Different Day, Same Shit.

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.

- You really wanna know why the Benghazi and IRS scandals dried up and blew away like that fresh parsley you forgot to put away that one time? According to Greg Gutfeld of Fox News, it was the Zimmerman trial. If only that "little ghetto thug monkey" had the common decency to not get himself killed by that George feller, our favorite Socialist Marxist Kenyan in Chief would be taking his last ride in the "Bulletproof Jesus" back to Chicago.

- Among the many, many stupid things the GOP-dominated North Carolina legislation has done*, its now allowing gun owners with concealed-carry permits to tote their weapons in bars and playgrounds across the state. At least it didn't fly with the controversial provision calling for the end of background checks or handgun permits.

Now, we all know that kids and guns don't mix. Liquor and guns don't mix, either. I'm sure the N.C. legislature knows that, but it can't be bothered to give two fucks as it rushes to push the Overton window as far towards the right as possible. And quite possibly over a cliff. That should give people something to talk about during the next "Moral Mondays" protest.

Meanwhile, the state wants to fingerprint welfare recipients. Because they're all probably criminals, anyway. Too bad it's likely to cost the Department of Social Services a lot of money to do it. But that's "small government" for you.

- I'm sure Margie Rhea Ramey is a nice enough woman. She just got tired of people "tearing up her driveway" and decided to do something about it:

Oscar Scott and his family of seven decided to go out for a nice Sunday visit to Bays Mountain Park in northeastern Tennessee. When it was time to go home, they thought it’d be nice to take the scenic route. After enjoying some scenery, they came across Bays Mountain Road and took it, curious to see if it would take them back to the park. After going a ways down the road, they noticed that the road became very narrow and turned in to what Scott described as “an old log road.” Figuring it was best to turn around, he put the car in reverse, and chaos ensued.

Margie Rhea Ramey saw the car go into reverse from her front porch, where she’d been sitting with a few other people. Sick of people who were “tearing up her driveway,” Margie started yelling. Before they even touched her driveway, Scott’s son asked “Does she got a gun?” and Margie opened fire on the SUV carrying five children, ages four to twelve. She fired two shots, one hitting close to where the children were seated in the car. Scott’s wife yelled to her that they were simply turning around, but ol’ Margie wasn’t having it. Scott put pedal to the metal and got them out of there as fast as he could and called the police.

Ramey was detained, charged with seven counts of reckless endangerment (most likely a misdemeanor charge) and later released on $1,000 bond on Sunday. Luckily for her, she didn't share the same skin tone as a certain Marissa Alexander, otherwise she'd be looking at a 20-year bid. And rest assured Oscar Scott won't be taking that scenic route ever again.

But hey, despite one of those bullets coming close to where the kids were, at least she didn't point blank shoot anyone in the face like this guy did, and right in front of the poor bastard's wife, too. Puts "standing your ground" in a whole new light.

- Texas is #1 when it comes to lost and stolen firearms, according to a report from the BATFE. Georgia, Florida, California and North Carolina round out the top five states. From the report:

“In 2012, NCIC received reports reflecting 190,342 lost and stolen firearms nationwide. Of those 190,342 lost and stolen firearms reported, 16,667 (9% of the total reported) were the result of thefts/losses from FFLs. Of the 16,667 firearms reported as lost or stolen from a FFL, a total of 10,915 firearms were reported as lost. The remaining 5,762 were reported as stolen.”

- A young woman characterized as "ghetto" and "dumb and stupid" is now receiving a full-ride scholarship to the HBCU of her choosing, along with the tutoring and mentoring to help her graduate from high school and move on to bigger and better things. After what she's been through, Rachel Jeantel deserves that and much more.

- You can add Madonna, Usher, Patti Labelle, Kanye West, Jay Z, the Rolling Stones, Justin Timberlake, R. Kelly, Rhianna, Alicia Keys, will i am, Erykah Badu and Rod Stewart to the list of people who are staying the hell away from Florida until it does something about its "Stand Your Ground" laws.

Wait, you mean that's just a rumor? Damn. These celebs could have put some force behind this thing in a way that only Change.org could dream of. Sadly, this means our friend MichaelJay over at WPTV.com can't keep up his entitled white rage against Jay-Z and Beyonce:

I say lets boycott Jay Z, Beyonce. Their obviously racist themselves.They dont care about white blood being spilled only black. This just in Zimmerman not WHITE!!!!!!!! I WILL NEVER LISTEN TO ANOTHER PIECE OF RACIST MUSIC COMING FROM EITHER OF THOSE ARTIST..........

Projection's a hell of a thing. And get a load of the argument that Zimmerman's a Hispanic, in spite of his very much white father*.

- Terrell Gausha wasn't happy about the way the Zimmerman trial went down:

“When I represented my country in the Olympics, I was proud to wear my flag. I even wore it on my head on the way to the ring. What happened this weekend was a slap in the face.”

So Gausha's putting the red, white and blues away. I hope he braces himself for the flood of hatred and vitriol headed his way, courtesy of the MichaelJays of the world. And let's also hope he doesn't get the kind of death threats Michael Vick got over his autobiography.

Last up, Jasiri-X:


*I'll get to this ASAP. It's a trip.
*I guess the "One Drop Rule" doesn't apply here.

Being the President of the United States is already hard work. Being one who happens to be a man of color in the aftermath of one out of a long string of horrific miscarriages of justice is a task of nearly-Herculean proportions, especially when countless people have their own expectations of what should or shouldn't be said.

As someone occupying a seat of immense global power, you'd think that a man like the president would have a great deal of latitude over how to publicly express his feelings on Trayvon Martin. Unfortunately, the man's obligated to play the role of "America's President™" and any attempt to voice his true feelings in a way that seemingly sides with one side of the aisle would be conflated into favoritism.

One commentator over at Abagond felt that the president did not show the outpouring of emotion or the fluidity of speech that he displayed during the Sandy Hook tragedy. Watching the speech myself in its entirety, what I saw was a man who's literally walking on oratorical eggshells - a man attempting to voice how he feels about the Zimmerman trial and its effects on the black community without disrupting, diluting or invalidating the message in the eyes of a mainstream audience that's sensitive to perceived judgement and slights, despite being more than comfortable with issuing their own.

I've taken the time to unpack my own thoughts and feelings about the president's speech, highlighting sections that stood out to me as I see fit, thanks to the convenient transcript posted in its entirety over at Huffington Post:

The second thing I want to say is to reiterate what I said on Sunday, which is there’s going to be a lot of arguments about the legal issues in the case -- I'll let all the legal analysts and talking heads address those issues. The judge conducted the trial in a professional manner. The prosecution and the defense made their arguments. The juries were properly instructed that in a case such as this reasonable doubt was relevant, and they rendered a verdict. And once the jury has spoken, that's how our system works.

Unlike former president Jimmy Carter, the president never says he thought the jury made the right call or that he agrees with the jury's decision. He only mentions that the above is how the system "works" in this country. The matter of whether the trial was actually conducted in a manner resembling professionalism is left up for debate.

You know, when Trayvon Martin was first shot I said that this could have been my son. Another way of saying that is Trayvon Martin could have been me 35 years ago. And when you think about why, in the African American community at least, there’s a lot of pain around what happened here, I think it’s important to recognize that the African American community is looking at this issue through a set of experiences and a history that doesn’t go away.

There are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store. That includes me. There are very few African American men who haven't had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me -- at least before I was a senator. There are very few African Americans who haven't had the experience of getting on an elevator and a woman clutching her purse nervously and holding her breath until she had a chance to get off. That happens often.

Here, the president highlights the history of suspicion being cast upon black Americans regardless of activity or intention. He's right - 35 years ago, he would have been just another Trayvon Martin, more so if he grew up in a place like central Florida. He doesn't go into the infamous "talk" that every black male gets as he gets of age - in my opinion, that's a missed opportunity.

Now, this isn't to say that the African American community is naïve about the fact that African American young men are disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system; that they’re disproportionately both victims and perpetrators of violence. It’s not to make excuses for that fact -- although black folks do interpret the reasons for that in a historical context. They understand that some of the violence that takes place in poor black neighborhoods around the country is born out of a very violent past in this country, and that the poverty and dysfunction that we see in those communities can be traced to a very difficult history.

And so the fact that sometimes that’s unacknowledged adds to the frustration. And the fact that a lot of African American boys are painted with a broad brush and the excuse is given, well, there are these statistics out there that show that African American boys are more violent -- using that as an excuse to then see sons treated differently causes pain.

The president responds to the old chestnut of black-on-black crime by saying, in essence, "yes, we realize it's a problem. We're not stupid." He deftly links the problem to poverty and America's own screwed-up history, not to any sense of innate black criminality. He also goes on to explain how the assumption of black criminality affects and frustrates to no end young black men who are most definitely not criminals, but are assumed to be by America at large.

I think it’s understandable that there have been demonstrations and vigils and protests, and some of that stuff is just going to have to work its way through, as long as it remains nonviolent. If I see any violence, then I will remind folks that that dishonors what happened to Trayvon Martin and his family. But beyond protests or vigils, the question is, are there some concrete things that we might be able to do.

Considering how there have been relatively few, if any riots in the aftermath of the case, I find this bit of preemptive advisory from the highest authority of the land to be a bit...unnecessary.

Along the same lines, I think it would be useful for us to examine some state and local laws to see if it -- if they are designed in such a way that they may encourage the kinds of altercations and confrontations and tragedies that we saw in the Florida case, rather than diffuse potential altercations.

I know that there's been commentary about the fact that the "stand your ground" laws in Florida were not used as a defense in the case. On the other hand, if we're sending a message as a society in our communities that someone who is armed potentially has the right to use those firearms even if there's a way for them to exit from a situation, is that really going to be contributing to the kind of peace and security and order that we'd like to see?

At one time, most states featured a "duty to retreat" clause in their self-defense laws. With the advent of "Stand Your Ground," the duty to remove oneself from a dangerous situation before resorting to lethal force went out the window. The end result has been a string of cases where one side or another would have lived had it not been for the over-zealousness that a SYG policy offers to those involved.

What I and many others would like to see is SYG be suspended or preferably terminated across the board until a saner self-defense policy can be developed.

And for those who resist that idea that we should think about something like these "stand your ground" laws, I'd just ask people to consider, if Trayvon Martin was of age and armed, could he have stood his ground on that sidewalk? And do we actually think that he would have been justified in shooting Mr. Zimmerman who had followed him in a car because he felt threatened? And if the answer to that question is at least ambiguous, then it seems to me that we might want to examine those kinds of laws.

As I said before, if Trayvon Martin had been an actual, visible threat - armed or not - it's likely that Zimmerman would have gladly followed the 911 dispatcher's advice to leave the "heroics" to the police. Seeing someone who was not only defenseless and not surrounded by people who could, at the very least, scare him off, Zimmerman took an opportunity only rank cowards could love - the opportunity to harass and scare someone who was visibly weaker than he was to justify his own preconceptions. When it became apparent that Trayvon Martin would put up some kind of defense, Zimmerman escalated to lethal force.

To answer the question as it was intended, the realities of Trayvon Martin's racial background and standing, combined with a deceased Zimmerman's resources (in the form of his father, Judge Robert Zimmerman, Sr.) and America's own opinions of armed or potentially armed black males, it's likely he would end up with the same or worse treatment that Marissa Alexander suffered at the hands of the justice system for a mere warning shot. 20 years for Ms. Alexander, a possible life sentence - or the death penalty - for Mr. Martin.

There has been talk about should we convene a conversation on race. I haven't seen that be particularly productive when politicians try to organize conversations. They end up being stilted and politicized, and folks are locked into the positions they already have. On the other hand, in families and churches and workplaces, there's the possibility that people are a little bit more honest, and at least you ask yourself your own questions about, am I wringing as much bias out of myself as I can? Am I judging people as much as I can, based on not the color of their skin, but the content of their character? That would, I think, be an appropriate exercise in the wake of this tragedy.

America has never been comfortable with discussing race or any policies that have anything to do with race. The president wants the people to carry on dialog among themselves and their families. I don't see that working too well, either. People are often locked into what they want to think unless it touches them in an extraordinarily personal way.

I think we could use an honest, national dialogue about race, but that's a long time coming, if it ever comes. In the meantime, it's my personal opinion that the black community should do everything it can to protect itself and its most precious commodity - its children - as much as possible. That's about the only thing that can be realistically done.

At least until the president or someone else decides to risk the political capital and do something to bring about a fundamental positive change in ethnic relations and civil rights.

And that's the thing that I think pisses off many people more than anything else. The fact that the president has the most powerful platform in the world to bring about genuine social change as he pleases, yet he seemingly does nothing with it. Of course, he does well when it comes to quietly bringing game-changing mandates and bills into play through the so-called "11-dimensional chess" game. Unfortunately, people want change they can readily see and immediately feel.

President Obama was voted into office based on that desire for change and for the first three months, it seemed like he was in a position to do anything he damn well pleased. When it became apparent that he wasn't going to grab the bull by the horns, but instead guide the bull around with carefully placed feed, Americans expecting swift change were miffed, to say the least. He seemed like a lame duck long before his second term.

Lyndon Baines Johnson understood exactly what he was risking when he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the end, it cost the Democrat party its entire wing of Dixiecrat hangers-on.* In light of the GOP's various attempts to ensure monolithic power throughout America, would it really be wise and prudent for the president to risk his own political capital and the possibility of complete GOP dominance for the foreseeable future by, say, ushering in Universal Heathcare whole-hog? That's a good question for anyone to ask...

---

Not too many people are happy with the president's speech. White conservative commentators felt the president should shut the hell up about race. Black talking heads feel he should talk about it more and in a much more direct manner. Those on the "professional left," the so-called "emoprogs" and "puritopians," are extremely offended over the possible implication that they are not as "colorblind" or "post-racial" as they thought and extraordinarily miffed over black media being more preoccupied with the outcome of the Zimmerman trial than with drones, the NSA or Edward Snowden's next cross-continental stop as he searches for asylum.

Nevertheless, the president said what he was able to say and he still managed to bring his message forward in a clear and concise manner. No, I'm not completely satisfied with his speech, but I feel he did exactly what was required of him as President of these United States.

*Some say that it eventually worked out for the better. Too bad we got Reagan's right-wing revolution out of it.

While the rest of the Twitterverse pays close attention to the self-important wordsmithings of both Glenn Greenwald and David Sirota, yours truly has never been up for watching both intellectually masturbate themselves and each other into smug, self-satisfied ecstasy. It's only when one or both do or say something so irretrievably stupid that The Man bothers to take a closer look.

Today, Sirota performed that epic feat of intellectual stupidity with one of his Salon articles. Seriously, Sirota thinks that a racially-motivated killing done under the cloak of a flawed law and institutional racism is the equivalent of the president's decision to eliminate a top-ranking American-Yemeni terrorist via Predator drone:

Remember, in the same year that saw Zimmerman kill Martin, Zimmerman’s president, Barack Obama, extra-judicially executed Anwar al-Awlaki and then his 16-year-old son, without charging either of the two U.S. citizens with a single crime. The two were simply presumed guilty, without any evidence being officially marshaled against them. Not only that, such a presumption wasn’t hidden from view in shame, as if it was something to be embarrassed about. Instead, Obama openly touted the extra-judicial killing of the father and then his spokesman haughtily justified the extra-judicial killing of the child.

Explaining the Zimmerman-like aggression against the Awlakis and thousands of others who find themselves targeted by U.S. drone strike missiles, the federal government later offered up the Zimmerman Principle, repeating the same sentiment that Zimmerman expressed during his cellphone call to non-emergency responders.

Whereas Zimmerman told non-emergency responders that Martin “looks like he’s up to no good,” the New York Times reported that Obama’s indiscriminate drone bombing, which “counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants,” presumes that people in a targeted area are “probably up to no good.” In other words, when it comes to military policy, the Obama administration is George Zimmerman perceiving the world as filled with Trayvon Martins supposedly “up to no good” — and who supposedly therefore deserve to die.

It is, of course, no coincidence that, whether African-Americans like Martin or Arabs like the Awlakis, those most affected by the Zimmerman Principle’s presumption of guilt tend to be people of color.

So, whereas all Zimmerman had to do was stay in the car until the police could arrive and roust Trayvon Martin with legal sanction, all the president had to do was put the drones away and apparently commit billions of dollars and thousands of troops to a manhunt and hopeful arrest of al-Awlaki, where he could then be tried and convicted in a civilian court (given his status as a U.S. citizen) as Sirota apparently intended.

According to Sirota, America, or the president, to be more precise, is that neighborhood watch doofus with his fat finger wrapped around the trigger, waddling towards al-Awalaki as he walks home with Skittles and Arizona iced tea in hand.

Whereas Trayvon Martin was just an ordinary 17-year-old young man, conservatives, Zimmerman supporters and other unreconstructed love painting Martin as some sort of weed-smoking thug-in-training for whom Zimmerman did the world a favor of ridding. Meanwhile, al-Awlaki willingly integrated himself into the Al-Qaeda network, calling for the deaths of American civilians and soldiers alike. Perhaps that was just bluster to make his American-Yemeni self appear more palatable to his backers. Not Safe For Work Corp had a story on this very premise of image and communication to bolster one's image as a "true believer," but that's beside the point. Point is, Sirota attempts to rehab al-Awlaki's image into a Martin-like bystander who's only true vice was being in the path of the president's Zimmerman-like drone-assisted rage.

One always runs into comparisons of one highly charged event or historical figure to another, sometimes as a springboard for someone's pet causes. The constant comparisons of the LGBT movement to the Civil Rights movement for black American equality is one. The GOP's constant attempts to repaint Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as a conservative figure for their own purposes is another. Sirota's attempt to conflate Zimmerman's current state of freedom to the president's freedom to call on as many drone strikes as he pleases fits the bill to a tee.

I don't think Davy here understands his history well enough to understand that (1) there's centuries of racial antagonism behind Zimmerman's actions that serve as a round hole to his square peg of a drone narrative and (2) it is highly offensive to use Martin's death at the hands of Zimmerman to push forward a message attacking the president for his use of drones in the waning War on Terror, as opposed to keeping thousands of active troops on the ground.

Speaking of which, I think I get Davy's premise. With drones, there are no U.S. casualties covered with flags on homebound transport for Sirota and others to use in order to pressure the president to cut the War on Terror short and bring the troops home. With drones, the incentive for any sort of immediate withdrawal nearly vanishes. Fewer dead U.S. soldiers means less pressure to pack it all up and bring everything home, just as they thought the president promised back in 2008/2009.

It's no surprise that Sirota thinks the president is just as much of an unabashed racist and failure as George Zimmerman is. As far as he's concerned, the president failed to bring home the emoprog bacon when he decided to push forward with the War on Terror instead of putting an immediate end to it. These and other non-actions on part of the president managed to land him on the emoprog shitlist. So much so, in fact, that guys like Cenk Uygur have called for the president's arrest and conviction as a war criminal. Sound familiar?

Bob Cesca's Daily Banter piece points out three important things:

1. The above is the latest attempt for Sirota and his fellow emoprogs to step all over the president for being just another George Bush, in their own humble opinions.
2. Yet these same morons are more than willing to stand with the likes of Ron and Rand Paul. Sirota loves Rand's stand on drones (at least when it comes to terrorists overseas) while blithely ignoring Rand's position on the Civil Rights Act, states' rights and a whole slew of classic Dixiecrat views and opinions on race.
3. Sirota and the anti-Obama emoprog collective's misappropriation of Martin's image further isolates them from the remainder of the left, while making them the perfect patsies for any milquetoast conservative wanting to lead anyone from the fringe left off the proverbial cliff.

Like Cesca, I won't explicitly say that any of these jokers are racists. But it's safe to say that these self-important morons are...well, just that.

Next thing you know, Glenn Greenwald will start crying about how the Trayvon Martin case sucked all the oxygen out of the room in an attempt to distract people from Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Graffiti means a lot of different things to different people and how it's used - or even its mere placement - brings out a wide variety of reactions from people.

Graffiti, at its core, is vandalism, since it involves defacing a public or private area without permission. The presence of graffiti marks an area as run-down and unkempt. The longer it stays on a surface, the further that image is embedded into the conscious of passersby.

In hotly-contested gang areas, it's a demarcation of territory to be respected on pain of conflict and possible death. Crossing out another gang's "tag" with your own is grounds for deadly retaliation.

Graffiti is also an art form, as evinced by the colorful, ingenious and expressive works found throughout countless urban environs. Some graffiti artists manage to gain national and global fanfare for their works. Kobra, Banksy and David Choe, for starters.

Graffiti is also a way for the traditionally voiceless to voice their opinions and vent. Whether it's frustration with law enforcement, an impromptu and brief eulogy for friends and family passed, or to reaffirm one's identity, it's often done with a can of spray paint and a fleeting moment.

If the graffiti happens to be of the sort the likes of Banksy would produce, it's often admired and photographed by passersby. Otherwise, it's often ignored until the property owner or another graffiti artist or tagger covers it up or tags over it.

Sometimes, the underlying dynamics surrounding graffiti and assumptions about those who are most likely to do it...makes people uncomfortable.

---

Grant Henry is an Atlanta-area artist and owner of Sister Louisa's Church of the Living Room and Ping Pong Emporium, a church-themed bar and lounge located in the Old Fourth Ward, not far from Ebenezer Baptist Church and The King Center.

Henry and a fellow patron at his bar covered up the above graffiti posted on a building located on the corner of Irwin and Randolph Street, after it had, in his words, "brought fear to the core of my being."

"Brought fear to the core of my being." As a gentleman of color, I pondered this statement. Exactly what does Grant Henry have to fear from a simple tag left behind by someone obviously affected by the outcome of the Zimmerman trial?

In Henry's own words:

Last night around 10:00pm I drove up Randolph and at the corner of Irwin saw the graffiti that brought fear to the core of my being, fear that riots could change the face of our neighborhood in the shadow of The Martin Luther King Center.

Many thoughts went through my head:
1: Who owns the building?
2. Could I be arrested for covering it up?
3. Is covering evil graffiti justified?
4. Should I call the city?
5. Should I get permission from someone?

Out of fear that this evil message would spread like wildfire, I got home and grabbed a can of black spray paint,went to CHURCH and grabbed a witness, then went back to the scene and painted over the graffiti.

I was running to my car after blacking out the hate...then bolted back to add the (heart symbol) to justify that my graffiti was not compounding the message of evil.

When the adrenaline ceased from the fear that I felt, I found out that at the exact moment of adding the (heart symbol), the Zimmerman NOT GUILTY Verdict was announced.

Whoever owns the building, i am willing to pay to have the wall painted over the graffiti.

I apologize to whomever, but I would probably do it again to try to nip danger in the bud and to ensure that the positive we are trying to build In our City is not lost to the ignorance of a few.

"The ignorance of a few."

In light of the turmoil and trauma surrounding the Zimmerman case, people have chosen to vent in their own ways, many of them extraordinarily productive, others in the most destructive way possible.

I don't condone graffiti done in public or private venues without permission. However, I do understand a person's need to vent, especially after an emotionally charged event like this. The individual who left the message "Fuck APD RIOT 4 TRAYVON" was venting.

With a bit of black paint, Mr. Henry, in effect, silenced that individual's voice.

That's what gets to me. The fact that someone's voice can be silenced wholesale by someone else who hasn't shared any of the trials, tribulations and experiences of that person, after invoking an international black icon for peace and equality to justify his own actions, gets to me.

Black voices are constantly silenced, muffled, moderated and curated by others who simply don't feel comfortable with these voices ringing loud and unfiltered. Apparently, Mr. Henry just didn't feel comfortable with that so-called "message of evil" being left behind in his neighborhood.

I'm sure like so many others in his position, Mr. Henry's intentions were rather noble. While many of history's major issues are resolved through the hot fires of violence, many of history's issues have also been settled through peaceful means. Many people have clutched their pearls over the possibility of violent riots, but people who chose to stand in solidarity with Trayvon Martin and others like him have chosen the route of peaceful protest. I'm sure Mr. Henry did not want to see the Old Fourth Ward or any other neighborhood die in the white-hot fires of anger, frustration, misplaced vengeance and hatred.

With that said, that doesn't justify speaking for another by censoring that person's message. In fact, the only "message of evil" I see is one consisting of three black bars...and a heart symbol. I'm not feeling the love, here.

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.

Courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel

Right about now, George is probably hoping that out of those 40 potential jurors, his defense team can narrow those down to 12 fine folks who'll follow in the grand tradition of the all-white jury.

Last time on DDSS, yours truly left you with the image of George Zimmerman sweating bullets over jury selection, hoping he wouldn't end up with, ahem, a jury of Trayvon Martin's peers, so to speak. With the selection of six women, five of whom are white and one who's Hispanic, George can rest a little easier. Looks like what I said about the grand tradition of the all-white jury is slowly coming into fruition.

To my understanding, Florida courts only require a jury of 12 in capital cases where the death penalty is on the table. That leaves the fate of Zimmerman and the opportunity for justice to be truly served hinged on the decision-making processes of six female jurors and if needed, one or more of their four alternates (consisting of two men and two women).

I don't like where this is going. Not one bit.

Let's take a look at the jury, courtesy of the Orlando Sentinel. Parts that stand out to me are highlighted as follows:

B-29: A nurse on an Alzheimer's ward who is black or Hispanic, has several children, is married and lived in Chicago at the time of shooting. She said she doesn't watch the news, preferring reality television: "Right when we got here, I got cable... I love my reality shows." During jury selection, she said she was arrested once in Chicago.

B-76: A white, middle-aged woman who said Zimmerman had an "altercation with the young man. There was a struggle and the gun went off." Has been married 30 years, and is unemployed. She formerly worked with her husband in his construction company. Her 28-year-old son is an attorney in Seminole County. She also has a daughter, 26, has been a victim of non-violent crime and rescues "a lot of pets."

B-37: A middle-aged white woman who has worked for a chiropractor for 16 years and has many pets. She described protests in Sanford as "rioting." Her husband is an attorney. She has two daughters: A 24-year-old dog groomer and a 27-year-old who attends the University of Central Florida. She used to have concealed weapons permit, but let it lapse. Her husband also has one.

B-51: A retired white woman from Oviedo who has a dog and 20-year-old cat. She knew a good deal about the case, but said "I'm not rigid in my thinking." She has been in Seminole County for nine years, is unmarried and has no kids. She previously lived in Atlanta, and used to work in real estate. She also ran a call center in Brevard County which she said had 1,200 employees.

E-6: A young white woman and mother who used to work in financial services. She used this case as an example to her two adolescent children, warning them to not go out at night. She has lived in Seminole County for eight years, and is married to an engineer. She was arrested in Brevard County, but said she "was treated completely fairly." Her husband has guns.

E-40: A white woman in her 60s who lived in Iowa at the time of the shooting. She heard national news reports and recalls the shooting was in a gated community and a teenager was killed. She described herself as safety officer, is married to a chemical engineer and loves football. She has a 28-year-old son who's out of work. She said she's very well versed in cell phone technology, and has been a victim of crime.

And the alternate jurors:

E-54: A middle-aged white man with a teenage stepson who wears hoodies. He recalled seeing photos of Zimmerman's head and face that show injuries. E-54 loves golf and genealogy, and said he's been married for five years to a technical engineer. He grew up in Seminole County and has a teenage stepson.

B-72: A young man who is possibly Hispanic, does maintenance at a school and competes in arm wrestling tournaments. He said he avoids the news because he does not want to be "brainwashed." He grew up in Chicago, is single and an alumni of Phi Beta Kappa. He is very physically active, and was a high school athlete. He said that he doesn't believe you can determine a person's strength based solely on their size or how they look.

E-13: A young white woman who goes to college and works two jobs, one of them as a surgical assistant. She heard the shooting was a "racial thing." She said she could be a fair juror "just because I don't really know that much." She is single, has lived in Seminole County for 17 years and attends church. She also owns and rides horses.

E-28: A middle-aged white woman who has worked as a nurse for 26 years. She knew little about the case and has no opinion about Zimmerman's guilt. She has lived in Seminole County since 1985, and has been married for 28 years. Her husband is a teacher and they have two adult children, 27 and 23 years old.

These are the people tasked with determining whether George Zimmerman will be convicted for the murder of Trayvon Martin or be cleared of his current charges. In addition, the judge in the case, circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson, is disallowing the prosecution from presenting two audio experts who maintain that the source of the screaming heard on 911 tapes was most likely Trayvon Martin.

Little wonder the Martin family had to turn to the power of prayer in hopes of getting something vaguely resembling justice. This trial has all the elements of a monumental clusterfuck, one with deep-setting effects that could last for years, if not decades. Let's pray that it turns out otherwise.

George Zimmerman's trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin is well under way, with the court entering its second phase of jury selection. Right about now, George is probably hoping that out of those 40 potential jurors, his defense team can narrow those down to 12 fine folks who'll follow in the grand tradition of the all-white jury. Attempts to besmirch Martin's character as just another punk/thug/criminal-in-training whose forced departure from this plane was a net benefit came in the form of the following cell phone video shot by Martin of two unknown men fighting one another over a bicycle:

I haven't heard anything in the way of new developments regarding the Trayvon Martin case. It's just as well, now that Michael David Dunn is in the news:

A Brevard County man was in jail Monday, accused of shooting a teenager dead in an argument over loud music.

Michael David Dunn, 45, and his girlfriend were in Jacksonville Friday for Dunn's son's wedding when they stopped at a convenience store, Jacksonville sheriff's Lt. Rob Schoonover said.

Jordan Russell Davis, 17, and several other teenagers were sitting in a sport utility vehicle in the parking lot when Dunn pulled up next to them in a car and asked them to turn down their music, Schoonover said.

Jordan and Dunn exchanged words, and Dunn pulled a gun and shot eight or nine times, striking Jordan twice, Schoonover said. Jordan was sitting in the back seat. No one else was hurt. [source]

In short, it's a case of a middle-aged white male who took it upon himself to order a few rowdy Negros into silence. No one's saying what sort of words were exchanged, but I'd bet money there was an N-word or something approximate to that involved. During that exchange, he felt "threatened" enough to unload eight rounds into a parked SUV.

Dunn's attorney Monday said her client acted responsibly and in self-defense. She did not elaborate.

I recognize his attorney's duty to duly defend her client to the best of her abilities. However, I still would like to point out that the above is pure, unadulterated bullshit. I seriously doubt this man acted under any semblance of self-defense. Instead, he let his anger, whether racially motivated or not, take over in the worst manner possible. This should be something worth throwing him under the jail for.

Dunn, a gun collector, was arrested Saturday at his home in Satellite Beach on charges of murder and attempted murder. He was being held without bail.

This man knew better. To sum it up, courtesy of Gawker commentator "otownjester":

You use a gun to kill. You do not pull a gun unless that is your intention. You do not use a gun to intimidate, coerce, or to feel powerful. It is a tool, that we as citizens deserve to have to protect our personal liberties so that any random individual cannot use his might to make right. Growing up, it was very strict how to handle, clean, and use a gun. We never thought oh you can just pull it out any time you are agitated. No. This man like the dude in the Trayvon Martin case were hot heads, irresponsible gun owners, and worse make gun owners appear irrational and violent. This man was a bully and he had no right asking those kids to do shit. If the music was that bad, you call the police... that is their job.

Michael David Dunn used his hand-held might to make his own form of right. He should be made to pay for it and pay for it dearly.

It's been established throughout history that there's nothing scarier to many Americans than the sight of a black man with a gun, let alone a large group of black men armed to the teeth. Often ignored is how gun ownership by white Americans surpasses other ethnic groups by a factor of 2.5 to 1. A black man with a gun is scary to many whites, but a white man with a gun is even scarier to most blacks, especially considering past and present news. If Trayvon Martin was alive, he'd attest to that very fact himself.

In fact, it was the New Black Panther Party agitating for "alternative justice" in regards to George Zimmerman that spurred on white American alarm, which included an offer by a Neo-Nazi group to keep an eye out on "anyone" who could potentially "cause problems." The Daily Caller recently glommed on a feature in the NBPP spring edition newsletter where columnist Chawn Kweli lamented how the election of President Barack Obama into office has yet to produce any visibly positive results for the black community. Given the backlash over having a man of distinctive color in the Oval Office and Trayvon Martin's death as a bellwether for ethnic relations in the U.S., I can understand this sentiment. It does seem as though Obama hasn't done enough, if anything, for the plight of black Americans in supposedly "post-racial" America.

The NBPP wonders if black Americans should stop relying on The Ballot and start using The Bullet to get their points across. I believe that could end up backfiring in a bad way. Blacks taking up The Bullet in significant numbers would be the stuff of survivalist/race realist/"real American" militia dreams, as it would be Card Blanche for those groups to finally put an end to America's "black problem" once and for all. Yes, plenty of people still think this way. In a country where weapons stockpiling is often a first response to any crisis, armed protest could be an especially bloody affair.

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The beauty of Martin Luther King Jr's non-violent movement was that it took away any justification for opponents to respond to those organized gatherings with shocking amounts of violence. Actually, that's the beauty of any non-violent protest -- the armed-to-the-teeth group that does the beating (and occasionally, shooting) winds up the pariah/bad guy while the general public is outraged and shocked into supporting the unarmed group. It worked for Mohandas Gandhi, MLK Jr's Civil Rights movement, the suffragettes and currently, the Occupy Wall Street movement, although it's becoming not as effective due to a unique circumstance involving today's media.

Now, arm those same people and the armed group, usually law enforcement or some other state/corporate-backed group, now has justification for opening a can of whip-ass on that group. Once those folks start attacking the agents of orderly society, they receive a lot less sympathy from others. It's what the Palestinians have to deal with every time Hamas or Hezbollah does something against the IDF or the Israeli population. It's easy to convince people that someone or some group had it coming.

Considering how prevalent the narrative of blacks as criminals and dangerous beings is, it's extraordinarily easy to cast any black group that uses The Bullet as bad guys who must be stopped at all cost, to the exclusion of any message they happen to have. It's how the FBI's COINTELPRO was allowed to "neutralize" the original Black Panthers and other likeminded groups.

Something to think about: black gangs like the Piru, Crips and Gangsters Disciples are considered less harmful than the Black Panthers ever were. Now, give those groups a sense of unity with one another and a political focus, and suddenly they become targets for "neutralization." Not trying to go the conspiracy theory route, but it's something for people to chew on.

I'm not trying to persuade people into being passive and defenseless, but going the way of The Bullet™ out of frustration is a route that often dead ends at many dead and the clock of progress turned back a long ways. Who's to say that an armed response from black America wouldn't result in a frightened white American populace cosigning on the revival of segregation or worse still, a systematic genocide covered under the blanket of the War on Terror, with black Americans who display the slightest amount of uprightness being tagged a terrorist and fit for termination, accordingly?

Then again, who's to say that an armed response from black America wouldn't result in black Americans finally gaining some begrudging respect from a populace and a government that's done all it can to ignore and disrespect them, or hell, even their own slice of land in which they could peacefully govern autonomously and also once-and-for-all prove preconceived notions of black governance resulting in automatic failure wrong? The Native Americans who once had total control over parts of this nation could attest to how that turned out and how the U.S. is still bent on letting that problem "solve itself" via hands-off, slow-motion genocide

Still, I wouldn't mind if more black Americans who are able to own and carry firearms did so, if only to give those who are intent on doing them harm some pause. However, if black Americans were to suddenly purchase firearms, apply for concealed carry permits and open carry in significant numbers, the same people who are all about the right to bear arms as clearly delineated in the 2nd Amendment may very well end up being the first to advocate some sort of gun control scheme applied solely towards black Americans and other groups whom gun ownership is deemed undesirable by the majority. Laws that prohibit those with felony criminal records from gun ownership already behave this way, especially if you consider how black American men are more likely to have one than their white counterparts.

Meanwhile, I'm not throwing in the towel on The Ballot or Barack Obama. Given the political realities that came crashing down six months after his term began, the man has had to tread light in order to keep the appearance of being the entire nation's president and not just one who caters to "his own people.*" Once he secures his second term and becomes a "lame duck" who can afford to not give a damn, that's when people can accurately determine whether he has the heart to go to bat for black Americans. Keep in mind that black Americans shouldn't rely solely on the president when it comes to creating political change.

George Zimmerman's verdict could be the ultimate test of which way black Americans will turn. If he's convicted and sentenced to a reasonable prison term, blacks may be more inclined to stick with The Ballot. If he's pronounced "not guilty" and set free, there's a strong chance The Bullet will be the choice of many black Americans frustrated with a process that seems hell-bent on frustrating and destroying them.

*That blog post on tribalism and how it affects politics in America is still forthcoming.