that totality of evidence are invited, again, to visit Another Slow News Day’s blog page(s) covering this incident.
http://anotherslownewsday.wordpress.com/culture/black-culture/
Scrolling down to the “Trayvon Martin” section on that page will reveal considerable evidence not reported by many mainstream media outlets. Revisiting my comments from J. Richard Adams’ aricle yesterday (“Not Newsworthy’…”) will provide readers with additional ASND page links containing some additional information on the incident and its aftermath.
The CMA (Communist Media of America) has gone far beyond the old meme of “IF IT BLEEDS IT LEADS”.
They have now adapted “IF IT AINT BLEEDING, KEEP BEATING UNTIL IT DOES”.
Well, of course, racial profiling should be outlawed. Then, black on black violence should be considered a self-loathing federal crime. Then, a special racial justice court system should be created. Then several states should rethink that seccession-thingy again if Obama somehow “wins” reelection in November. Hang on people, it going to be a long, hot summer.
Any LEO worth their salt will profile continuously. Race is part of an over all profile. Just like it makes no sense to strip search your grandmother at the airport, it makes even less sense to make a difficult job even harder by creating more legislation that in the end will be almost impossible to enforce and will only lead to LEOs becoming like the lady at the DMV or worse Sgt. Schultz from the Stalag 13 tv show.
Allen West: Half the Democrats in Congress Are Communists
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6J6z7g5Ojgfeature=player_embedded
Greetings:
Would I be correct in assuming that the next meeting will deal with the crimes and tribulations that “African-Americans” inflict on the rest of society? Even Eric (My People) Holder’s Department of Justice’s statistics indicate that blacks kill more than twice as many whites as whites kill blacks. Give me a break. I’ve had enough breast-beating and genuflecting before the miseries inflicted on blacks. This is just another public demonstration about how mired they are in their racialist thinking. And so we look to Ms. Norton, a notable beneficiary of the civil rights industry, for a solution that is, guess what, another concoction of more government power to control a problem that is a consequence of the behavior of their own kind.
Sing me a sad song. SIng it long and slow.
Absolutely.
Yep, I thought the same thing. Instead of the “preppy” kid in the private school complaining about teachers who “keep black kids down” or somesuch, I’m still waiting for the day when a group of white, inner city teachers (especially females) hold a meeting covered by the media, where they eplain the absolute hatred, racism,and mysogyny they face the moment they walk into a classroom — and the utter defiance, hostility, and humiliation they face when they attempt to teach or even tell black kids anything at all. Now, THAT will be a “courageous conversation about race.” This is just more b******* about what victims they are.I know a lot of us are sick to death of it.
you reap what you sow
It doesn’t matter how many youth programs are available or introduced, be them with the assistance of grant money or not, until black parents begin doing what the name implies- PARENTING, especially fathers!- these programs will continue to be both a waste of time and money, period.
“Father, be fathers,” one said. “Teach our young men how to present themselves in the community.”—-> Amen.
“While one audience member chided blacks for not speaking openly because of the smattering of whites in the crowd…”—> Amen.
“She also stressed that the “more difficult” issue of black-on-black violence must be confronted. “Most of it’s not cops shooting us,” the representative said. “There are lots of issues for us to work on in our community.’”—-> And until this ever-present problem gets the attention and condemnation it deserves, it will continue to exist. Part of confronting this problem is admonishing those who claim that it’s due to racism and not emphasizing loud enough that it’s a reflection of the lack personal responsibility and accountability black folks have of themselves and to the communities in which they live.
THIS IS A CROCK OF CRAP.THESE STUPID ASS LIBERIAL JERKS JUST HAVE TO MAKE SOMETHING OUT OF THIS CRAP.AAWWWWW POOR BLACKS MY ASS. THIS DIRTBAG GOVERMENT IS
JUST KEEPING THIS RACIAL SHIT GOING.THEY ARE ALL SCUM OF THE EARTH.THE BLACKS HAVE JUST AS MUCH AS THE REST OF THE PEOPLE BUT THEY KEEP CRYING “OH POOR US”
BULLSHIT THEY NEED TO SUCK IT UP AND STOP CRYING LIKE A BUNCH OF DAM BABIES.
The gigantic elephant in the room these sad people cannot see for the life, or death, of them, is that they are gathered because of black deaths, not deaths. And yet they somehow expect the exact opposite from communities that are not black, assuming that whites look out for their own, just like they do. This whole premise is based on an assumption that whites are just as racially obsessed as they are, and also that there is a demonstrable trend that white’s hunt blacks.
To tie it all up, the black community ties in the magic word “profiling,” which in their world is as real as gravity, but in fact anecdotal, without a trace of proof that such things happen outside statistically real considerations of crime – not made up considerations. We’re not talking about urban myth of crimes committed by people who hang around in libraries, not an anecdotal view of crimes committed by people who discuss Jane Austen, but an almost unbelievable source of almost half the crimes in this country committed by perhaps 6% of the people.
Until black Americans start to deal with these realities, and why’s, of profiling as opposed to the right or wrong of it, in the same way they talk about the reality of hoodies and saggy pants instead of one’s “right” to it, they will keep spinning the same wheels that always in the end say, “White people bad, black people good”; the single biggest conclusion that is the basis of virtually every black article on race in America.
Since in fact this is not the source of the problem, however much the black community would like to foist off their own value system onto whites, there is of course never a solution. The solution of the black community is then to come up with ever more bizarre “proofs” of white racism like the “New Jim Crow,” the New Confederacy, Racism 2.0, “white privilege,” “dog-whistles,” “code,” and all the rest. You’d think that after decades of massive proofs they look at every day, the black community could come up with something just a little bit better than statistically irrelevant shootings of blacks by non-blacks while ignoring real statistics just because they don’t set well with them.
It all basically boils down to this: It’s much easier to pass the buck than it is to own up & actually dig into the hard work of solving & taking responsibility for one’s own community’s problems. Couple this with the benefit of white guilt & one has the perfect recipe for an ongoing, insolvable problem. IMO, the black community needs a really strong leader of some sort to help guide their way out of the wilderness. Meantime, the white community needs to completely absolve itself of any & all responsibility for the black community’s problems; we are NOT racists.
This octogenarian native Washingtonian says that the continuation of this attitude…and, “attitude” it is most certainly, of continuous automatic “victimhood” in all circumstances, everywhere that Blacks are present in any capacity…. is the cause of this circular enduring resentment among Blacks against Whites.
The Civil Rights Movement of the Sixties with all of its well-meant, albeit frustrating attempts at legislative alleviation of all of the undeniable wrongs of racism seems to have been wasted. Wasted. Bales upon bales of cash have been strewn in the path of Black Youth to no avail for the last several decades……fostering the equally enduring “entitlement attitude”. Hand-outs without any sense of responsibility from the recipients.
““Father, be fathers,” one said. “Teach our young men how to present themselves in the community.”
This is the essence of Black’s enduring Problem. Their Youth’s “attitude” of refusing to study, be on time, no absenteeism, lack of any demonstrated work ethic, are not artificially bleated stereotypes….they’re the result of another misguided “attitude”, that of the macho male seeding pregnancies as a status symbol.
Must.Not.Act.White.
Fatherhood’s traditional responsibilities are totally strange and alien.
Hence…..who’s to blame for the current state of enduring automatic Black “victim-hood”? The very blacks who’re complaining the loudest…..they’re continuously and steadfastly refusing to look into the nearest mirror as long as they can continue to have illegitimate babies and collect welfare handouts because of the unfair “racism” of it all.
Very good summation
These kids talk about racial profiling and being passed over at school…are they really experiencing this or do they think that is the case because of what other people tell them?
I’ve been in stores, middle aged white male in business casual dress, where I’ve been asked many times “May I help you?” and there was always a employee positioned so that they could see me at all times. I’ve worked retail and done loss prevention, those are two key things that are done to discourage shop lifters.
Also were they “passed over due to race” or were their grades/performance/whatever just not good enough on limited resources? Context and supporting information are lacking.
That’s a good point; how do these people know similar things are not done to everyone? Do they study security cam footage? Are they experts in this field? Beyond racial myths, of what real value does it do to bruit all this nonsense the black community “knows” about white folks while they claim white folks don’t know anything what it’s like to be black. While this meeting is some kind of an attempt to open eyes, it is nothing of the sort; it’s the same old feel-good back massage and nothing will come of it. Blame and excuses do not heal or enable success.
I was glad to read about this discussion. While we wait until more TRUE facts are available about the Trayvon-Zimmerman case, I am curious if anyone has been thinking about what could be done to stop a similar situation from occurring again. For example, the following are some things I think might have helped to keep the Trayvon-Zimmerman tragedy from happening:
· Neighborhood security cars should have light reflecting bumper stickers on both the front and back of the cars driven by neighborhood watch volunteers, so good people would recognize if a neighborhood watch car was following them and understand that the driver was just keeping a watch on the neighborhood, and criminal type people would leave the neighborhood. If Trayvon had seen a “security” bumper sticker on Zimmerman’s car, perhaps Trayvon wouldn’t have gotten angry and paranoid about Zimmerman following him. Perhaps he would have just yelled to Zimmermanthat he was on his way to his Dad’s girlfriend’s home, and that would have been the end of it.
· Neighborhood watch volunteers should not get close to strangers wandering around, but they could yell to them, “Hi, I’m with the neighborhood watch program, do you need help?” I suspect that potential thieves would just leave.
· Gated communities could discuss how guests should behave when they are visiting someone. Should guests stay in the home into which they were are invited and not wander behind other people’s homes, unless they are with the person who invited them?
· Blacks in NYC are about 20%, of the population, yet they are responsible for 80% of the violent crimes. All 9 of the people who were committing crimes in Zimmerman’s small gated community in the past 15 month were young black males. No wonder Zimmerman was suspicious of Trayvon as he wandered around, seemingly without purpose. If the black community could reduce the percentage of crimes for which they are responsible, other people wouldn’t view them with so much suspicion. I have no idea how this can be done. 72% of black babies are born to unwed mothers, perhaps reducing this statistic would reduce the 93% of young black men who are murdered that are killed by young black men. I’m sure that being a boy without a father can cause lots of problems to develope. At 13 Trayvon looked like a terrific kid and his father was his football coach, but at 17 Trayvon had been expelled from school 3 times, found with a marijuana sack and 20 pieces of silver jewelry in his backpack, and a Twitter account where his posts show him to be a disruptive, rude, disrespectful poor student. What happened to that terrific 13 year old?
” I am curious if anyone has been thinking about what could be done to stop a similar situation from occurring again.”
Sure — don’t punch people, knocking them to the ground, and then start beating their head against the pavement.
I’ve avoided attacking people my whole life, and haven’t been shot once. It’s a quite amazing thing, actually.
Yours is a very insightful, helpfull posting on an emotionally laden topic where everyone seems to have lost his or her brains. Perhaps we are not all trapped in some supposed racial or ethnic identityh.
Louise,
Good Comments.
A verbal “Hey man…its pouring, can I give you a lift?” or “Hi, I’m with the association, you look lost, what address do you need?” would have at least gauged a response that he could report, should it not settle the situation entirely.
And if you think TALKING to him is unsafe, for Gods sake, then stay in the car.
An armed citizen HAS to be aware of their appearance when they decide to “shadow” someone.
There are only Three Things that can possible occur:
A- An innocent person could percieve you as a threat, and thus a tragic misunderstanding could escalate and cost someone their life, when neither party actually had ill intentions.
B- A guilty, violent, thugish or anti social person WILL fulfill your suspicions, by attacking you…in order to escape identity of the crime they just commited, (or were planning), or simply because you’re “dissing” them.
C- If you are lucky…Nothing…nothing at all.
If you dont immediately see these two terrible scenarios as likely possibilities, and needlessly risk them in favor of Option “C” as the BEST outcome you can get from that decision, then you are a FOOL who should not BE armed. Ever.
I’ve been a Firearms Instructor for 30+ years. This A+B verses 0 equation should be, (and, in my classes, is) drilled relentlesly into your training as an armed private citizen. The most important part of any Firearms Training is learning BEHAVIOURS, not Marksmanship…learning to recognise the potential for, and how to AVOID confrontations, whenever possible. This MUST be first and formost in every Armed Citizens mind whenever they decide to “do something” when armed.
Because without any subtle “identifiers” you mention, like a marked car, a flash light, a crested polo shirt or blazer identifying him as a “watchman”, or “association representitive” and thus somehow “justifying” his persuit of a NON TREATENING person, Zimmerman needlessly exposed himself to being second guessed straight into a jail cell….
Because when, (in my opinion) Option “B” inevetably occurred, he was not smart enough to realise Option “A” would be the immediate default narrative used against him for ANY confrontation that occurred AFTER leaving the safety of his vehicle.
With no “identifiers” in Zimmermans defense to mitigate response “A”, or to clearly condemn “B” if it occured, his only hope was for outcome “C”, which has NO POSITIVE VALUE.
Getting out of the car with a firearm was rolling a three sided dice:
The sides are: Bad, Bad, and Zero. Which side is the winner?
NONE OF THEM. SO DONT ROLL IT.
Or as the dispatcher said:
“you dont have to do that”
And that utter lack of reasonable forsight expected of an Armed Person, was his fatal mistake…for which he will now (unjustly) be jailed. Only a fool couldnt see it coming, and thus only a fool rolls those dice, when no ones life or limb was immediately hanging in the balance… as he sat in his car, with the Police on the line.
For me, Zimmermans actions are like watching someone shoot themself while cleaning a loaded gun.
I feel terrible, sympathetic, even angry for their suffering.
“but why’d ya DO it, man… when you (should) KNOW BETTER”
Thats whats in My Gut, hard and familiar.
A textbook bad desision, with textbook consequences.
No surprise, only tears.
Like a kid running to the street between parked cars.
No good can EVER come from it.
The best you can get is…nothing.
As for “What happened to that terrific 13 year old?”
Sadly, that answer is always the same, too…
Hormones, Testosterone, and Environment.
A media/entertainment culture that celebrates Thug activity, and the general Leftest “Soft Bogotry of Low Expectations” that is so prevelant in the Education Fields and governement. They see no virtue in virtue, and they gain none on their own.
Thug-Life posturing is a near right of passage for them. Even with an intact family, the culture of being “cool” before being “smart” and “responsible”, its just too powerful a draw. Violence is as casual and thoughtless as words, sex, or shoplifting…its just what they do at that age.
And die. They do that alot too.
There is another class of coloured people who make a business of keeping the troubles, the wrongs, and the hardships of the Negro race before the public. Having learned that they are able to make a living out of their troubles, they have grown into the settled habit of advertising their wrongs – partly because they want sympathy and partly because it pays. Some of these people do not want the Negro to lose his grievances, because they do not want to lose their jobs.
– Booker T. Washington, emancipated slave, My Larger Education, 1910, p. 50
Booker T is clearly an Uncle Tom. /sarcasm
Dear Eric Holder, we continue to have discussions about racism and it only gets worse. Could it be that you and your boss are fomenting rage in “your people”?
-Dear Obvously While Mike
No, its because your people are cowards
-Eric Holder
snark/ON
Sorry..”WHITE” mike…
Obviously your people designed this keyboard to be culturally biased against lazy typists who misspell and dont proofread.
If you want to see what life can be like for young men and boys in the ‘hood, watch a couple of seasons of HBO’s show “The Wire.”
The young boys and men of ‘the hood’ go along way to MAKING the world in which they must live. And whenever I hear blacks talk about discrimination, absent a much-repeated anecdote or two going around their communities, I never hear much that is specific. There ARE many natural consequences to their behavior of which they seem entirely ignorant.
I would never expect to be able to read well, have a decent job etc. if I never bothered to stay in school or work hard while I was there. I’d never expect to be wealthy acquiring a criminal record at an early age. I’d never expect a decent position having ‘tats’, metal studs all over my face, speech that is barely literate, and wild hair all over and in 3 colors. I’d never expect to be unencumbered having 3 children by the time I was 21–all as an unwed mother. I’d never look after a solid relationship by sleeping around, causing disturbances in public, keying his car at the slightest offense, and engaging in every amount of chaos possible. I wouldn’t live on credit cards and beyond my means. I wouldn’t fail to acquire work skills in my 20′s and 30′s. I wouldn’t engage in under-the-table work that would not provide for my retirement etc.
You get the world you make. Africa is little different.
You got to love my hometown. We recently just had a 31 year old white man jumped, beaten, robbed, and stripped of his cloths, while a crowd of hoodlums cheered the attackers on. This was of course all captured on video and our police chief has already announced its not a hate crime. Never mind no one has even been investigated in connection to the crime (at this point, it was concerned people in the internet that have tracked down the identity of the attacker). We know its not a hate crime because it was a white man attacked by a group of blacks.
So yeah…tourist from VA visits our city, gets surrounded and viciously beaten, and the police are just trying to ignore it. Seriously, if the morons that had video tapped it hadn’t put this on the internet, this crimes would never have been reported.
Do not step foot in this city if you care about your safety.
I have a friend in Egypt who was thinking of moving to Harrisburg; I told him to forget it, it’s more than half black. I said Mechanicsville, 97% white. Keep in mind that in Aswan, Egypt, where there are a black majority, crime is not an issue and in the little town of Abu Simbel which must be 90% black, there are no problems with walking around at midnight with a 100 dollar bill taped to your forehead – I’ve been to both places. This is not a black thing, it’s a value system thing. Generally speaking, the American black community is a cult of cool, and it’s the death of them.
It is awfully hard to set an example of what a good father is, when your father and his father were absent as well. This meeting actually has a few bright spots in it.
First, there is some acknowledgement that the problem is more than just racial bias. There is a basis for that bias. People are actively living down to their worst stereotypes.
Second, there is a genuine lack of paternal responsibility in the black community and I’m gratified to see social groups beginning to recognize this fact and to do something about it. In fact, this problem is more than just a black problem, it is a social problem that is infesting our society on a scale that is utterly mind numbing. We should be taking notes because both success and failure of the efforts of these groups will be valuable in larger communities.
Third, while the Trayvon Martin case is sad, these people are trying to learn from it and to understand the social underpinnings that lead to it. This is a productive exercise, no matter whether you’re leaning to the right or the left.
However, at the end of the day, I am dismayed that despite well intentioned efforts, there are still too many waiting for some genius in government to lead the way with funding that will magically save their children.
We can piss away money on this problem until hell freezes over and it won’t fix that problem. What we’re talking about is teaching mothers and fathers how to parent their children. No government can do that for us. We have to learn from our community and help each other.
Interesting conversations. Almost to a person, each of these people feel like they ahve been discriminated against. But one has to wonder if it a learned response from the media (in all forms)and the culture the media tries to create.
It also sounds like this “group” is trying to blame someone else rather than look at themselves.
I heard little in theis article from the perspective of black on black violence. My understanding is that 94% of the murders of blacks is done by other blacks. I ma sure that was never brough up in what appreas to be an “appeasment” forum.
From this write up – this forum appears to be a bad joke.
Kind of Like Bell was Joke to be allowed a PHD through “heavy editing”
And like Obama dispite his obvious incompetence was allowed to be voted into the White House because the press in this country did not and will not call him n his obvious problems.
Wayne, not quite correct. Norton did say this ““There’s no excuse for profiling, but there’s no excuse for inviting it, either,” Norton added.
She also stressed that the “more difficult” issue of black-on-black violence must be confronted. “Most of it’s not cops shooting us,” the representative said. “There are lots of issues for us to work on in our community.””
She also mentioned the lack of parenting as one of the problems. Seems she does have at least a slight handle on the problem.
As to profiling, I don’t think it is all that bad but it should fit the circumstances. If it has been proven that young blacks shoplift more often then yes, watch them if they enter your store. If it’s a fact that most airline hijackings are done by Muslims then yes, quit terrorizing little old ladies and watch the Muslims. If gang members run drugs then watch for them. Profiling should fit the circumstance. One poster mentioned he’s seen security watching him even though he was white and well dressed. Nothing wrong with that either. Don’t get so caught up in profiling that you miss the real criminal.
the thing about profiling is race is just one factor of many and it is the accumulation of many “red flags,” not just ethnicity which leads to action via the profiling method
how one is dressed, how one moves, what car someone drives, how old someone is, gender, race, etc…
The Daily Mail UK just posted that the Florida DA is going to press charges and that Zimmerman will be arrested. Then they proceeded to convict him on their pages. To date they have slavishly posted pictures of that young man as a sweet 12 year old little boy. Mob rule has won.
Throwing more government money at the problem is not a good answer.
You don’t have to go far to find documentation for media malpractice;
It’s right here at PJ Media:
http://pjmedia.com/jchristianadams/2012/04/10/no-attention-for-daylight-highway-stabbing-in-alabama/
“As tensions in Sanford, Fla., threaten to boil over in the wake of the Trayvon Martin shooting, residents gathered in D.C.’s 7th Ward on Tuesday evening for a frank discussion about the problems faced by young men such as the 17-year-old shooting victim.”
Just exactly /who/ was the “shooting victim”?
I think the local grownups need to hold tight to their young men and women, and do whatever it takes to raise them well. This meeting was a start, and I hope it doesn’t end there.
See Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s book about the breakdown of the Negro family, due to welfare, I suspect.
As for the Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman case, I believe Zimmerman. He shot Martin in self-defense when Martin was banging his head against concrete.
My grandmother told me, “You lie down with dogs, your wake up with fleas”.
I have asked a number of black people, both male and female if they thought that this was an accurate statement. To a person they replied no. They volunteered that they thought they could be friends or were friends with criminals and that it would not/did not have an affect on themselves or their children or their lives.
I have also asked this question of teenagers, both white and black and they also thought that they could form relationships with criminal elements and that it would not have any affect on them.
Perhaps it is the influence of popular culture, but it appears that a significant portion of the population no longer possesses the ability to think clearly.
i feel this is more of a general misunderstanding of discrimination and replacing with complete indiscriminateness
sort of how the tsa will go out of their way not to discriminate against fully garbed muslims screaming allah ackbar at the security checkpoint and, instead, waste resources screening everyone indiscriminately
If they are friends with people they know to be criminals, instead of reporting those known criminals to the police, then how are they any different from police officers who refuse to rat on fellow officers’ corruption, racism or brutality?
And if it is “wrong” for white people to be afraid of young black strangers, why isn’t it equally wrong for black youth to fear cops? After all, they’re not ALL brutal racists!
And given the lyrics of much of rap music, don’t those rappers and their fans _want_ us to consider them dangerous and to fear them?
One detail missing from this article and the comments:
IT WAS RAINING.
And one more thing; Why is Treyvons younger photo being used here? Why isn’t the “gangsta photo” he liked of himself, from his FaceBook page, being used? It’s available on the internet.
It would be very easy to photoshop Zimmermans photo and make him look like a deranged ogre.
I am a retired (34 yrs) police officer. I have a beloved black son-in-law and three beloved mixed grandchildren. I want the police in their city to profile young black men who act in any way suspicious. I want young black men to know that the police are protecting them by being proactive police officers. This will most emphatically increase their chance of survival. The “black community” needs to own up to the fact thaqt the most dangerous thing to their children is YOUNG BLACK MEN. The second most dangerous thing is teaching their children that the police are the enemy and instillinjg in them the arrogant attitude that the police don’t have the right to stop and question them. If the black community continues to listen to rabble rousing leaders and white liberals and forces governments to institute laws against “profiling” the police will not be able to protect their community and their sons and daughters will continue t odie needlessly.
The coming summer race riots should be attributed to our leading race baiting demagogues; Obama, Holder, Sharpton…especially Sharpton, Jackson,Farrakhan and the trash known as the New Black Panthers. They are playing a very dangerous game. Apparently they believe left wing rhetoric, i.e. the rest of us are all guilt ridden and contrite re this countrys’ racial past. Big F….n mistake.
“The District’s congressional representative credited residents who have protested the Feb. 26 slaying of Martin for “producing results more quickly than I have ever seen in my life when an unarmed black man was shot.””
Except the same noise is made when an armed black man is shot — but only if the shooter is not black. Black shoots black — well, then “snitches get stitches”. Anyone else shoots a black, even in their own defense? LYNCH MOB TIME!!!!
Stop the war on drugs would be a start. Many deaths within the community are because of the drug trade. Controlling their turf is number 1. Then the fathers need to play a huge part in their son’s life. Then we will finally start seeing a positive change in the city.
“Your protests have not sought to convict before trial,”
But the protesters insist on a trial. A thorough coroner’s inquest will not suffice as a start because it might also be the end.
The black homicide rate in Washington DC is damn near 40 per 100,000.
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/10955/black-homicide-rate-drops-but-remains-high/
The reason people look at black people funny in DC (and in a few other select places around the country) is because they are dangerous. And the ones that aren’t dangerous seldom fail to defend the ones that are, or explain their crimes away somehow. It’s a toxic blend of ethnocentrism and physical cowardice. And the rest of the country is getting deeply sick of it.
With all that said, I’ve worked the length of California as a contractor, including some iffy parts of LA, and *never* encountered inner-city gangsta thug black trash. I thought it was a racist stereotype… until I worked a three-month contract in Oakland. Road rage. Racist epithets. Catcalls from teenagers that turned instantly hostile if you asked them what they wanted. Strangers vaulting into the back of your pickup and demanding you take dem to de train station. NOW.
The contract I worked immediately after was in Sacramento. I recall very clearly getting thirsty around midnight on a Saturday and going to the local liquor store for some beers, and bumped into Gigantic Black Guy In Parka on the way in… who said ‘Whup, scuze me,’ and held the door open for me. In Oakland he’d have pulled a knife.
I genuinely feel this is not a racial issue. It is a highly localized cultural issue wearing racial clothes. But the scared-vain Uncle Toms for the black Klu Klux Klan sure as hell do not help any.
Take all of that however you will.
Too often the issue is not prejudice but percieved prejudice that then gets built into more than what it truly is. As an example, when at a restaurant recently, I was recieving horrible, and slow service. My thoughts were “not enough staff” and “maybe a new staff person”. The lady who sat down after me, told her daughter that they were being ignored because of their color. On my way out I let the woman know that all colors were recieving poor service today.
Several years ago, a friend and I left the same place of work. He decided to try to stay in a shrinking industry and I took significant risks to start in a new field. He is still stuck and says he can’t move up because of his color. Fortunately, I did have that built in excuse and when things didn’t go well, I could only look at myself to determine what I needed to improve on. Blaming every unfortunate thing on race cripples the person, and eliminates the need for them to address the real issues – Themselves.
Good for you on your many new, successful and enlightening experiences.
Career, spiritual and human-growth speaking.
Zimmerman is screwed.
The federales will threaten him with a life sentence in order to get him to plea for 7-10 years.
Go see the movie “Breaker Morant” with Mel Gibson. Or read the book “Scapegoats of the Empire”. The Feds will attempt to buy racial peace at Zimmerman’s expense.
Judge’s love putting the meat to “white” defendents. Generally they are librals who get tired of sentencing black defendents.
Quite the blamefest. Though in all essence the event was more so, ‘Blame Whitey’ event rather than a, ‘Look Within’ rodeo.
I’d call the event disgusting though it being in the country’s empathy-capital that is D.C. and the grand poobah being Eleanor Horton.. did ANYONE anticipate a ‘meeting of lucid, self-reflective minds’?
To open this gathering, Norton brought up ‘racial profiling’, mentioned it throughout and closed with her, ‘racial profiling Bill’. What a ‘unifier’.
I’m *shocked* considering her, ‘Glenn Beck’s march will change nothing’ sound bite few years back. What a mensch!
This IS/WAS a starting point, the opening stage for Norton’s Bill to get some traction/ bullying and pass the buck SOME MORE for the further crumbling of the Black family dynamic.
When Norton says to this group, ‘..an unarmed Black man was shot..’ dribble – EVERYONE, White, Black, Purple etc., KNOWS where this witch hunt, err, ‘meeting’ is headed.
Right on cue, D.C.’s, ‘co-youth Mayor’ discusses his ever-so important, ‘society needing’ poli-sci aspirations at Berserkley, Stanford and ‘racial profiling private school teachers’. A shame the supposed racist teacher(s) weren’t in attendance..
The motto of the meeting should have been, ‘Give me empathy, evermore remittances or give me death’.
As for the ‘Youth Programs’ – there are SO MANY of these youth programs in D.C. it’s unreal. Not to mention nearly ALL of D.C.’s poorer sports programs from their Jr. High, H.S. – the parent(s) of these youths pay NOTHING for the sports equipment, gear and clothing. I bet my folks WISHED for such a golden goose for my sports participation.
As for the use of, ‘African-American’ thrown around in this piece, the only similarity between D.C. and Africa is the overwhelming amount of federal reliance/ sloth (i.e. private sector taxpayer).
Whereas taxpayers, donations is the day-to-day theft, err ‘function’ of many in D.C.
UNICEF, Peace Corps and a triad of missionaries, Docs Without Borders etc., in Africa.
Lastly this shindig didn’t mention the alarmingly high HIV rate in D.C. The highest per capita in the nation. I guess that’s ‘Profiling’ too, right?
Let’s see, what are the lessons a rational person would draw from all this so far? Don’t be a neighborhood watch dude! Never volunteer. However, if you do decide to be a neighborhood watch dude, don’t be a “white Hispanic.” Don’t pack a gun and go to all the trouble to get training and licensed to use it: it’s apparently better to be dead right as a victim than alive wrong as the survivor. Living out the second amendment will just get you into trouble. Never be a neighborhood watch dude in a mixed ethnic neighborhood: there’s a high probability you’ll be accused of ethnic profiling. If you are white and stupid enough to randomly shoot a prowler after calling the police to report the prowling, make sure the prowler is not black before you shoot. If you do shoot an ethnically different person in self defense, apparently the new social norm means people who racially profile are not entitled to practice self defense. Apparently racists are not innocent by definition and deserve whatever happens to them. Apparently “White Hispanics” are presumed to be racists without knowing it, and that goes without saying for just plain vanilla types. Maybe if the Hispanic community or La Raza started putting out bounties on ATF and DOJ lawyers, dead or alive, the Department of Justice would have made some arrests for the Fast and Furious gun smugglings and the two hundred or so homicides?
How many generations are recycling “stupid”? Maybe there’s a reason? Doing the same thing over and over again hoping to get different results, as the man said, is a definition of insanity. It could also just be a definition of low intelligence.
Yeah, Rep. Norton — a new federal spending law that creates a “grant” that gives borrowed money to some faceless bureaucrat somewhere (that further bankrupts us) will definitely stop racial profiling.
Brilliant.
What’s with Democrats always spending public money on pet projects that go nowhere? Something tells me the money somehow makes it into the pockets of friends back home….
And after spending the money, young fatherless black men will continue to kill thousands of other young black men every year.
I thought Obama was going to fix this.
Don’t forget, Ms. Norton is caught ON A VOICEMAIL trying to shake down a lobbyist for campaign cash.. and is STILL at her position?
She’s got the trifecta whereas she’ll NEVER be held accountable for ANYTHING she does: Democrat, Black and female.
Meanwhile Holder and the DoJ are involving themselves in a local matter and now knee-deep in the Zimmerman/ Martin case.
Whereas Holder discusses, Trayvon Martin’s civil rights’.
Oddly, ‘Zimmerman’s civil rights’ was never brought up, broached.
Life’s tough for today’s, ‘White Hispanics’.
DoJ = devolving in the name of fictional ‘fairness’.
Really…
Ms. Johnson what was the purpose of this recitation of crap which is nothing more than lame, blame whitey clatrap from people whose existence is controlled by the very people they hate-whites?
Where are your original thoughts? This junk belongs over at MM or HuffnBlow.
Bingo.
I’d thought, written the same thing.
No, IMO this op-ed belongs in the AP or Yahoo! News search.
She’d thrown in the, ‘African-American’ identifiers a great deal.. more so than most Illiberal articles.
This democrats are using this case to antagonize white people to speak honestly regarding black crime.
Blacks will them become defensive and highly motivated to vote for Obama.
I have to take issue with ANOTHER aspect of Ms. Johnson’s op-ed.
DeOnte Rawlings, the D.C. boy mentioned who’d been shot, killed by off-duty police officers. DeOnte Rawlings was friends with a Clifton Coleman.
Whereas Coleman’s .45 caliber casings MATCHING those fired AT the police officers BEFORE the officers withdrew their weapons and fired back.
Coleman also told authorities Rawlings fired at the police officers. Though with no GSR Coleman’s comment is more than likely, ‘CYA’ speak.
Coleman also went to jail for 6 months only for ‘accidentally’ shooting his girlfriend in the face.
Friends like that..
NBC News President Steve Capus will reportedly keep his job, which apparently does not include actually presiding over the employees at NBC News or the material they disseminate.
Our most spiritual leaders, the reverends Sharpton, Jackson, Wright, and Farrakhan; our wisest political leaders, Barak Obama, who proclaimed the (**_*****_*****) as akin to his own son, Eric (“my people”) Holder, and Michelle (“these honkeys, these crackers, these pigs, these pink people”) Williams; and our paper of record with its fine racial distinctions (“white Hispanic”) and NBC News have spoken on the moral worth of George Zimmerman. Welcome to the great colorblind society of Johnson and Humphrey, Newton and Carmichael, Bernstein and Mailer, Lowry and Ayers: their goals have been achieved.
FREE GEORGE ZIMMERMAN
Special prosecutor Angela Corey charging George Zimmerman with second degree murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin is one degree less ridiculous then seeking first degree murder charges-which Corey’s predecessor Norm Wolfinger did when after letting Zimmerman go free on evidence of self-defense reversed himself three weeks later and called on the grand jury to investigate him for murder in the first. Corey like Wolfinger went for murder charges not to serve justice (which it doesn’t) but to quell the insane leftwing racial uproar and violent Zimmerman hate rhetoric surrounding the case and threatening violence. Mob justice prevailed yesterday but only temporarily. Everyone knows that if Trayvon Martin, the little gangsta wannabe thug, was anything but black Zimmerman would still be a free man today. The false issue of racial justice put the innocent Zimmerman in jail; and justice will only be served when he is free again for defending himself from death or great bodily harm.
Since Zimmerman probably won’t be convicted, all our media and Florida officials have succeeded in doing is guaranteeing a riot by black folks, like white folks did because O.J. Simpson looked at a white women and when the tourist in Baltimore was practically raped by a black mob; date and time of the Zimmerman riot to be announced although it could be argued a slow-motion, permanent version is already in place and has been for a few decades.
“Father, be fathers,” one said. “Teach our young men how to present themselves in the community.” What fathers? Approximately eighty percent of black kids in D.C. are born outside of marriage and grow up with no father in their lives.
Right.
It doesn’t mean “be a responsible parent”. It means “procreate”, in their code.
The “Big Top of justice” is being assembled in Seminole County Florida. Cirque du Soleil or Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey couldn’t put together a better show.
Who thinks Zimmerman will NOT serve time through some quirk of judicial determination?
This show will have the most “animated legal interpretations” and loosely applied criminal code simply for the purpose of keeping the black community from looting and burning their own neighborhoods.
Whitey has been calling for justice from the highest “Justice Department” in the land. And where is it?
Blacks get upset and the media piles on, and this “Justice Department” takes action.
Are we a great country, or what?
Trayvon’s parents – and I am using the term in the biological sense only – allowed their son to grow up to be a ghetto thug. Now that he’s dead, these media whores are using him as a cash cow. Utterly despicable.
Please let’s not pass any racial profiling bills! For Heaven’ sake use that money to improve education for these young people. I spent 30 years teaching teenagers. Action implemented to prevent race discrimination have harmed more than helped. It gave too many black youth a ready, built-in excuse for irresponsible behavior. Whether they’re black, white or purple, kids will take advantage of any means that give them an easy way out. And we have hordes of race baiting ambulance chasing lawyers making money off racial issues. Please don’t give even more opportunity to fill their coffers.
Good for you, Ruth.
Nice to see incisive comments from vets that have been in the trenches.
The reason why police departments across the nation use the time-honored ‘arrest the usual suspects’ – aka ‘profiling’ – method? Because it works. Unlike the TSA, when there is a robbery wherein the hoodlums run away and are described by witnesses are young white males, the local police won’t be stopping and questioning 85-year-old black women in wheelchairs and frisking them for the stolen merchandise. Eight out of eight of the burglaries in the community where Zimmerman lived were committed by ..? Young black males. When? After dark.
The hoodie is the symbol of the black lynch mob, just as the white hood was the symbol of the white lynch mob. Both are emblems of the enemies of our Constitutional rights.