Different Day, Same Shit.

If Tamir Rice was a blonde-haired, hazel-eyed 12-year-old Caucasian child, he would likely still be alive today. His parents would have been called and he would have been admonished about playing with a BB gun in the middle of a city park. There would be no guns drawn and the responding police officers would have felt a bit annoyed about being called out over some kid playing in the park with a toy gun.

But Tamir Rice had the misfortune of being a black-haired, brown-eyed 12-year-old black child in a land where being black is considered a credible threat and where such threats are commonly terminated by law enforcement with extreme prejudice, even if you're just a child.

But it's not like most white Americans see black children as actual children:

In one experiment, a group of 60 police officers from a large urban police force were asked to assess the age of white, black and Latino children based on photographs. The officers were randomly assigned to be told that the children in the photographs were accused of either a misdemeanor or felony charge. The officers overestimate the age of black felony-suspected children by close to five years, but they actually underestimated the age of white felony-suspected children by nearly a year.

Particularly relevant to the Tamir Rice case: "Black 13-year-olds were miscategorized as adults by police officers (average age error 4.59 years)."

Similar experiments involving 169 mostly white students found that "participants began to think of black children as significantly less innocent than other children at every age group, beginning at the age of 10." These experiments also showed that respondents were more likely to see the black children as "culpable" of a hypothetical felony compared with white and Latino children.

This research comports with other research done in the mid-2000s, which confronted police officers and civilians with photos of black and white armed and unarmed people, and asked them to press a "shoot" or "don't shoot" button for each image. Cops and civilians were more likely to press "shoot" for black images overall, but they were slower to press "don't shoot" for unarmed black images, and quicker to press "shoot" when an image showed an armed black man.

The APA researchers sum up their findings this way: "Our findings suggest that, although most children are allowed to be innocent until adulthood, black children may be perceived as innocent only until deemed suspicious." The Tamir Rice case illustrates that for some black children, those biases can play out with deadly consequences in just a fraction of a second.

Threats come in all shapes and sizes. Any "good guy with a gun" can tell you that. And yet:

A North Carolina woman was arrested on Christmas Eve after she was spotted with a BB gun in front of the police department and pointed it at officers and told them to shoot her.

Police received a 911 call about a woman in front of the police department with a gun around 7:30 p.m. Thursday. They found Elaine Rothenberg, 66, standing in front of a doorway at the police department with a gun raised and in a shooting stance.

Police said Rothenberg, who was from North Carolina but had been staying on Cliffside Drive in the city, yelled about hating cops and told officers “what are you doing, shoot me!” and “what are you, scared?” She raised the gun at officers and yelled “boom, boom, boom.”

After a brief standoff Rothenberg told officers the gun was fake and threw it to the ground, police said. She was taken into custody and police determined she had been holding a BB gun.

Rothenberg was charged with first-degree threatening, second-degree breach of peace, seven counts of reckless endangerment and interfering with police.

There was no split-second threat assessment needed. After all, she wasn't a 12-year-old black kid.

Our country's national crime is lynching. It is not the creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob.

- Ida. B Wells

Throughout our nation's history, bigotry against black Americans, the dreaded Other, has always been enforced through a number of means. Whenever institutional, state-sanctioned methods of bigotry and discrimination failed to achieve the desired results, it was left to the white mobs to enforce bigotry through violence. Time and time again, seemingly decent, God-fearing American men and women would transform themselves into a hateful, virulent force bent on protecting the ideals of white supremacy by violently and publicly destroying a few black bodies, regardless of innocence or guilt and with the quiet sanction of law enforcement seemingly rendered impotent in the face of a spontaneous and unruly force.

Mob-led lynchings were the preferred means of educating the black populace on where they lay on the societal totem pole through terror and violence. After all, there's nothing scarier than seeing dozens of angry white faces drag off a single black soul in the middle of the night in preparation for a public, hands-on exhibit on the dangers of being an affront to whitekind, for whatever reason.

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These days, the hands-on lynching of old has fallen along the wayside in favor of more high-tech means. Nevertheless, there are those out there who still believe that the old ways are still best.



Nathan Ener's rant against the New Black Panther Party, the Black Lives Matter movement and those he sees as "black thugs" comes in the aftermath of the unfortunate death of Texas sheriff's Deputy Darren Goforth and his killer, Shannon Miles, being found incompetent to stand trial for his murder. At this point, a white mob would have gladly stepped in to deliver the sort of "justice" they thought was denied to them and the rest of whitekind, but you'd have to get them fired up about it first. And that's where the above rant comes into play.

Stirring up deep-set indignation and fear over the dreaded Other running roughshod over God-fearing white men, women and children has always been part of the recipe for inciting white mob violence. The death of a white person (or at least rumors of white deaths) serves as its explosive catalyst. Had this event happened in 1915 instead of 2015, it's very likely that Shannon Miles' corpse, shredded from head-to-toe, would be hanging from some forlorn oak somewhere as a shining symbol of mob-delivered justice - and as a warning to any black American who'd even harbor thoughts about harming the hair on a white person's head.

It's not beyond the pale to wonder if, given the right circumstances, someone like Nathan Ener would gladly lead the way.

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Yours truly would have written off Ener as your typical bigot, something of which East Texas has in spades, if it weren't for a rather disturbing link to another case where a young black man by the name of Alfred Wright was found murdered. According to authorities, Wright died of a drug overdose shortly after a deal involving 28-year-old Shane Hadnot. But it was the manner in which he was found dead that brought a great deal of suspicion:

Wright's body was disfigured when he was found Nov. 25, 2013, which led his family to suspect foul play.

His sister Annilia Wright-Mosley said her brother's tongue was cut out, eyes gouged out, throat slit and ear cut off. He was also missing teeth and fingernails, which are signs of violence and torture, she said.

Wright's family believes Alfred was tortured and brutally murdered and has called Hadnot a "scapegoat" in the case.

The authorities wrote off those allegations by citing how the damages were likely caused by scavenging animals.

So what's Nathan Ener's link to all of this? Here's Ener squaring off with black rights activist and New Black Panther Party leader Quanell X.

“I know why you’re upset. You’re upset because of Ashley,” Quanell X taunted Ener as they met in the street. “’Cause your daughter likes black coffee, no sugar no cream. That’s why you’re upset. It’s eating you up, ain’t it? That she likes a black man?”

Ener called to a white man on the sidewalk.
“Ben, does any of my people—any of my family like black folks?”

“Not that I know of.”

Quanell X goaded Ener: “Ashley does! Ashley does! Now let me tell you something, peckerwood. I will whup your ass. I’m that one.” He peeled off his suit jacket, stepped up inches from Ener’s face, and the two jawed to the crowd’s amusement. A line of uniformed troopers filed out of the county building and led Ener away.

It's likely that not only was Nathan Ener's own daughter might have been romantically involved with Wright, but also that her father told her he knew what really happened to him:




The plot thickens.

Wright may have also been romantically involved with Cindy Maddox, daughter of Sheriff Tom Maddox. The same guy who complained bitterly that he was missing out on a good day's hunt by searching for Wright.

Now you'd have to wonder if this was what Alfred Wright was really murdered for. In many unspoken parts of the nation, consorting with white women is the highest unspeakable offense for a black man to commit. In some cases, it could lead directly to his death.

You also have to wonder if Nathan Ener had anything to do with Wright's death. Town gossip being what it is, it's likely that some tightly-held secrets are bound to come spilling out at some point.

A mob is a great way for an evil to be committed without any of that pesky responsibility or guilt assigned to you. But it doesn't take a mob to commit evil. Sometimes, it only takes one or two individuals to get the job done.

Recently, Abagond wrote about how the mainstream American media handles riots involving black Americans and riots involving whites. Anyone who's keeping score can see how there's a glaring double standard in the way those events are covered.

Take a close look at the 1965 Watts riots, the 1967 Detroit riots, the 1992 L.A. riots and the recent Baltimore riots and you'll find a couple of common threads:

1. These riots and many others like them have been about black America's ongoing frustration over genuine injustices directed towards the black community and ignored by white society - discrimination and police brutality being the two biggest injustices.
2. Every time these riots happen, mainstream American media frames them as yet another demonstration of black America's innate criminality and lust for violence - a narrative that's played well among legions of upstanding white Americans ever since the Stono Rebellion and perhaps even before.

Now take a look at the above photo, a snapshot of the riots that occurred shortly after the end of the 2013 U.S. Open of Surfing in Huntington Beach, CA. According to the L.A. Times, this one broke out after a fight led scores of young, largely white and quite possibly intoxicated revelers to indulge in a bit of the old ultraviolence. Why? There's no injustice here, except that maybe they'll have to go home at some point.

Notice how the media didn't dismiss this as just another display of primal Caucasian rage, nor was it tamped down with the same sort of heavy-handed show of force exemplified by Baltimore and Ferguson.

That's the thing. Riots led by largely white participants over largely innocuous things (your favorite sports team lost, your favorite sports team won, your favorite event just ended, you're drunk, others are drunk so let's tear shit up) are never treated with the racial disdain that the highly uncommon riots that occur in black communities receive.

There's no condemnation of white Americans as a whole, nor are there any calls for the Caucasian community to restrain itself and seek non-violent means of expressing itself. They're not denigrated as "thugs," accused of being "out of control" or used as fodder for unreconstructed fantasies of putting them back in their rightful place. Even the language becomes different - these are "disturbances," not "riots."  They're not "thugs," but "young partygoers" and "revelers" who just happen to be "over-exuberant."

No one thumbs through Wikipedia to find the perfect MLK quote to tut-tut black Americans with for having the temerity to burn buildings (in their own neighborhoods, mind you), throw rocks and generally act out of anger and frustration. Even the good Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. understood perfectly what happens when the concerns of a frustrated people are constantly put on ice.

Now I wanted to say something about the fact that we have lived over these last two or three summers with agony and we have seen our cities going up in flames. And I would be the first to say that I am still committed to militant, powerful, massive, non­-violence as the most potent weapon in grappling with the problem from a direct action point of view.

I'm absolutely convinced that a riot merely intensifies the fears of the white community while relieving the guilt. And I feel that we must always work with an effective, powerful weapon and method that brings about tangible results. But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society.

These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? It has failed to hear that the plight of the negro poor has worsened over the last twelve or fifteen years. It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity.

It's no secret that mainstream America tends to be hard of hearing when it comes to the fears, concerns and strife black Americans have faced in this country, at least when said plight is couched in non-violent terms. It's only when those terms suddenly turn violent that mainstream America starts paying attention, only to learn the wrong lessons from what they've seen and heard and quietly hope that "those people" can leave them alone and go back to suffering in silence.

Yours truly has learned something these past few months watching and reading up on current events, especially those affecting black Americans:

1. The value of a black life in the United States remains marginal, at best. At worst, that value is nonexistent.
2. At any given moment, said life can be put to an end at the whim of a white American, whether under color of law or as a concerned citizen who "feared" for their safety and well-being.
3. The value of a black life in the United States is determined and enshrined by mainstream America's view of the black community, and then verified and validated in its treatment at the hands of law enforcement and other institutions throughout the nation.
4. Said law enforcement members have been given card blanche to respond to the black community and other ethnic and social minority groups as aggressively as possible.
5. Respectability politics has long since proven to be absolutely ineffective in improving the black community's image in mainstream America's eyes or preventing further life-ending incidents at the hands of law enforcement and concerned citizens.
6. When confronted with the above, many mainstream Americans will resort to blaming the black community for these problems based on a strict adherence to the Just World fallacy and their belief of black Americans as a morally bankrupt people. They'll also support law enforcement officials and concerned citizens who've put black lives to rest, at least as far as polite society will allow.
7. Overt racism is still taboo and a serious faux pas in polite discussion. However, coded talk remains perfectly acceptable and preferred among many.

The entire black blogosphere has undergone an airing out of grievances and a sharing of thoughts, feelings, experiences and the pain suffered by many within the black community. There have been protests, marches, demonstrations, the works. There have been a few indictments and even a few cases where authorities have quickly acted, if only out of self-interest and self-preservation.

Still, the killings and the beatings continue.

Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Oscar Grant, Eric Garner, Rekia Boyd, Aiyana Stanley-Jones - the list goes on. And it's one that grows longer with each passing day.

Another day, another dead black American, another outrage.

These days, black Americans are being murdered like clockwork by men and women charged with protecting the public. Except protecting and serving the public takes a back seat to a whole host of corrupt behaviors, none least the brutalization and wanton murder of black individuals.

Judging by history, these things are to be expected. Bigotry against the dreaded Other has always been iron-clad policy, even in today's so-called "post-racial" environment. Institutional enforcement of said bigotry has also been de rigueur, especially when fears of being overrun by said Other has always lurked in the back of mainstream America's collective mind since colonial times.

So Freddie Gray's death at the hands of the Baltimore Police Department is, in history's grand scope, nothing out of the ordinary. The only remarkable thing about it is the reaction it elicited from the city's black residents.

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And even that response doesn't seem out of the ordinary. Protests and demonstrations have been the default method of expressing outrage by a people who feel otherwise powerless to prevent these atrocities from happening, The attendant rioting and looting is another side of that response, mostly done by those whose sheer anger and fury explode into a whirlwind of fire and shattered glass, interspersed with opportunists in search of a quick profit from chaos.

Mainstream America has always looked at these displays with a bit of bemusement, especially when burned-out businesses and overturned cars come into focus. If anything, these displays are treated as proof positive of law enforcement's raison d'etre - to prevent so-called lawless elements from initiating these displays in the first place.

So it's not out of the ordinary for a white American to see a phalanx of police officers in full riot gear facing down a lone demonstrator and dismissing the entire thing as the taxpaying public getting it's money's worth. In a way, they would be absolutely correct.

It's also not out of the ordinary for the mainstream American media to write off the entire exercise as just another mass exhibition of black America's latent criminality. Acknowledging the unreconstructed public's confirmation bias happens to be a great way of raising viewership, even if it's at the expense of a people who suffer day in and day out.

It's no wonder that mainstream American media outlets are more interested in slow-panning property damage and opportunists with stolen goods in hand. It's those sort of things that make for good ratings and even better outrage porn among unreconstructed minds.

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There's no arguing that Freddie Gray in no way deserved what happened to him. No human being deserves to be brutalized to the point of paralysis, coma and eventual death. There's never an excuse for it and there never will be.

Regardless, what happened to Freddie Gray is just one of a long, depressing and seemingly unending line of atrocities committed mainly by law enforcement officials throughout the U.S., with the occasional "concerned citizen" or vigilante delivering a helping hand*. The slave patrols, "heroic" klansmen and angry mobs of "respectable Christian" whites might not be taking part in these modern-day tragedies, but their spirit remains in full effect.

* As seen in the murder of Trayvon Martin

In any case where a young person of color has been beaten, shot and/or killed at the hands of law enforcement, there are inevitably two competing narratives: one where the victim is described by parents, family and friends in the most positive and loving light as possible and one where the victim is reduced to that of either a mere criminal or a potential criminal.

Prior to Michael Brown's fatal encounter with Ferguson P.D. Officer Darren Wilson, Brown was featured on surveillance camera at a nearby convenience store, where it appeared that he was involved in a strong-arm robbery. The events, as they unfolded on-screen, fed into the "Michael Brown is a Criminal" narrative trotted by CNN and many other mainstream news outlets. It also gave many with an already-low opinion of Brown and black Americans like him all the justification necessary to consider his life forfeit at the hands of Wilson. In other words, to say that Michael Brown deserved to die, but without actually uttering those words.

Narratives are a powerful thing. They can easily influence how Americans think or feel about an issue and sway opinion from one end to another. The pictures and footage of 1960s-era civil rights advocates suffering assault after ruthless assault at the hands of a cultural and state apparatus intent on status-quo preservation created a powerful narrative that swayed many on the side of justice. But even that narrative had to compete with the equally powerful narrative firmly codified by D.W. Griffith's Birth of a Nation and ruthlessly reinforced by the behaviors and actions of both cultural and state actors.

Painting Michael Brown as a deadly giant of a criminal wipes any sympathy that anyone has for what happened to him that fateful day. It encourages a mindset that figures, "he was a natural-born criminal and he had it coming. He deserved to die."

He didn't deserve to die, but that's all academic at this point.

As it turned out, he did pay for what he was suspected by many of stealing. But I suppose that's also academic at this point, too.

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Michael Brown's designated status as a deadly giant and a vicious beast is nothing new. Trayvon Martin was described by many in the media and elsewhere as a powerful Uber-Negro with innate MMA training and the capacity to destroy innocent lives by sheer force of his own blackness, nevermind his actual physical appearance. The powerful narrative of the black man as a superhuman beast is a common one, carefully cultivated over the centuries as proof of his suitability and destiny in the fields of the planter class.

Sheena C. Howard's Huffington Post piece goes into detail about this powerful and long-lasting narrative and how it's shaped this country's perception of black men and women. By highlighting this prolific and persistent pathology, it's easy to understand why the American public is both in awe and in fear of the black specimen:

During the Reconstruction Period (1866 -- 1877), many Whites argued that free Blacks were a danger to society because they were animalistic beasts and savages that needed to be tamed by White slave owners. In 1901, the writer, George T. Winston stated, "The black brute is lurking in the dark, a monstrous beast, crazed with lust. His ferocity is almost demoniacal. A mad bull or tiger could scarcely be more brutal. A whole community is frenzied with horror, with the blind and furious rage for vengeance". These sentiments are eerily consistent with the ways in which Officer Darren Wilson describes Mike Brown as a "demon" in his testimony.

Since the 1930's scientists have been trying to generate evidence of superhuman physical features that characterize Black people to explain their exemplary success in sports. The century old-debate of the "slave gene" seems to resurface every four years, particularly when athletes of African descent outperform competitors at the Olympics, -- most notably in track and field.

The supposedly untamable, animalistic nature of the black man justifies mainstream America's fear of him while, at the same time, justifying his return to his proper lot in life (under the watchful eye of the slave holder). It also justifies dealing with the so-called superhuman in the most final manner possible. So instead of merely talking a man out of wielding his weapon or spending minutes ordering him to surrender peacefully, law enforcement officers are expected to respond to the dire life-or-death presence of the superhuman Negro by ending said Negro's existence, full stop.

America's pathological obsession and fear of black men, a current that runs deeply underneath the national bedrock, was useful as a way to destroy any sympathy for the black creature as he was used and abused on the farms and plantations. It remained useful for severing any sense of solidarity between poor freed blacks and their equally impoverished white counterparts, while keeping the rest of America in fear of their mere presence. And today, it's used as an effective narrative to continue justifying the actions and tactics of law enforcement agencies throughout the nation, as well as the corrupt actions of the prosecutors and the judiciary.

Sadly, enforcing that narrative always comes at a cost. For Michael Brown's family, it cost them their son. For black families across the U.S., it cost them their peace of mind and sense of justice. For America, the cost is its morals and, as some would say, its soul.

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 Ethan Couch had been anything other than a clean-cut American teen of affluent upbringing, he would have spent his New Year's behind prison walls, contemplating the 20-year sentence he received for killing four people while driving while intoxicated. That is, if he wasn't subdued to the point of death or gunned down for being belligerent towards law enforcement.

Instead, Ethan Couch walked, citing his privileged, affluent upbringing as a fatal flaw that prevented him from seeing wrong from right. It would have been an amazing thing to see a judge buy a Chewbacca defense like Couch's "affluenza" claim, except that seeing justice make a mockery of itself over and over again tends to kill the novelty of it all.

Lady Justice is blind, but seeing her sword fall a certain way for some and not at all for others makes you wonder.

In the end, it's Ethan Couch who'll suffer dearly. The message he's gotten out of this is typical for any affluent teen who squeaks their way out of trouble: as long as you have money (or mommy and daddy's, in most cases), you can get out of any jam*. And he'll keep abusing that "Get Out of Jail Free" card again and again until his luck runs out. An overdose on alcohol in a frat house bathroom after one too many shooters. A head-on collision with a sturdy oak after a stint behind the wheel on a bender. A live co-ed with an accusation or three (or a dead co-ed and a piss-poor attempt at evidence removal). It's only a matter of time before his "affluenza" suddenly bolts out of remission with a vengeance. And the prognosis for that is all-too-grim.

In the meantime, the families of the four victims are doing the only thing that seems to resonate with affluent individuals. The District Attorney for Tarrant County, Texas is also looking into a definite cure for Couch's "affluenza."

* It also helps if you're also a clean-cut white kid. A wealthy Trayvon Martin would likely still be a dead Trayvon Martin.

So, Juror B29 thinks George Zimmerman got away with murder. From the BBC via Milt Shook:

At least one juror in the Zimmerman trial - one without a book deal and who seems relatively honest, explained in an ABC News interview why the jury felt they had no choice but to find him not guilty. The culprit, as suspected, was Florida law.

The juror, who went by the name of "Maddy," also said Zimmerman "got away with murder".

Maddy was the only non-white member of the six member jury, and she said the whole trial was basically a "publicity stunt.". Based on the law and the jury instructions they received, she said they couldn't find Zimmerman guilty.

Maddy is a mother of eight who only recently moved to Florida from Chicago and there's probably a part of her that wants to move back. She said she feels as if she should apologize to Trayvon's parents.

It's easy for yours truly to come down on Juror B29 like a ton of bricks. In spite of the tremendously flawed jury instructions, I feel there's still something she could have done if she genuinely believed in Zimmerman's guilt. From the sound of it, she was pressured into going along with Juror B37 and the rest.

It's a bit too late to apologize to Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin for not bringing their son's killer to justice. I'm sure she thinks she feels their pain.

She doesn't, because she can't. To say that she does is just another slap in the face out of many. That's something the family does not need.

Anderson Cooper snagged an interview with Juror B37. If you feel like chugging down an entire bottle of Listerine or keeping your head as close to the wastebasket as possible at any point of the above interview, feel free. I can understand.

Don't want to watch? Think Progress has a rundown of the most mindblowing parts of the interview. You might want to hold on to that wastebasket.

By the way, Juror B37 also has had a book in the works. She can thank Genie Lauren for putting an end to that.

- Until the State of Florida sees fit to rescind its "Stand Your Ground" laws, Stevie Wonder will no longer perform there. Or in any other state with similar laws, for that matter:

"The truth is that—for those of you who've lost in the battle for justice, wherever that fits in any part of the world—we can't bring them back. What we can do is we can let our voices be heard. And we can vote in our various countries throughout the world for change and equality for everybody. That's what I know we can do.

"And I know I'm not everybody, I'm just one person. I'm a human being. And for the gift that God has given me, and from whatever I mean, I decided today that until the Stand Your Ground law is abolished in Florida, I will never perform there again. As a matter of fact, wherever I find that law exists, I will not perform in that state or in that part of the world.

"Because what I do know is that people know that my heart is of love for everyone. When I say everyone I mean everyone. As I said earlier, you can't just talk about it, you have to be about it. We can make change by coming together for the spirit of unity. Not in destruction, but in the perpetuation of life itself."

Strong stands are needed in times like these. My hat goes off to Stevie.

- According to friends and family, George Zimmerman wants to go to law school. If anything, he'd be a shoo-in numerous police departments throughout Florida and the U.S. How about putting in an application to the NYPD?

- U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder finally calls the "Stand Your Ground" laws into question. But not too harshly, lest he gets shat on even harder by conservatives and Zimmerman supporters:

Today – starting here and now – it’s time to commit ourselves to a respectful, responsible dialogue about issues of justice and equality – so we can meet division and confusion with understanding, with compassion, and ultimately with truth.

It’s time to strengthen our collective resolve to combat gun violence but also time to combat violence involving or directed toward our children – so we can prevent future tragedies. And we must confront the underlying attitudes, mistaken beliefs, and unfortunate stereotypes that serve too often as the basis for police action and private judgments.

Separate and apart from the case that has drawn the nation’s attention, it’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods. These laws try to fix something that was never broken. There has always been a legal defense for using deadly force if – and the “if” is important – no safe retreat is available.

But we must examine laws that take this further by eliminating the common sense and age-old requirement that people who feel threatened have a duty to retreat, outside their home, if they can do so safely. By allowing and perhaps encouraging violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety. The list of resulting tragedies is long and – unfortunately – has victimized too many who are innocent. It is our collective obligation – we must stand our ground – to ensure that our laws reduce violence, and take a hard look at laws that contribute to more violence than they prevent.

Last up:

And so it was for a few weeks until the race-baiting industry saw an opportunity to further the racist careers of Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, the Black Panthers. President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder, et al, who then swept down on the Florida community refusing to admit that the 17-year-old dope smoking, racist gangsta wannabe Trayvon Martin was at all responsible for his bad decisions and standard modus operendi of always taking the violent route.

With an obvious racist chip on his shoulder, referencing the neighborhood watch guy as a “creepy ass cracker” to his fellow racist female friend who admitted under oath that that is how non-blacks are referred to normally in their circles, Trayvon had no reason not to attack, because it was the standard thug thing to do. See Chicago any day of the week.

You know, Ted, there's a reason you're a washed-up rocker whose only claim to fame was a one-hit wonder. I bet if someone called you a washed-up, meth smoking, cowardly racist rocker wannabe, you'd get hold of a lawyer ASAP.

Too bad Trayvon can't hire a lawyer to protect himself from all sorts of slander and defamation. Your friend George did a wonderful job of making that happen.

The jury got it right, and non-racist America rejoices that there is still common sense, honesty and decency aware of identifying justice in this country. America also believes that the entire prosecutorial team should be ashamed of themselves and disbarred for ignoring the obvious and kowtowing to the pure racism that forced the politically correct lie that only black lives killed by non-blacks matter, which is why there are no headlines, no protests, no prosecutions and no Barak Obama or Eric Holder meddling in the nonstop black-on-black slaughter in their gun-free zone of Chicago.

Too bad the president and the attorney general are too busy dealing with far more important matters to address your libel. You should thank your lucky stars the president doesn't have a J. Edgar Hoover-type around who could, say, out you as a closeted homosexual or one of those dreaded socialists you conservative types hate so much.

Martin Luther King Jr. is rolling over in his grave that he sacrificed his life for the cause of judging people by the content of their character instead of the color of their skin, as so many of his own race carry in in self-destructive behavior while professional race mongers blame everything on racism. It is painful and heartbreaking to say and write this, but horrifically it is true. Blacks kill more blacks in a weekend in Chicago than the evil, vile Ku Klux Klan idiots did in 50 years. Truly earth shattering insane. And not a peep from Obama or Holder. Tragic.

Too bad Martin Luther King Jr. can't respond to you speaking for him or taking his words out of context. Invoking the man's words and image does not give you card blanche against attacking a victim of injustice. Or for suggesting that blacks are a greater evil among themselves than the Ku Klux Klan ever was.

The only racism on that night was perpetrated by Trayvon Martin, and everybody knows it.

Trayvon Martin's only misfortune was existing that fateful night. Perhaps George Zimmerman should had stayed in the damn car like he was instructed to. Then, none of this would have happened.

And you, Mr. Nugent, should figure out how to regain your media relevancy without leaning on your right-wing crutches for support.

Some people out there are thinking that if Trayvon Martin's and George Zimmerman's circumstances were swapped, the outcome would still have been the same. Allow me to introduce you to the case of a certain John H. White and Daniel Cicciaro. White is Black and Cicciaro is white:

Mr. White was convicted of shooting Daniel Cicciaro, 17, point-blank in the face on Aug. 9, 2006. Daniel and several friends had left a party and showed up Mr. White’s house just after 11 p.m. to challenge his son Aaron, then 19, to a fight, and had used threats, profanities and racial epithets. Mr. White awoke and grabbed a loaded Beretta pistol he kept in the garage of his house in Miller Place, a predominantly white hamlet on Long Island.

Mr. White testified that Aaron woke him from a deep sleep the night of the shooting, yelling that that “some kids are coming here to kill me.” Mr. White said he considered the angry teenagers a “lynch mob.”

He said their racist language recalled the hatred he saw as a child visiting the segregated Deep South and stories of his grandfather’s being chased out of Alabama in the 1920s by the Ku Klux Klan.

Mr. White testified that his grandfather taught him how to shoot and bequeathed him the pistol he used.

A lawyer for Mr. White, Frederick K. Brewington, insisted in his summation that this was a “modern-day lynch mob” and that Mr. White considered it “history replaying itself.”

Mr. White stood his ground against a few punks who, if left to their own devices, would have seriously injured or even managed to kill his son. For his troubles, he'll spend the next five to 15 years in prison.

Meanwhile, a man who went out of his way to pursue, corner, wrestle with and eventually kill a 17-year-old teen now has his freedom and, if he wants it, his gun.*

The above is further proof why claims of this country being in a so-called "post-racial" phase ring hollow. History has shown that the justice system will defend white hooligans who amass lynch mobs and terror gangs, all the while incarcerating blacks who dare defend themselves. This is why we are pissed.

Right about now, some conservative reader is shaking his or her head in disbelief, prepared to say the "liberal" justice system regularly springs "black mobs" all the time. I suggest that reader take a look at the arrest stats he or she loves to use to justify natural black criminality so much.**

*If I were George, I'd reconsider that offer. Being in a dark room with only your conscience and a loaded semi-auto for company can do some strange and permanent things to a person.
*In short, a black mob that breaks into a white home will get put down hard, one way or another.

Ta-Nehisi Coates thinks the Zimmerman jury made the right choice. Yours truly thinks the Zimmerman trial had the wrong kind of jury.

Meanwhile, the hits keep on coming in light of Zimmerman's acquittal:

Keep posting the "Treyvon: Angel of God" stories.

Treyvon Martin was no saint.
* He had a history of criminal behavior,
* he had been suspended 3 times from school (the most recent of which for vandalism),
* he had been kicked out of his mother's house due to his behavioral issues.
* the prosecution went overboard to hide text messages detailing Treyvon's drug use and racist comments. (while at the same time attempting to portray Zimmerman as a racist)

Combine the above with Treyvon's proclivity for physical violence... It was only a matter of time before Treyvon ended up dead or in prison.

Zimmerman just made it happen faster.

Little boy with candy my ass.

Judging by Frankie SayRelax's posting history, he's firmly committed to the image of "Treyvon Martin" as a worthless thug of the lowest order. That would be Frankie's problem alone if not for the millions of people out there who think just like him, to varying degrees.

Trayvon isn't alive to tell his side of the story or defend his own character against those who wish to defame him and others like him. Zimmerman's liberty is contingent on his story of defense against a so-called "thug," otherwise he would be made to account for his actions through legal means. Now all that's left is possible civil action and, if Zimmerman doesn't watch his step from here on, extralegal means of action.

A 17-year-old doing stupid things 17-year-olds do to bolster their nonexistent "street cred" in light of the "gangster" culture propagated by mass media (post pictures of guns, brag about being handy with fists, etc.) does not make him a "dangerous thug." Of course, no one considered Eric Harris or Dylan Klebold "thugs" until it was too late.

Nope, George Zimmerman did the world a favor by ridding it of one less "thug," at least according to our friend Frankie and those like him. The only comfort and solace that Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin have is the knowledge that not everyone thinks like Frankie. The world isn't completely filled up with assholes.

BETWEEN me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.

W.E.B. DuBois pondered this question in the first chapter of "The Souls of Black Folk." In light of the George Zimmerman verdict and its affirmation of all that's been wrong with this nation for generations, it bears repeating among the millions of black Americans living here.

"How does it feel to be a problem?"

It's a long story. Long story short, America as a collective entity hasn't quite come to grips with what to do with or how to treat a people who, just a scant 150 years ago, were considered nothing more than farming implements and thus unworthy of being considered full human beings. Old habits die hard and learned behaviors prove hard to unlearn. After generations of learning how to loath and despise your fellow former farming implements, it proves hard to finally accept them as human beings.

George Zimmerman tapped into this national stream of consciousness to fulfill his fantasy of being a "neighborhood hero." It resulted in the death of a young man who, if it weren't for his misfortune of being born a seventh son in a land that merely tolerates and ultimately ridicules his presence, would have been home that fateful night with that pack of Skittles his brother asked for.

Trayvon Martin's death was treated as a "no harm no foul" moment by law enforcement until local and national outrage built up. His murderer's trial was treated as a vindication of his actions and an indictment of his victim's existence. By all accounts, mainstream America won't mourn the loss of someone it saw as "a problem."

Then it dawned upon me with a certain suddenness that I was different from the others; or like, mayhap, in heart and life and longing, but shut out from their world by a vast veil. I had thereafter no desire to tear down that veil, to creep through; I held all beyond it in common contempt, and lived above it in a region of blue sky and great wandering shadows. That sky was bluest when I could beat my mates at examination-time, or beat them at a foot-race, or even beat their stringy heads. Alas, with the years all this fine contempt began to fade; for the worlds I longed for, and all their dazzling opportunities, were theirs, not mine. But they should not keep these prizes, I said; some, all, I would wrest from them. Just how I would do it I could never decide: by reading law, by healing the sick, by telling the wonderful tales that swam in my head,—some way.

With other black boys the strife was not so fiercely sunny: their youth shrunk into tasteless sycophancy, or into silent hatred of the pale world about them and mocking distrust of everything white; or wasted itself in a bitter cry, Why did God make me an outcast and a stranger in mine own house? The shades of the prison-house closed round about us all: walls strait and stubborn to the whitest, but relentlessly narrow, tall, and unscalable to sons of night who must plod darkly on in resignation, or beat unavailing palms against the stone, or steadily, half hopelessly, watch the streak of blue above.

Black Americans have spent countless generations as outcasts in their own house, shunned and loathed unless they could somehow be of service for mainstream America's benefit, whether it be in self-depreciating entertainment, quiet servitude or harsh and unrelenting manual labor. Perhaps Trayvon Martin didn't pay heed to it that night, but he was an outcast in the very neighborhood he thought he would have been safe in. The constant and unending perception of he and others like him as "problems" to be "solved" dovetailed with Zimmerman's desire to "solve" that "problem."

The absolute refusal to see black Americans as anything but collective problems and individual successes (but only within strict, narrowly defined confines) and eager willingness to glamorize the worst traits and rumors about a collective people is how the Sanford police department refused to see anything wrong with murdering a young black male with little to no cause. It's also led to a sympathetic legal climate where generous concern was shown for the perpetrator's "unfortunate" predicament, as encouraged by his defense team. The six jurors, five whites and one Hispanic for buffering concerns of racially motivated impropriety, were merely messengers delivering a statement that rings true for black Americans the nation over: "We see you as a problem."

Oddly enough, Native Americans understand how it feels to be a problem. After decades of the U.S. "solving" the problem with forced migrations, mass genocide and sequestration onto rapidly shrinking reservations, the Native American problem is slowly solving itself through mass alcoholism and suicide. Since black America proved too resilient for that treatment, it's taking legally sanctioned acts of malice, as delivered by police departments throughout the nation, to solve the problem. Mass media and it's constant portrayal of blacks as dangerous beings or laughable buffoons is another way of encouraging solutions to the problem. Even groups like the Ku Klux Klan once helped out by solving the problem in their own unique way.

The heart of the so-called "problem" lies with an unstoppable and long-coming shift in sociopolitical power between mainstream America and America's minority groups. The fear of Reconstruction heralding the arrival and cementing of black political power drove the ex-Confederate backlash and the institution of measures to stymie said power. The fear of the Civil Rights Act as a milestone for reclaiming black political power fueled the ex-Dixiecrat backlash and the conservative "silent majority" movement that resulted in the formation of the GOP as we know it today. The fear of Barack Obama as a harbinger of things to come in terms of black political power drove the Republican backlash, the formation of the "Tea Party" as its weaponized arm and the unleashing of rabid racism, sexism and discrimination among the once largely quiet unreconstructed. To look any closer would warrant its own discussion in the near future.

Throughout its history, America feared that particular problem getting out of hand. That night, George Zimmerman "feared" a particular problem "getting out of hand." Funny how retrospective history can be.

RT @profblmkelley: I have a nine-year old who followed the trial with me. This verdict made her feel afraid. @lauradeethomp
— Matthew Elliot (@matttbastard) July 14, 2013

As it should the parents of any black American child, especially in this day and age. Especially when full-grown adults have no compunction against seeing young black children as "thugs" or "thugs in training."

The irony of this entire tragedy is if Trayvon Martin was every bit of the cannabis-consuming, jewelry-stealing gangster thug he was purported to be, Zimmerman would have stayed in the car as he was instructed by 911 dispatchers. Rousting an otherwise defenseless young kid going about his business based on preconceptions is one thing. Doing the same to a genuine thug with no fear of jailtime will likely get you seriously hurt or murdered.

Instead of being murdered at the hands of a man too mentally and behaviorally inept to be a real police, Trayvon Martin would likely still be alive, albeit dealing with a civil lawsuit against the Sanford police department on brutality and civil rights grounds.

Had Trayvon Martin been "Todd Martin," a creature every bit as photogenic and "all-American" as could be, George Zimmerman's fate would had been as good as sealed. Had George Zimmerman been "Tray Zimmerman," his date with the needle would be chiseled in stone. Had it been a "black on black" affair, no one but Martin's parents and friends would  have cared. Black on black murders are considered an effective way of solving the black problem.

How does it feel to be a problem?

If you're asking, it feels downright shitty. But maybe it's mainstream America that's the problem.

The grand tradition of the all-white jury came through for the man accused of killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. "Not guilty" of second-degree murder, "not guilty" of manslaughter, either.

Yours truly isn't shocked at the outcome. The die was cast in the beginning and America's preoccupation with stereotypes and assumptions played out on a grand scale. All the defense had to do was make the jury wonder if George Zimmerman did America a service by snuffing out a "typical ghetto thug." From all indications, it worked.

And so goes a story that's played itself out time and again with depressing regularity. You know, the one about how a black American was killed out of various racially motivated assumptions, only for his killer to walk free with few, if any, repercussions. It's an age-old story with no end in sight.

Knowing that Zimmerman will likely spend the bulk of his life sheltered away from understandably angry black Americans is cold comfort to Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin. They have to live with both a dead child and the relative freedom of the man who murdered him.

Meanwhile, other black parents are left wondering if their son or daughter will end up being the next victim of  someone entitled of their preconceived notions and assumptions. As I've said before, it's a story that's as old and as predictable as the sun rising and setting.

I think it's high time for me to acquire a passport and think about life outside of the United States for a while, for my sanity's sake. Any black American wanting to start a family should do likewise.

As I've probably mentioned earlier on, I haven't kept a close eye on the Zimmerman trial, primarily for my sanity's sake. More to the point, I stayed away from the live feeds, the rapid-fire blog posts and the constant stories and opinion pieces that flood in hour after hour. I stayed away because the more I heard and saw what was going on, the more apparent the outcome's becoming. It's like seeing a train creep silently upon an unknowing and unwitting pedestrian - you know what's coming and there's nothing you can do or say to stop it, except hope and pray for a last-minute miracle.

Maybe I should have more faith, but having faith in a justice system largely geared towards systemic injustice is rather difficult. Using history as a guide, you can see the same thing play out over and over again with depressing regularity. The only difference is the audience. Whereas a local audience and a simple (and possibly biased) blurb in the local papers sufficed, there's now an entire nation and quite possibly a global audience watching, and for good reason.

The outcome of this case will reverberate throughout the entire nation. It'll prove whether there's actually some semblance of justice in this troubled land of ours or if the same old song will play once more. It'll show that a young man's life doesn't have to be forfeit just because someone deemed him a threat to be rid of. Or it'll confirm that someone's life is always subject to the whims of others based on their appearance or others' perceptions of them and others like them. It could prove to be either a chilling turning point in this nation's history or it could be a small glimmer of hope and some form of justice for a grieving mother and family.

A story like the one unfolding in Sanford, Florida is one that grates on the soul. It's a stress that only a person whose been in the victim's shoes can understand, in my humble opinion. To keep a laser-targeted focus on this story would be to expend all of my own mental and spiritual energies and then some. It would mean being thoroughly ensconced in an awe-inspiring envelope of anger and hatred that takes one's mind to some tremendously dangerous and downright evil places. It's a feeling that often finds its way out through a variety of destructive and counter-productive outlets.

It's a feeling that the likes of Sean Hannity are vaguely aware of. However, they hope to capitalize on those feelings and turn them into examples, indictments and warnings. Such things wouldn't exist if the capacity for justice wasn't limited by the malice and anger of those who'd rather see their fellow men and women burn in the flames of their own impotent anger just because. Just because their parents and society taught them to fear and loathe them. Just because they're a convenient scapegoat to blame when things get rough. Just because a certain segment of people would rather see them return to their original condition to enrich their own coffers.

Just because they're the "other." The assigned punching bags. The load. The people who are relied on for so much yet blamed for many ills.

There's a story playing out in a Sanford, Florida courtroom and it's a story we've seen and heard countless times. The only question is whether the ending will be the same or if six women will manage to deviate from the storyline and deliver a much different conclusion.

Millions of Americans expect to go about their day without worrying about a simple traffic stop effectively ruining the rest of their lives. They don't expect to be incarcerated and face thousands of dollars in fines for trivial offenses, but it happens:

Three years ago, Gina Ray, who is now 31 and unemployed, was fined $179 for speeding. She failed to show up at court (she says the ticket bore the wrong date), so her license was revoked.

When she was next pulled over, she was, of course, driving without a license. By then her fees added up to more than $1,500. Unable to pay, she was handed over to a private probation company and jailed — charged an additional fee for each day behind bars.

For that driving offense, Ms. Ray has been locked up three times for a total of 40 days and owes $3,170, much of it to the probation company. Her story, in hardscrabble, rural Alabama, where Krispy Kreme promises that “two can dine for $5.99,” is not about innocence.

It is, rather, about the mushrooming of fines and fees levied by money-starved towns across the country and the for-profit businesses that administer the system. The result is that growing numbers of poor people, like Ms. Ray, are ending up jailed and in debt for minor infractions.

“With so many towns economically strapped, there is growing pressure on the courts to bring in money rather than mete out justice,” said Lisa W. Borden, a partner in Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, a large law firm in Birmingham, Ala., who has spent a great deal of time on the issue. “The companies they hire are aggressive. Those arrested are not told about the right to counsel or asked whether they are indigent or offered an alternative to fines and jail. There are real constitutional issues at stake.”

In a 2010 study, the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law examined the fee structure in the 15 states — including California, Florida and Texas — with the largest prison populations. It asserted: “Many states are imposing new and often onerous ‘user fees’ on individuals with criminal convictions. Yet far from being easy money, these fees impose severe — and often hidden — costs on communities, taxpayers and indigent people convicted of crimes. They create new paths to prison for those unable to pay their debts and make it harder to find employment and housing as well as to meet child support obligations.”

The New York Times article goes on to describe how the courts are turning to private companies to handle probation services and fee collection, and how these companies are making their earnings off the back of the poor who are fined, charged and sentenced. In short, the law enforcement and judicial arms are again being used as a profit center for private companies and the officials who take their slice of the proceeds.

Historically speaking, this public/private profiteering at the expense of ordinary Americans lacking in the resources needed to do anything about it has had its greatest effect on the black American community. Today, Americans of all stripes who often don't have the means to take care of expensive fines or discrepancies in paperwork are now being placed into a form of debt peonage, which entails a cycle of stacked fees and incarceration for not paying those fees, many of which were accrued while they were incarcerated.

There's nothing new under this sun. In December 1865, Congress adopted the Thirteenth Amendment, one of three "Reconstruction-era Amendments." This amendment was principally responsible for officially outlawing slavery as experienced by millions of people prior to and during the Civil War:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

Please note the highlighted phrase, as it plays a big role in the emergence of the Convict Lease system.

In the post-Reconstruction era of the Deep South, the relative new-found freedom of millions of ex-slaves and other black Americans were sharply curtailed by newly-established Jim Crow laws and Black Codes all across the south. Meanwhile, industry was replacing the cotton industry as an economic driver, which meant moneyed interests were constantly in search of cheap or damn-near-free labor. Government officials began using vagrancy laws and other minor violations to issue steep fines and issue lengthy sentences to poor black American men and a few of their white counterparts. These people would then be pressed into labor and leased to various corporations and entrepreneurs until they "completed their sentences" or manage to pay their debts.

Douglass Blackmon's definitive book on this issue, "Slavery by Another Name," sums up the issue thus:

Under laws enacted specifically to intimidate blacks, tens of thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily arrested, hit with outrageous fines, and charged for the costs of their own arrests. With no means to pay these ostensible “debts,” prisoners were sold as forced laborers to coal mines, lumber camps, brickyards, railroads, quarries and farm plantations. Thousands of other African Americans were simply seized by southern landowners and compelled into years of involuntary servitude. Government officials leased falsely imprisoned blacks to small-town entrepreneurs, provincial farmers, and dozens of corporations—including U.S. Steel Corp.—looking for cheap and abundant labor. Armies of "free" black men labored without compensation, were repeatedly bought and sold, and were forced through beatings and physical torture to do the bidding of white masters for decades after the official abolition of American slavery.

In short, the clause "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted" was used as a gaping loophole as a way to revive a form of forced labor, not just for the benefit of moneyed interests who indeed benefited financially, but as a sop to a people born and bred to believe their black counterparts were naturally lazy and that only work via forced labor was the way to keep them "productive." This form of debt peonage was thought to have been done away with after World War II, but it managed to get a new lease on life during the 1980s. It currently survives thanks in part to the proliferation of private judicial services that manage everything from prisons to probation and drug testing.

In an era where an outright refusal to properly fund the courts system collides with a ragged economy and a continuing thirst for punitive justice measures, private judicial services are flourishing, enticing states with a seemingly low initial overhead and the promise of savings to both governments and taxpayers. However, recent studies have shown the supposed savings to be negligible, if not non-existent. As noted in the article, many jurisdictions are using fees and surcharges as a new form of funding, usually in lieu of slashed state and local funding.

There's also the risk of corruption among state and federal judicial members and these private corporations. This comment from Eric D. sheds light on the corruption that occurs when private profits collude with harsh public punishment:

As I mentioned in my earlier text, this is just the tip of the iceberg in Alabama. In the county adjacent to where Childersburg is located, Shelby County, the only Judge in that county to hear felony cases has set up a "work release." This "work release" which is in fact a jail is run by the judge's sister-in-law. You can be incarcerated there for anything from child support or speeding tickets up to drug distribution.

The deal is you are jailed and allowed to leave only for work or some project that the judge's sister in law decides to use her free labor for. If you can find a job under their many constraints then your entire paycheck must be made payable to jailers and at a later date the judge's sister in law will deduct 40% of your GROSS check, subtract whatever they choose for fines and fees including charges for drug tests that they administer at will and you get the difference if there is anything left.

Because it is private it does not fall under Dept of Corrections guidelines. These inmates are required to purchase their own food although in theory bread and ham is given once a day. I personally know a man who spent 24 months incarcerated eating ham sandwiches every day, only to find out that he was held an extra 7 months after his restitution was paid but was not remitted by the judge's sister in law. And guess who hears any complaints? That's right, the same judge who made sure his sister in law runs the place. The Good Ole Boy system is still just fine in AL.

The corruption is endemic, even at the juvenile level. In 2011, a Pennsylvania judge was sentenced to 28 years in prison for shipping over 4,000 kids, some as young as ten, off to two privately run youth detention centers, in exchange for over $1 million in kickbacks from the private prison company charged with running the facilities.

Many private prisons also receive federal funding for housing and feeding inmates, which these prisons often do in a substandard manner. Others facilitate overcrowding and poor staffing to cut costs and pocket profits. One private firm actually required one state to have a 90-percent occupancy rate before it could take advantage of a sweetheart deal:

The proposal seeks to build upon a deal reached last fall in which the company purchased the 1,798-bed Lake Erie Correctional Institution from the state of Ohio for $72.7 million. Ohio officials lauded the September transaction, saying that private management of the facility would save a projected $3 million annually.

Linda Janes, chief of staff for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said the purchase came at time when the state was facing a $8 billion shortfall. The $72.7 million prison purchase was aimed at helping to fill a $188 million deficit within the corrections agency.

Ohio's deal requires the state to maintain a 90% occupancy rate, but Janes said that provision remains in effect for 18 months — not 20 years — before it can be renegotiated. As part of the deal, Ohio pays the company a monthly fee, totaling $3.8 million per year.

It's little wonder the arrest rate for young black males in the United States remains at least eight times higher than their white counterparts. It's hard trying to maintain an ideal level of occupancy. It's also a part of why the War on Drugs (also known as the War on Weed) is slated to continue for the foreseeable future. After all, there has to be some way to keep the prisons full.

The whole idea of having your finances, job prospects, reputation and personal freedom boned thanks to fines, surcharges and fees that stack up and prove financially insurmountable should scare just about anyone. However, some people don't see any of this as that big of a deal. After all, you should have obeyed the law. Problem is, there are so many laws on the books today that even the most innocent and law-abiding citizen can get fined or go to jail over a law he or she wasn't even aware existed.

This is neo-peonage, in a nutshell. Lower and middle-class Americans who are often one or two paychecks away from poverty are financially devastated by fines and fees. If they can't pay up in time, they're put in jail and often put to work in a revitalized Convict Lease System for extraordinarily cheap. If B.B. Comer was to somehow time-travel to today's Childersburg to see the spectacle as told by Eric D., he'd be right at home with what he'd find.

"I have never been so humiliated in my life, all because I wanted a job,"

Like millions of Americans, Tateasa Adams pounded the pavement for a decent-paying job. When Six Flags Over Georgia called her back for a follow-up, she expected a face-to-face interview for a stage performer gig. She didn't expect to be led off in handcuffs.

When an outstanding warrant in Gwinnett County, GA popped up on a background check, Adams admitted to blowing off a traffic court date on account of being at her fiance's bedside as he underwent cancer treatment in Boston. When you're dealing with a loved one who's sick and ailing, you want to be by that person's side and in the process, you tend to blow off things that don't seem as important in comparison. For some, that includes a court date.

She didn't expect park officials to immediately call the police. While some businesses have a stated obligation to ring the alarm on scofflaws, the following is a profile in entrapment:

Six Flags sent Adams an email confirming her appointment on Feb. 29 for a "pre-appointment screen." She was instructed to return to the park "dressed in business attire -- this is an interview." Adams was also told to bring a valid photo identification.

"I arrived early," she said. "When I got there they sat me down in a room with a video camera, took my license, and had me fill out another application."

So park officials not only tricked Adams into showing up for her own arrest, they also stalled for time until the county police showed up. While most people are probably livid over park officials taking it upon themselves to see a scofflaw receive sweet, sweet justice, you'd have to wonder what the overall response would be if Tateasa Adams was Todd Adams, wanted for indecency with a child. I know, it's the "devil's advocate" angle, but you'd have to wonder.

On the other hand, it's still entrapment. Even the folks at the Cobb County P.D. say it's not the purview of some theme park to set up its own law enforcement sting:

“It seems to me a dangerous practice to engineer someone’s arrest,” Buckley told the AJC. “They run the risk of creating unnecessary claims for themselves. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Adams was taken to Gwinnett County where she made bail and was subsequently released. The kicker?

Adams said she's still looking for work but fears she's already lost out on opportunities due to her arrest record. Her mugshot appears on the first page returned when one does a web search of the name "Tateasa Adams."

"This has been a total nightmare," she said. "I'm not making any excuses for missing the court date. I should've taken care of that. But it's not like I'm some dangerous criminal."

In the U.S., having a criminal record is a scarlet letter that precludes you from any occupation short of "temp worker" and "fry cook," and even I'm not so sure about the latter. I have to wonder if Ms. Adams happened to be of a different hue, would she had been given an opportunity to sort this out on her own. (i.e. seek an attorney, voluntarily turn herself in, etc.)

Thanks to a critical life decision, Tatesia Adams gets to have her literal mugshot at the top of Google's search rankings for her own name. If I were in her shoes, I'd hire these guys to help scrub my name clean, consider filing suit against Six Flags and burnish up that singing career while thinking about what it means to be "self-employed" for the foreseeable future.

When Marissa Alexander used her legally licensed firearm to protect herself and her kids, she didn't imagine she'd be sent up the river for 20 years. But that's exactly what's happening. What makes it worse is that Alexander's case is the perfect scenario for how Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law should be used:

Alexander claims she was acting in self-defense, that her husband, Rico Gray, attacked her when he found messages to her ex-husband on her cell phone. Gray has said in testimony that he had previously warned Alexander that he would kill her if he ever found out that she had been unfaithful. In her panic, she ran to the garage, hoping to escape. Once there, she found that she did not have her keys and that the garage door was broken.

Feeling that there was no other route of escape, Alexander armed herself and re-entered the house. Gray confronted her, threatening to kill her once again. The mother of three turned her face away and fired a warning shot into the ceiling in hopes that Gray would back down, which he did, taking his children from a previous relationship and fleeing the house.

Ironically, there'd be a much greater chance of her walking free had she actually shot and killed him. Now there's a lesson domestic abuse victims might pick up in similar situations. It'd also help if Alexander was a photogenic blonde woman of noticeably WASP heritage. The law tends to be an ass when it comes to black Americans, black American women especially.

It's also worth noting that Alexander passed up a three-year plea deal, like any person would do if they genuinely believed themselves to be innocent. For some odd reason, the prospect of a 20-year bid seems like the prosecution and judges making an example of someone who didn't cop out when asked to.

The judge's rationale for convicting Alexander?

“Maybe I would be agreeing to a new Stand Your Ground motion, which highlights some of the difficulties we are struggling with procedurally implementing this new law,” he wrote, “but ultimately the motion is denied.” In his opinion, Alexander’s decision to re-enter the house was “inconsistent with a person in genuine fear of his or her life.”

Now contrast this ruling with the one for Greyston Garcia:

Circuit Judge Beth Bloom ruled Mar. 27 in a widely reported case that Greyston Garcia would not have to stand trial for killing Pedro Roteta, whom Garcia stabbed. According to Judge Bloom, Garcia was within his rights under Stand Your Ground law, because Roteta swung a bag of radios at Garcia, which, had it struck its intended target, could have been lethal.

Garcia, of Miami's Little Havana neighborhood, did not come under attack from Roteta. Instead, he found Roteta stealing a radio from his car. When Roteta saw Garcia, he ran away, and Garcia followed him, pulling out a knife. Garcia chased Roteta for a block, cornering him, and Roteta swung his bag of radios at Garcia - the potential lethal force. It was then that Garcia stabbed him.

Protecting your property is OK and "protecting" your neighborhood from an imagined menace is OK, too. But protecting yourself from an abusive human being isn't in the cards.

Rulings like these send a message. Battered wives, minorities and those who are perceived to be at the bottom of America's socioeconomic totem pole are now being put on notice.

"This is my sworn testimony. White Plains officers are coming in here to kill me."

And moments later, 68-year-old Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., a U.S. Marine veteran, was proven correct. Tasered and shot dead by officers from the White Plains, NY police department. Given how police officers across the country treat black Americans, whether suspects or innocents, he had good reason to fear for his life. Abagond reveals how the police department attempted to justify his murder, only for said justification to fall apart in the face of video and audio evidence.

That's the important difference between this era and the 1940s and 1950s. Had this crime happened in the latter, the police department's word would be taken at full value and Chamberlain dismissed as "just another crazy nigger who got what he got." Today, you have video and audio surveillance that constantly disproves such assumptions and sheds genuine light on the events that transpired. No wonder officers hate being videotaped or recorded (unless for an episode of "COPS").

Then there's the sad case of Rekia Boyd, an innocent bystander who was killed for "disturbing" an off-duty cop. Here too, did the police attempt to spin a story to justify the officer's actions. Too bad there were several eyewitnesses who saw things differently. There was even a lie thrown in that one of the people with Rekia had a gun. There was no gun found.

The common thread between the killings of Chamberlain, Boyd, Trayvon Martin, Oscar Grant and countless others? All were minorities who were assumed to be an automatic threat by overzealous and color-aroused cops. Yes, Trayvon was killed by a "neighborhood watch captain," but he had aspirations of being a cop, too. These were human beings who were deemed "threats" and declared fit for disposal, as though their lives and those of their families and friends meant nothing. To wonder why would mean ignoring nearly two centuries of America's racial history and the constant indoctrination and social reinforcement that causes white Americans to see their black American counterparts as their lesser, whether they realize it or not.

This is why black Americans automatically view police officers and other law enforcement officials, on-duty or not, with the utmost suspicion. Not doing so could mean a swift and tragic death. This is something most white Americans have the luxury of not dealing with.

The election of a person of color to the highest office in the U.S. has set off a genuine psychosis among those who view black Americans as threats to their own interests. Conservative politicians played off voters on this very issue. Militias have seen their recruitment numbers skyrocket because of it. Ordinary citizens lost their minds and revealed what they thought about their black American counterparts. Even presidential nomination hopeful Rick Santorum came perilously close to revealing his true colors.

Add up the above and you don't have to wonder if it isn't open season on black Americans.