Different Day, Same Shit.

It's been a while since yours truly mentioned the case of Jordan Davis on DDSS. After reading Tom Degan's thoughts on Davis and his killer, Michael Dunn, I figured it was time to share my own thoughts on the case.

1) People say Michael Dunn was "threatened" by Davis and his friends and "feared for his life." I find it hard for any adult to be threatened by the empty bluster of teens being told to turn down that "rap crap" by some white guy. The excuse of him thinking there was a weapon in the car was just that - an excuse.

2) Had Jordan Davis and his companions been the stereotypical gangbangers that most God-fearing Americans quake in fear of, chances are Dunn would had kept walking and minded his own business. Even the most rabid bigots know that approaching people who can do genuine harm to you and yours is an unnecessary risk. In comparison, approaching a bunch of teenagers minding their own business is nowhere near as risky, in most cases.

3) Had Jordan Davis and his companions been ordinary white suburban kids playing Slayer at max volume, chances are Dunn wouldn't had been inclined to be "threatened" by them or shoot them "in fear of his life." He'd probably yell at them to turn their crap down, shook his head in anguish and went about his way.

4) The lack of a murder conviction was a tragedy in its own right. If anything, it sent yet another clear message to the black community when it comes to themselves and their young: "it's open season."

5) The common denominator between this and other similar cases throughout the U.S. and throughout history? An entitled white American male felt it was well within his right to exercise his personal authority over a person of color, usually one younger, weaker and/or less-advantaged than himself. Upon not receiving the immediate, proper deference as felt deserved of his kind, said white American male then felt entitled to reaffirm said person of color's proper place at the feet of white American mankind - even if that meant putting that person of color several feet in the ground.

In that regard, Jordan Davis lucked out in being cut down with bullets. Decades ago, he and his friends would have been forcibly transformed into "strange fruit."

6) I have no faith in Angela Corey's abilities to bring a first-degree murder retrial to fruition, let alone one that results in a conviction against Dunn. The only comfort is the possibility of Dunn serving all three attempted second-degree murder sentences (20 years minimum) consecutively, resulting in a total 60 years to serve. If anything, I expect all three sentences to be issued concurrently, putting Dunn in his late sixties when he's eventually released, provided time isn't shaved off his sentence for "good behavior."

7) Admittedly, I've only heard bits and pieces of the interview of Dunn's neighbor. What little I've heard has been enlightening as far as Dunn's personal character is concerned. If you didn't think much of Dunn as a human being, this interview practically confirms it.

8) What happens to Michael Dunn is no longer important to me. I'm more concerned about the environment that allows the likes of Dunn to, for all intents and purposes, to get away with murdering young, nonthreatening black boys and men. If the environment does not change or if black Americans don't make greater strides to protect their young from this historical type of predation, more cases like these will happen.

9) Many people blame "black criminality" while wielding the latest FBI crime statistics like a medieval mace. Not only are said stats often interpreted to highlight crime among black Americans as some sort of devastating epidemic that warrants the black community's undivided attention, they're also trotted out to distract from the historic problem of disaffected whites exercising their rights to upbraid and put blacks back in line as they see fit. Predictably, someone somewhere will see all of this and think yours truly is "excusing the black crime epidemic" or "making excuses for blacks."

Yours truly wishes he had the time and funding to construct a massive third digit upon which these folks could collectively mount themselves on and rotate, preferably at as high a speed as possible.

10) Creshuna Miles is wrong. She apparently fell for the "justice" bit hook, line and sinker, allowing another injustice to take place.

If you haven't already figured it out, the fine chap in the above picture is Walton Henry Butler of Port St. Joe, Florida. He didn't do much, just shot himself a nigger, is all:

"The below signed affiant states that through his investigation and interview with the suspect, Walton Henry Butler, Butler did admit shooting Everett Gant in the head with a .22 cal. Rifle which caused series [sic] bodily injury. During an interview with Walter Butler he said he shot a “nigger.”

"There had been an incident earlier in the day when Pamela Rogers came to Butler’s apartment with a child and the defendant called the child a nigger and Ms. Rogers became upset and left the residence. Through the investigation it was learned that the defendant had made several racial remarks to the black children in the apartment complex. The victim Everett Gant went to the defendant’s residence to talk with him about the comments when he was shot. The victim Everett Gant was shot in the face causing great bodily harm he was transported to Bay Medical Center where he was listed in stable condition.

"After Walt Butler shot Everett Gant he stated he shut the sliding glass door with Everett Gant lying outside the door, called 911 then finished cooking supper, sat at the kitchen table and began eating.

"When Sheriff Nugent arrived on scene he made contact with Butler by phone, Butler told him to come in he was eating dinner and had put up the gun. Butler was sitting at the table and acted as if it was an inconvenience when he was asked to stand up and handcuffs were put on. He said he did not understand the problem. He had only shot a nigger.

"On September 17, 2012 the victim Everett Gant died from complication from injuries obtained in the above incident."

Guys like Butler don't really need Stand Your Ground laws to feel privileged enough to shoot some pesky people of color. SYG just makes it easier for these guys to justify what they've done and escape justice later on. At least Butler was immediately charged, but I bet he's wishing he could get Zimmerman's jury right about now.

The above is what happens when you dedicate a song to Trayvon Martin and someone who doesn't like it decides to do something about it. Given his age and place of birth, I'm sure Lester Chambers has seen his fair share of stupidity in his life. I wonder if he ever suspected it would meet up with him up close and personal on this day:

Chambers, 73, was performing at the Hayward Russell City Blues Festival in Hayward, California, when a 43-year-old woman, identified by police as Dinalynn Andrews Potter, jumped onstage and knocked Chambers down. Chambers' wife, Lola, told the Mercury News that the singer had just dedicated Curtis Mayfield and the Impressions' "People Get Ready" to Martin, saying that if Mayfield were alive today, he'd change the lyrics from "there's a train a comin'" to "there's a change a comin'."

Andrews Potter was wrestled to the ground and subdued by stage hands, and Chambers was wheeled away to an ambulance. As the video shows, he was still in good spirits, even flashing a peace sign. Chambers was treated at the hospital and released. A photo posted to Facebook by his son, Dylan, shows Chambers' injuries: a "bruised rib muscle and nerve damage and he is sore all over," wrote Dylan.

Andrews Potter, meanwhile, was arrested on suspicion of battery, cited and released. According to Billboard, Chambers' family is pushing authorities to file hate crime charges.

Fuse spoke with Chambers following the incident. "I was asking for peace," he explains. "She got in my face and called me all kinds of MFs, saying that I started all this."

After the attack Chambers was "totally out of it," he says. "I've never been so shocked and traumatized."

Dinalynn Andrews Potter had absolutely no right to assault Mr. Chambers, but nevertheless felt it was within her privilege to. Of course, if Mr. Chambers had been 40 years younger and built like a stack of bricks, she would have been too cowed to even contemplate an attack. If she had a husband or boyfriend with her, she would have sent him up there in her stead. If Mr. Chambers was white just like herself, would she had bothered to approach the stage at all?

When people claim that there was no racial component worth mentioning in the George Zimmerman case, when people want to pretend to be colorblind and skip over the racially-motivated rationale that caused Zimmerman to exit his vehicle and roust a young man minding his own business, when those same people claim that Trayvon was responsible for his own death, give Zimmerman a pass and plenty of sympathy for killing somone and then become furious when you call them out on their pretend colorblindness, tone-deafness and self-serving attitudes...I point to the above video and other incidents like it.

When people are scared shitless over the black community "starting a riot" over the injustice that unfolded in that Sanford, Florida courtroom, yet happily gloss over and dismiss racially-motivated actions like the above, it reveals the staggering amount of hypocrisy involved. Of course, when the black community is rightfully outraged, mainstream America responds with cries over "black on black" crime and how the community can't seem to get a handle on it, as though it is supposed to make the community fall silent and contemplate its own so-called hypocrisy.

This is why we're pissed. This is why we get upset whenever there are attempts to have our voices silenced.

There are calls to see Potter charged with a hate crime. I hope the authorities do just that. These things simply cannot stand without some serious repercussions being formed in response.

Again, this woman felt it was within her privilege to clamber on stage and assault a 73-year-old man because he, in her own words, "started this." She saw someone who she figured couldn't fight back. Oddly enough, George Zimmerman saw the same in Trayvon Martin.

SPECIAL EDIT:

Video of the incident can be found via this direct link. This is to circumvent NDN Media Player's autoplay feature and keep people from getting written up at work. :D

This happened on her birthday.

I'll just say that if the above had happened to anyone in my family...strike that. The last thing I'd want to do is to leave behind a paper trail for investigators. Let's just say that I know people and I know how to do...things. Yeah, let's just leave it at that.

The LAPD stated it would start its investigation on Jan 21, when schools were back in session. I thought schools were closed on MLK, Jr. Day. At any rate, we can't afford to wait for scum to be brought to justice, no matter the circumstance.

EDIT:

Cops arrest 33yo mom accused of helping 12yo daughter beat up schoolmate. #LAPD lt. says video of incident is "pretty disturbing." @knx1070
— Claudia Peschiutta (@ReporterClaudia) January 23, 2013

UPDATE:

LONG BEACH, Calif. (KTLA) — A San Pedro woman has been charged with beating up a 12-year-old girl who was a rival of her daughter in an alley fight that first aired exclusively on KTLA.

Amber Lee Gutierrez, 33, was arrested Tuesday for her alleged involvement in a prearranged fight in a West Gaffey Street alley after school on January 14.

Gutierrez was charged on Tuesday with assault by means likely to produce great bodily injury. She is being held on $100,000 bond.

If convicted as charged, Gutierrez faces a possible maximum state prison term of seven years.

According to police, the 12-year-old and Gutierrez’s daughter had agreed to fight in the alley, but mothers and adults showed up as well and got involved.

The girl suffered a broken arm. Her mother, who spoke anonymously to KTLA, said she’s disappointed Gutierrez hasn’t been charged with a hate crime.

Racial slurs are heard repeatedly on the video, which was recorded on a cellphone by an onlooker.

Prosecutors have not decided whether to charge Gutierrez’s sister, who is also seen in the video throwing punches.

Both the aunt and the child are said to be in hiding. Not that I have any sympathy for either one or the mother, for that matter. If and when she's convicted, she might have to spend most of those seven years in protective custody.

It was a hot Sunday morning last July when, right on schedule at 6:30 a.m., 61-year-old Johnny Lee Butts left his rural Mississippi home on his morning ritual, a 4-mile walk.

His neighbor, Otis Brooks, says Butts, a Sunday school teacher, waved as he passed his front door wearing a blue T-shirt.

Brooks remembers that his neighbor's skin tone was easily visible that morning. "You could tell he was black; you could see his arms." The point would become important later.

At nearly 7 a.m., about an hour after sunrise, three white teenagers were barreling down Panola County Mississippi Highway 310 in a white Monte Carlo. Two of the three teens later admitted they had been heavily drinking vodka and smoking marijuana all night. They were headed right toward Butts.

The two teen passengers said they and the driver, 18-year-old Matthew Whitten "Whit" Darby, spotted a man walking on the shoulder on the opposite side of the road.

In statements to police and also in statements given to a grand jury, all obtained exclusively by CNN, the two teenagers, a then-15-year-old and 18-year-old Tony Hopper Jr., described what happened next.

"We see a walker on the side of the road. The complete left side of the road while we are on the complete right side of the road," the unidentified teen told a police lieutenant. "And I pointed out to say, 'watch out there is a walker there...'"

The unnamed teen continued his story: "Whit slightly turns the steering wheel and I saw him. 'Watch out, don't do nothing stupid' and then he just keep turning the steering wheel and eventually before we knew it he ran him straight over."
"He didn't slow down," Hopper said in a statement to a deputy sheriff.
The deputy asked: "He never hit his brakes?" Hopper replied: "No sir."
"Do you think he hit him on purpose?" asked the deputy.
"Yes, sir, I do," said Hopper.

Butts was hit from behind by the Monte Carlo, which was traveling somewhere between 55 and 70 mph, according to the documents. The car violently tossed him into the air, slamming him into the windshield, and his head struck the rear windshield. Butts' body hit the car with such force that the windshield collapsed into the car, bending the steering wheel back sharply. His leg was nearly severed.

Butts' body was found lying in the road, 172 feet from where the car hit him, the documents show.

Darby stopped his badly damaged car. His two passengers told police they got out and looked at Butts' pummeled body. Then they got back in the car and Darby sped away. Darby drove them to a house where they'd been partying, according to the documents, and the two teen passengers tried to sleep. Darby left the house alone and drove on to his grandmother's home.

Much later that day, the two teen passengers turned themselves in to police. Darby was arrested, telling police exactly what the two other teens said he would say, that he hit a deer. Darby denied he was drinking or smoking marijuana.

Right about now, the average "race realist" would be in a fury over the "they hit him because he was black" angle. Then again, this is Mississippi, a land where deep pools of racial antagonism lurk underneath a thin veneer of civility and Southern hospitality. It's a place where some people still think it's well within their rights to fuck with black Americans minding their own business just because they can.

Local law enforcement aren't willing to call this a hate crime, nevermind how there's plenty of evidence that points in that direction:

Champion told CNN that there is "no evidence at all" that Darby killed Butts out of hate, or as a hate crime. One reason a hate crime has been ruled out, Champion said, is that the teens in the car that morning could not see whether Johnny Butts was black or white.

But that is not true, according to the statements given by one of the teens in the car. In grand jury testimony obtained exclusively by CNN, Tony Hopper Jr., who was riding in the back seat, testified that he could see Johnny Butts was black before the teens hit him.

"Could you tell whether he was a black man or a white man before ya'll hit him?" Hopper was asked by the grand jury.

"Yes," Hopper said. "I could tell that he was black."

Hopper said the same thing on the day after the killing, when a sheriff's deputy asked him: "Did y'all know if he was black or white?"

Hopper answered: "I could tell he was a black man."

The 15-year-old passenger in the car, riding in the front seat, says in his statement he couldn't tell whether Butts was black or white. CNN's policy is not to identify juveniles in criminal cases.

The FBI is currently looking into the case. In the meantime, I'll leave you all with this wonderful gem from Panola County Sheriff Dennis L. Darby (no relation):

Sheriff Darby told CNN on the phone they had looked into the incident with the boys on the road and found nothing. "There's nothing to this report," he said, "it's all hearsay," and "he-said she-said." Sheriff Darby told CNN he would not give a copy of the report to the network. Then the sheriff warned CNN not to "stir up trouble in my county." He warned if the network pursued the story, "I'll be coming after you."

So much for Southern hospitality. You know, this place could do with a little "outside agitation." And Sheriff Darby could do with a nice, shiny federal boot wedged up his hindmost parts.