Different Day, Same Shit.

Almost every schoolkid has had the opportunity of taking part in a science project. Ever since the Space Race and the subsequent national imperative to gift kids with "the right stuff" to kick ass in the hard sciences, science projects have practically become the cornerstone of the public (and private) education experience. Yours truly had his fair share of messing with noxious chemicals, dissecting starfish, polishing mirrors and watching stuff get blown up, frozen and knocked around. For science.

Of course, there's always the science project that goes wrong. Most times when it isn't life or property-threatening, it's usually hilarious. Hollywood tells us so. Apparently, the fine folks of Polk County Schools didn't think what 16-year-old Kiera Wilmot did was funny, even if it was purely by accident:

A 16-year-old Bartow High School student was arrested Monday on allegations she detonated a bottle of explosive materials on the school grounds.

No one was hurt in the morning explosion, nor was school property damaged, said Principal Ron Pritchard.

Kiera Roslyn Wilmot* was charged with making, possessing or discharging a destructive device and with possessing or discharging weapons on school grounds. Both charges are felonies.

The girl told authorities she was conducting a science experiment, according to Bartow police, but science teachers at the school said they knew nothing about it. She also said she thought the materials would produce only smoke, not an explosion, police said.

According to the story, there wasn't any malicious intent. Just a 16-year-old kid who didn't think this experiment through. Besides, mixing up household chemicals at 7 in the morning in a sparsely-populated area in the hopes of making a little smoke isn't on par with, say, wiring up a PVC pipe bomb and shoving it under a teacher's desk just in time for homeroom. Nevertheless, she was placed under arrest:

Pritchard said he was standing nearby when the student left the drink bottle behind the cafeteria, near the lake on the school's east side.

"It was next to the gazebo by the lake," he said. "I wasn't standing too far away when it happened. I just heard the pop, and I turned around. I thought it was a firecracker at first."

Household materials were used to create the explosion, said Bartow police Lt. Gary McLin. He declined to say what those materials were, but said the information is available through the Internet.

Pritchard said the girl didn't leave the area after the bottle exploded.

"She left it on the ground, and she stayed there," he said. "We went over to where she was. She saw that we saw her, so she didn't take off."

He said she was taken to the school's office, where police took her into custody.

The explosion occurred about 7 a.m., about the time classes started.

"There weren't a lot of kids there," Pritchard said. "There were maybe half a dozen kids in the area where she was, and nobody was hurt by it."

Wilmot was transported to the county's Juvenile Assessment Center in Bartow following her arrest.

Adult felony charges for blowing the cap off a water bottle, something that grown adults do with a pack of Mentos and a two-liter of Coke.

Not long after Wilmot’s experiment, authorities arrested her and charged her with “possession/discharge of a weapon on school property and discharging a destructive device,” according to WTSP-TV. The school district proceeded to expel Wilmot for handling the “dangerous weapon,” also known as a water bottle. She will have to complete her high school education through an expulsion program.

Given the likes of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokar Tsarnaev, among others and America's overall skittishness when it comes to anything that could potentially be construed as "terrorism," it's little wonder things are playing out the way they are for Kiera. "Zero tolerance" also has a lot to do with it, too.

Most public schools today are big on zero tolerance policies that punitively punish students in this manner. It's a win for administrators who want to maintain ironclad discipline and remain tough in the face of the "post-9/11" environment. When it comes to zero tolerance, there's no nuance, no exceptions and little, if anything, in the way of considerations - in most cases, school administrators will blindly follow policy because it's the path of least resistance (and liability). It's how victims of bullying end up expelled after defending themselves or how students are placed in cuffs for bringing an aspirin to school.

It's how a student with a stellar academic record and a clean disciplinary record may end up with a felony record, something that'll kneecap her education and career prospects right off the bat. Her induction into the annals of the U.S. justice system may snuff out any sort of spark she had before. You don't need a gun to kill  a promising young black person - just shove them into the school-to-prison pipeline using zero tolerance policies and watch as they die an agonizingly slow death.

I can't help but think if any considerations would have been made if she was a bit more "photogenic" in a "mainstream" way. Or maybe if she was a clean-cut male student with a promising future and plenty of remorse for his actions. I just hope that school district administrators and law enforcement officials manage to find some common sense and not railroad a young woman into a bleak future.

*Address removed.

The 2000 Presidential Election was a watershed event. Not just because it pitted one Albert Gore, Sr., Democrat nominee and Vice President to outgoing President Bill Clinton, against one George Walker Bush, Jr., Republican nominee, son of former president George Herbert Walker Bush and then-governor of Texas, but because of the effect it would have on voting, politics and future elections. It also demonstrated the sheer desperation of one party to attain and preserve power at all costs.

As a "swing state" packing 25 (now 29) electoral votes, Florida remains one of the most contested battle grounds in the presidential election. It's literally one of those states that could "go either way," puns unintended. On that election night, Bush was trailing Gore by nine electoral votes, with 37 still up in the air. 25 of those belonged to Florida, 5 to New Mexico and 7 to Oregon. Whoever tallied the most votes in Florida was guaranteed to walk away with the entire presidential election sewn up. If that outcome was neck-and-neck between the two candidates, any sort of irregularity or outright fraud could tip the scales in the other candidate's favor, allowing him to take all 25 electoral votes.

The clusterfuck that ensued on election night was years in the making. In 1998, the state of Florida passed a law to combat voter fraud. The state also signed a $4 million contract with a private firm to create a master list of names to be purged from the voter registries, with the aim of removing duplicate registrations, deceased voters and felons who were legally prohibited from voting. Of course, the process itself turned out to be a complete clusterfuck -- many voters were incorrectly identified as felons. In a state that, at that point, had 31 percent of the black male population unable to vote due to criminal convictions, that was a big deal.

These purges most likely played a significant role in the then-Republican nominee's comfortable margin of approximately 100,000 votes, at least until the counts from Broward, Miami-Dade, and Palm Beach counties started pouring in. By the time Gore conceded to Bush, the Republican's vote margin dwindled to bare triple digits, prompting a recount by officials, Gore's retraction of his concession and a renewed effort by Florida Secretary of State and Bush campaign co-chair Katherine Harris to make sure those manually counted votes came out in Bush's favor. Between the reported electronic ballot fraud, butterfly ballots, hanging chads and stories of outright voter disenfranchisement, it took a Supreme Court decision to declare a winner. In a 5-4 decision, the court decided to grant Bush's request to halt the recount while the tally was still in favor of the Texas governor.

The state of Florida, like many of its fellow southern states, has a long and rich history of voter disenfranchisement, and it looks like it's going to happen again.

According to the Broward County Supervisor of Elections, eligible voters will be removed from the voting rolls as a result of the massive voter purge ordered by Governor Rick Scott. “It will happen,” Mary Cooney, a spokeswoman for the Broward County Supervisor of Elections, told ThinkProgress.

Late last year, Governor Scott ordered his Secretary of State, Kurt Browning to “to identify and remove non-U.S. citizens from the voter rolls.” Browning could not get access to reliable citizenship data. So Scott urged election officials to identify non-U.S. citizens by comparing data from the state motor vehicle administration with the voting file.

That process produced a massive list of 182,000 names, which Browning considered unreliable. The Fair Elections Legal Network, which is challenging the purge, noted that database matching is “notoriously unreliable” and “data entry errors, similar-sounding names, and changing information can all produce false matches.” Further, some voters may have naturalized since their driver’s license information was collected.

Deja vu all over again. The GOP has found that the best way to secure important elections is to stymie the voting and registration efforts of those most likely to vote Democrat: college students, blacks, Latinos and even elderly individuals with long-standing Dem allegiances. 91-year old Bill Internicola and Maureen Russo can both attest to the efforts being made by a largely conservative political structure. Imagine a natural American citizen who fought in the Battle of the Bulge and earned a Bronze Star for his troubles being told by his state that he's not American and therefore, can't vote.

Scott's shenanigans are well-known to the state of Florida. This is the same guy who decided to order mandatory annual drug testing for welfare recipients and state workers, at $35 a pop. He also hatched a plan to move low-income and elderly state residents into managed-care plans. Private healthcare provider Solantic stood to gain plenty from all three efforts. When the good governor's ownership of this company was revealed and his ethics questioned, he transferred ownership to his wife, Ann, described as a "a homemaker involved in various charitable organizations." In other words, not only is Ricky a creepy looking bastard, he's also an ethically bankrupt creep.

The U.S. Justice Department is stepping in by ordering a halt to all voter registration purge efforts. So far, all 67 of the state's election supervisors are complying as ordered. Too bad Ricky's being a bit hardheaded, not unlike a particular someone who was being equally hardheaded:

"The Florida Secretary of State is being recalcitrant," said Judith Browne Dianis, co-director of The Advancement Project, a Washington-based voting rights advocacy group that last month asked the Justice Department to investigate. "He wants to move forward despite federal notice of illegality and supervisors of elections' refusal to purge voters. He should just quit it."

Florida is among a small number states, mostly in the South, covered by Section V of the Voting Rights Act, a 1965 law that reinforces voting rights guaranteed in the Constitution. In five Florida counties and other states, election officials have a history of such of egregious and creative efforts to suppress black and Latino votes that any changes in voting–related policy or procedure must first be approved by the Justice Department or a panel of federal judges, Browne Dianis said.

Florida failed to get clearance for its purge or its methods to identify the people the state suspects are non-citizens.

My mother always told me a hard head leads to a soft behind. If Ricky decides to continue with voter purges in defiance of a federal order, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder should be ready to break out the switch/paddle/belt/Hot Wheels race track/that wooden spoon your mamma keeps hung up on the kitchen wall/etc. If the state of Florida is allowed to continue without any consequence, you can expect other states to follow suit. There's no way Holder can appear to look even the least bit weak on this, lest it set bad precedent and make the Justice Department look toothless when it comes to defending voters' civil rights.

One idea I had that would really drop a steaming load of shit into the state's corn flakes is taking away the majority of the state's electoral votes. I'm not familiar with how that would happen, but yanking 20 of Florida's 29 votes would not only make the state's efforts in rigging the election for a GOP win moot, it would also send one hell of a message -- that you can't get away with this shit without suffering dire consequences. This is one area where I want to see President Obama walk on stage with his big-boy pants on.

With a milquetoast nominee on board and scores of crazy "true believers" at the helm, voter disenfranchisement is practically the only card left in the GOP's reelection deck. Well, that and scores of emoprogs who are really, really fed up with the president not being the Magic Negro™ they expected him to be. Rigging the vote is practically the only way that a guy like Mitt Romney can sail through the elections and into the presidency. Oddly enough, this isn't being talked about much on the mainstream media. Something about zombies taking over and eating faces instead of brains.

Left to their own devices, the GOP would very much like to rig democratic elections in their favor and if possible relegate the Democrats to a rump party that's about as effective at getting the vote out as those Socialists and Americans Elect guys. The natural inclination of the GOP is towards one-party rule.

He who controls the ballot box controls the election. Don't forget that. And don't count on the Supreme Court to straighten this mess out at the last minute. We've already seen how that worked out before.

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.

Today marks the 40th day of George Zimmerman's fugitive status. Yes, I said "fugitive." As far as I'm concerned, the man is on the run from justice. The FBI began its own investigation into Zimmerman's culpability for Martin's death and whether his actions were racially motivated. The state of Florida has yet to bring charges against Zimmerman.

Anyone who's being let off the hook for killing another person should count themselves "lucky" and book the nearest flight out of the country. I wouldn't be surprised if Zimmy did just that. Meanwhile, I'm not surprised that most white Americans see Zimmy as a misunderstood guy who just "made a mistake," or worst still, didn't do anything at all. Only in America can killing a black person be called "doing nothing."

Understandably, black Americans are pissed. Unfortunately, that tends to scare some white Americans. In response to uneasy tensions and the New Black Panthers spoiling to do something stupid, Neo-Nazi groups have taken it upon themselves to maintain the safety and integrity of whites in and around the Sanford, FL area. Just what we need most: more white guys* with guns spoiling for a "threatening" encounter with blacks. Meanwhile, some nutcase has taken it upon himself to conduct a round of ethnic cleansing in the Tulsa, OK area. Whoever he is, he needs to be stopped, whether with handcuffs or with bullets.**

Needless to say, some of the comments that followed the Neo-Nazi story in the Miami New Times disgusted and it frustrated me to no end, because there was no way I could counter such abject stupidity without losing my patience and fulfilling the stereotypes they've come to expect.

Then I read Abagond's latest blog post. It sheds a bit of light on the so-called "fear" that some people have when being around black Americans. Many white Americans use personal experience, media exposure, crime stats, learned prejudices or just abject jealousy and cowardice to convince themselves that they need to fear black Americans, to keep them at bay, to vanquish them at every turn or harness them for their own means, kinda like those mythical dragons in D&D or some other fantasy Sci-Fi game.

This "fear" is very much evident in this country's basic framework. Sometimes that fear morphs into hatred, aided by jealousy and translated into murderous actions and intent. It's happened at countless points of this nation's existence.

In essence, this "fear" is institutional, whether anyone wants to admit it or not. America's implicit acceptance of the peculiar institution, its continuance in denying black Americans full acceptance into the national fabric and its overall disregard of any worth affixed to black American life has rendered a karmic balance that has yet to be paid off. In other words:

Wanda Sykes said it best when she quipped [and I'm paraphrasing], “What you’re afraid of isn’t called reverse racism. What you’re afraid of is called karma.”

White Americans live in collective fear of a day when the shoe is on the other foot. They expect black Americans to treat them with the same sort of abuse, ridicule and disregard, under the subconscious belief that, after all, they had it coming. They expect vengeance and retribution. We don't want that. We just want to be left alone.

That's what the Greenwood section of Tulsa, OK and Rosewood, FL was all about. Black communities that sustained themselves, with black Americans going about their own business. Jealousy and hatred essentially put an end to those communities.

The Neo-Nazis in Sanford, FL are capitalizing on that fear of vengeance and retribution by positioning themselves as a "savior" and "friend" to fretful white Americans. Some already share their views and beliefs while others are only an unfortunate encounter or a convincing, self-validating argument away from subscribing to such views. Either way, just like the chumps in black liberation garb, the chumps in Aryan cosplay garb* are making a horrible situation that much worse, by providing enough dry straw for a firestorm of epic proportions. All we need (or don't need, really) is a spark.

Seriously, white America, why can't you just let us be? It would have saved Trayvon and his family a lot of grief.

*Zimmerman is about as Hispanic as a Taco Bell $2 meal deal. Live with it.
**Ever notice how when these nutbags target victims, they never seem to target actual thugs, gangbangers and the like? Because unlike that 49-year-old woman, 54-year-old man and the other 31-year old man, those young "g's" and "young bucks" are often armed and have no qualms against shooting back. It also explains why those Neo-Nazis who "patrolled" the U.S./Mexico border probably took great pains in avoiding cartels or "narcotraffacantes" who also have no qualms against shooting back. I doubt a Neo-Nazi vs. Zetas gunbattle would last long.

Austin was standing less than 20 yards away from Martin when he was shot on the night of February 26. He didn't see much that night, but says he can't shake the screams for help that he heard or the thunderclap of gunfire that nearly shook him from his shoes.

The screams rattle around in his daydreams, so loud at night that sleep hasn't come easily. And he can't stop asking himself a thousand what-ifs: What if he could have stopped it? What if he had looked "suspicious" that night, and not Martin?

"...it's really hard to walk the dog by where it happened," he said. He wondered aloud what could have happened if he had been walking the dog just a little later, or behind the house instead of in front. But most of all he wondered what if he had been the one who piqued Zimmerman's interest. What if he looked suspicious?

What if, indeed. Being a black male is perhaps one of the most hazardous occupations in the United States of America, to date. If it isn't being lured into the world of violent gangs, criminal activity and induction into the Prison-Industrial Complex, it's having your life extinguished for little to no reason, or because someone thought you represented a far-fetched "threat" to them.

This is what happened to Trayvon Martin, and it could have happened to Austin McLendon. Hell, it could still happen to Austin if he finds himself confronting someone the likes of George Zimmerman. Life is fleeting, but more so for black American males.

Now this young man has to live with bearing witness to someone having his life forfeit for no reason. And he has to live with the fact that his life could be forfeit at any given moment by anyone who sees him as a "threat." He can't even walk outside of his home without worrying if he'll face Trayvon's fate, too.

Parents all over the U.S. live with the fear of seeing their child walk out the front door, only to never come back. The extent of that fear for black parents is ten-fold when you combine gang violence, racial bigotry and an militarized police culture that sees nearly all people, but blacks especially, as "threats."

People have wondered if Trayvon Martin was white or if George Zimmerman was black, would we see the lackadaisical response from the Sanford P.D. or our mainstream media outlets. Chances are Trayvon Martin  would still be alive and George Zimmerman would be so far under the jail, the judge wouldn't even bother with sentencing. But a black kid callously shot by a white "Hispanic" man with a 100-pound weight advantage and a gun illicits no response from the local law enforcement agency or our mainstream media outlets.

We could talk about how racial stereotypes and preconceived notions about black American have allowed mainstream America to ignore a serious crisis that's under the country's noses. We could talk about how America in general tends to not see these things as problems, at least not until it touches mainstream white Americans. But this also transcends ethnic boundaries, in a way. The "Stand Your Ground" laws allow anyone with a bad temper and a firearm to boldly confront just about anyone they see as a "threat." Without any duty to retreat or resolve the situation another way, just about anyone can be killed, with the killing justified as self-defense. If this isn't America's problem, it will be soon enough.

If George Zimmerman isn't brought to justice, scores of people like him will know that all it takes to end the life of someone they don't like, find offensive or merely just pisses them off is to deem them a "threat" to themselves. After all, you're just "protecting yourself," right?

It's been 18 days and counting since Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. Zimmerman has yet to be charged and jailed for his role in killing Martin, nor has the Sanford Police Department seen fit to do anything other than give excuses, intimidate and tamper witnesses and pray this whole thing somehow blows over or disappears.

There have been a few developments. For one, the case was turned over to the Florida state district attorney's office for further investigation. Hopefully the state D.A. can find that same probable cause that seemed to elude the Sanford P.D. for the past two-and-a-half weeks. The family of Trayvon Martin is pushing for the FBI to intervene in the case.

Another development is the release of the 911 tapes, the first featuring the call made by George Zimmerman himself and the second made by a nearby resident. The second tape has Martin screaming "Help me," essentially begging for his life before you hear Zimmerman pull the trigger. Unfortunately, I can't embed those videos, so they're in the links below.

You might not want to listen to the second 911 tape. To say it's unsettling is a major understatement.

First video (audio only): Zimmerman calls 911.
Second video (audio only): Resident calls 911, Trayvon in background, shot fired.

In the second video, you can hear two shots fired: one shot near the beginning of the call and a second, louder shot towards the end. That pretty much blows Zimmerman's self-defense claims to shit. This child was murdered.

So now we need the murder weapon and the shell cases from said weapon to bring it all home, right? A commentator over at the Atlantic asked a very important question in regards to that:

I want to know if they bothered to collect shell casings, or even keep his gun, since he was released. This recording is the first reporting of two shots fired.

It's something myself and others want to know. If they didn't, it shows the Sanford P.D. didn't just do a extraordinarily sloppy job of locating and securing evidence -- they completely abrogated their duties as sworn law enforcement officers. And it is something that will make any case brought against Zimmerman that much harder to prosecute.

The entire police department deserves a federal foot shoved up its ass, but chances are the GOP will use any moves made by the DOJ on Eric Holder's watch to bitch about government somehow "overstepping its bounds" or claim Holder's involvement somehow equals racial solidarity. You know, because he's black, Trayvon's black and you know how those darkies black people love sticking up for one another.

Meanwhile, it seems like gunning down young black men is no big deal for police and other persons of authority in Sanford, Florida:

In 2005, two white security guards shot and killed Travares McGill, one of them was the son of a Sanford Police officer. The shooting drove city race relations to a modern low, according to some black residents.

Security guards Patrick Swofford and Bryan Ansley saw Travares dropping off friends in the parking lot of the apartment complex they were hired to guard, according to published reports.

The two claimed Travares tried to run them down and both fired their weapons at him, they later would claim self-defense.

Travares was pronounced dead at the scene. Swofford was a police department volunteer and Ansley is the son of a former veteran of the force.

The pair were arrested and charged, Swofford with manslaughter and Ansley with firing into an occupied vehicle. But a judge later cited lack of evidence and dismissed both cases.

According to autopsy reports, Travares suffered fatal gunshot wounds to the back, and it was unclear if the pair was in danger.

Suffice to say, some people are worried that Trayvon's death and Zimmerman's non-prosecution will wind up setting off something ugly in this turmoil-stricken town.  That "something ugly" might just be right around the corner:

The New Black Liberation Militia, a self-styled black survival group, has announced that it plans to make a citizens arrest of Zimmerman next week, the Associated Press reported.

It quoted Najee Muhammad, a group leader, saying, "We'll find him. We've got his mug shot and everything."

Natalie Jackson, a lawyer for the Martin family, said she does not support the threat, but also cannot control them.

"There are people out there with their own agendas," Jackson said. "It's nothing we condone."

Zimmerman has moved out of his Sanford home because of death threats, according to his father, Robert Zimmerman.

If these people get a hold of Zimmerman, there is no guarantee he'll live through the experience. If Zimmerman turns up dead by another man's hand at this point...

This case has some similarities to that of Easton "DJ" Henry, a young college student who was shot and killed by a Pleasantville, N.Y. police officer who claimed Henry tried to run him over with his vehicle. Henry's family and friends maintain he was moving out of a fire lane when he was murdered:

A passenger inside “DJ” Henry’s vehicle told New York authorities he thought a police officer wanted Henry to move the car he was driving by tapping the driver’s side window with a flashlight seconds before Henry was fatally shot by police in October 2010.

Desmond Hinds, 21, a Pace University football player, told police in Mount Pleasant, N.Y., that Henry, the driver, then pulled around the bend “going at a decent speed.”

Hinds said he looked down briefly, and when he looked up, he saw a person in front of the car “with his hands up together.”

“And then I saw two to three holes in the windshield,” Hinds told police.

Trigger-happy cops and young black males who are perceived as "threats," no matter how they look. Trayvon Martin was not the dark, hulking, physically superior but mentally challenged "Supernigger" that exists in the minds of FReepers and the unreconstructed among us. He was a harmless high school student who was just walking from the store with a pack of Skittles and a Arizona Ice Tea in hand.

Speaking of trigger-happy, a critical component in this entire case is Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, passed in 2005. This provision eliminates the "duty to retreat" clause that is included in most self-defense statutes. It's also how Zimmerman managed to walk away a free man shortly after killing Martin:

A person who is not engaged in an unlawful activity and who is attacked in any other place where he or she has a right to be has no duty to retreat and has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.

Given how certain segments of the population feel about other particular segments, this results in cases where one person could perceive as a threat someone who comes from a group that is perceived as a threat as a whole and given such, act in a manner that leads to the death of said person under the guise of the other acting in "self-defense." A person's perception of what constitutes a "threat" can be tainted by racism or personal prejudices. What appears to be an innocent young man can be perceived by someone indoctrinated to view that young man and others like him in a entirely negative manner as a "threat." I doubt a white teenager in a hoodie would have solicited the same sort of reaction that seeing Trayvon Martin had on George Zimmerman.

Many people have called for Zimmerman's death and I'll admit, I was in that camp, too. Now that I've sat back and cleared the unbridled anger I had over this tragedy, I'd rather see Zimmerman made to account for his actions via trial, where he can then be convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of his natural life either in an isolated jail cell or on Death Row. Killing Zimmerman will set off a horrific wave of anger, violence and ill-will the likes no one's seen. Letting Zimmerman walk will do the same thing, except it'll prove once and for all that it's Open Season on young black males and any other group the unreconstructed and Teabagging faux-patriots deem "hostile" or "undesirable" or a "threat."