Excerpts from one of the best posts I've seen about #TravyonMartin

"How do we make sense of the senseless?

 "If this were 1912 and not 2012, we would call a Black man killed by a one-man firing squad with no just cause what it is: a lynching. These days, we search for euphemisms. Self-defense. That feels so inadequate. I mean, whose selves really need defending if it is Black selves--primarily Black male selves--that keep being murdered?

"How does it feel to be a problem? It feels like gunshots, unheard screams, and a lonely, violent death.

"When scholars talk about a school-to-prison pipeline, they are not simply talking about the ways that systematic lack of educational access sets up Black people for a stint in the criminal justice system. They are also pointing to the fact that the very logic of public schools is designed to discipline Americans into a certain model of  citizenship, one that helps us to believe in the propaganda of equal rights that we are taught in our social studies classes, while obscuring the systematic inequalities that are on gratuitous display through the treatment of children of color, students with disabilities, and poor students.

"I have zero-tolerance for a justice system that deputizes overzealous white men and vests them with the power to be judge, jury, and executioner, under the trumped up guise of self-defense . If this community fails to prosecute George Zimmerman, their silence, their acquiescence, their approval will constitute an official sanctioning of his course of action.

"Even with eyewitness testimony, the police seemed incapable of seeing Trayvon as the victim. Young Black men are always the aggressors, right? Not the gun-toting white guy, who weighed 100 pounds more than Trayvon. Not the self-styled neighborhood vigilante with a documented disrespect for law enforcement. Nope. Just the Black kid, whose skin is (perceived as) a weapon.

"Trayvon’s skin, not his actions, not his character, made him a criminal. Blackness always looks suspicious. Whiteness always looks safe.

"In this post-most-racial moment*, we must seriously re-evaluate this narrative of linear historical progress that we are beholden to. No, Black men don’t routinely find themselves hanging from trees. But that might be less an evidence of progress and more an evidence of white racial adaptation. “Racial patterns [will always] adapt in ways that maintain white dominance.” – Father of Critical Race Theory Prof. Derrick Bell’s famous maxim echoes in my ears.

"Trayvon is Black. And that matters when whiteness is the sine qua non of the American legal system, when possession of a white skin is the prerequisite for justice. And it is precisely because of this deep-seated association of white skin with property, that George Zimmerman felt he had the right to “patrol” his neighborhood for interlopers and outsiders. It is not coincidental that Black men are routinely profiled for looking suspicious in nice neighborhoods “because they don’t belong there.” The battle over who belongs in neighborhoods– even though Trayvon’s step-mother lived there!—is just a modern site for a long-standing warfare over white racial entitlement to control land and every thing that moves on that land."

 --The ever-eloquent crunktastic, in this post

Post-racial is the dirtiest word I know.

I cannot, in fact, think of a single word with the same factual inaccuracy and potential to do great harm. 

When we were out visiting other eating clubs on Saturday night, something we rarely do, KS and I saw no less than three Black-female-White-male couples dancing and making out. This prompted KS to comment on our "post-racial" society. I wanted to slap him upside the head and remind him that the caramel color of our skin serves as a legacy to the history of such interactions in our family trees and communities more broadly, but that's too serious a conversation for the club, so I just rolled my eyes and reminded him that I'd fucked a White guy too, but that didn't mean I thought we as a society or me as a person were "over" race.

I didn't need a reminder as to why I don't think we're there yet (and have little faith, really, that we'll ever GET there), but the news gave me one anyway, in the form of Trayvon Martin.

Trayvon Martin was a 17 year old high school junior. Trey, as he was known by family and friends, was visiting his father and stepmother in a gated community in Orlando, Florida, two weeks ago. During halftime of the basketball game he'd been watching with his father, he decided to walk to the local convenience store to pick up some snacks. On his way back to his dad's house, he was spotted by George Zimmerman, a 28-year old White man serving as the Captain of the Neighborhood Watch in this gated community. Zimmerman found the sight of a young Black man walking alone through his neighborhood--never mind the fact that this young Black man was his neighbor's SON--so "suspicious" and threatening that he called 911 to report the activity and jumped into his SUV to follow Trey. The 911 dispatcher told Zimmerman to stand down and let the police handle the situation from there. Zimmerman had other ideas, though. He confronted Trey, who supposedly gave Zimmerman a bloody nose during their altercation, and fatally shot him in the chest using the black Kie Tek 9 millimeter semi-automatic pistol he was carrying.  The medical examiner found only Skittles, Arizona Iced Tea, and $22 in Trey's pockets, but Zimmerman is claiming self-defense, and the authorities seem to believe him, because more than two weeks have passed, and no. charges. have. been. filed. against. Zimmerman.

I'm going to say that again. This White civilian--a Neighborhood Watch captain--thought a young Black kid "looked suspicious" as he walked down the street, so he shot him dead in the middle of the street on a Sunday evening and is getting away with it.

 [Excuse me while I control my tears and rage, as I'm at work right now.]

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Lynch (v.): The practice of inflicting summary punishment upon an offender, by a self-constituted court armed with no legal authority; it is now limited to the summary execution of one charged with some flagrant offence.

Show me one person who says this was not a modern-day lynching and I'll show you a goddamned liar. A community watchman has no. fucking. authority. to. murder. a. teenage. boy. But the police aren't filing charges against this man--who directly defied their orders and KILLED A MINOR. Show me one person who says race doesn't matter anymore, and I'll show you someone who is deaf, dumb, and blind. Trey was a KID. He was walking down the street with Skittles and iced tea. And just being in that neighborhood--where his father LIVES--was an offense worthy of taking his life. My father used to live in a gated community in Fort Lauderdale. If I were a boy--because, don't forget, racism and sexism can never be fully separated, and Black men supposedly present more of a "threat" to White society with their very existence than do Black women--could I have been Trey Martin? The story Trayvon Martin's mother is telling now is the same story told by Emmett Till's mother, by the mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters and husbands and wives of the nearly 3,500 Black Americans who were lynched in the US between 1882 and 1968, and by the families of contemporary LGBT persons who have been killed by mob violence for their existence as non-heterosexual beings. 

This is vigilante violence. This is MURDER and no one is doing anything. This is Jim Crow. This is sexualized racism and racialized sexism. The lack of response from the police and the mass media? That's institutionalization. This is literally not being safe in one's own body. This is oppression. This is hatred. This is why I do not fault my friend OO for telling me he needed a break from all the White people. Tell me race doesn't matter, or that people don't need to be afraid. I DARE you.

*drops mic, walks away*

[Meanwhile, on a smaller scale, Tumblr is threatening to take down Dumb Things White People Say for being "abusive" and "harassing," while the vast majority of the blogs spewing White supremacist bullshit that DTWPS posts screenshots of have been defended by the Tumblr administrators as free speech. And click here to see what some White person evidently thinks I'm learning in my African-American studies classes (I don't want this picture staring back at me for a week on my page). I'm done.]    

"There ain't no justice, there's just us..."

the above lyric is a line from the chorus of The City High Anthem, and though they're singing with regard to a particular generation of underprivileged Black urban youth, I think people worldwide, and particularly Black peoples in the United States, find these words resonate with even more intensity in them tonight. 

Let me preface this by saying that I try, whenever possible, to be a proud American. I've had inter/transnational roommates chide me for being patriotic to a fault. Though this is no longer the case, I once regarded myself as "American" before "Black". Under normal circumstances, I will refuse to say "under God," but otherwise will pledge my allegiance to our flag and feel only positivity swell in my heart. Tonight, though, I will avert my eyes from wherever I might see this flag on my cross-campus walk. Tonight, I wear my American identity with shame, for I have been reminded that we do not always practice what we preach. I have been reminded of hypocrisy. I have been reminded of dishonor. I have been reminded of the harshest forms of prejudice. I have been reminded of systemic racism. I have been reminded of ideals that are only upheld for those deemed "ideal."

At 11:08 pm, an event transpired in the state of Georgia that can be properly referred to solely as a legalized lynching. 

Before I was born, Troy Davis, a 20 year old Black man, was found guilty of the murder of an off-duty White police officer, despite the fact that no physical evidence could be found linking him to the crime. The murder weapon was never located. At the time of his trial, nine witnesses swore before God, a judge, a jury, and a nation to various details cementing Davis's guilt. He was convicted and sentenced to death. 

In the 22 years since, seven of those nine witnesses have either fully or partially recanted their testimonies, saying they felt pressured by the police to implicate Davis. The gun has still never been recovered. Rumors have been circulating for years that one of the witnesses in Davis's trial, Sylvester "Redd" Coles, actually committed the murder, but no formal investigation has ever been launched against Coles. Each time Davis has filed for an appeal, he has been denied, with the courts citing a lack of "substantive claims" of his innocence, and dismissing the recants as "unpersuasive." 

From Wikipedia:

In August 17, 2009, the Supreme Court of the United States, over the dissenting votes of two justices, ordered a federal district court in Georgia to consider whether new evidence "that could not have been obtained at the time of trial clearly establishes [Davis'] innocence". The evidentiary hearing was held in June 2010, during which affidavits from several prosecution witnesses from the trial changing or recanting their previous testimony were presented; some affiants asserted they had been coerced by police. The State presented witnesses, including the police investigators and original prosecutors, denying any coercion. Other witnesses who had not testified at trial asserted that Coles had confessed to the killing, but this evidence was excluded as hearsay as Coles was not subpoenaed by the defense to rebut it. In an August 2010 decision, the conviction was upheld by the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, which described defense efforts to upset the conviction as "largely smoke and mirrors".

 At this time, I would like to examine the legal definition of the phrase "reasonable doubt," as coined in the Fourteenth Amendment to our United States Constitution:

"The standard that must be met by the prosecution's evidence in a criminal prosecution: that no other logical explanation can be derived from the facts except that the defendant committed the crime, thereby overcoming the presumption that a person is innocent until proven guilty."

Please note that that says innocent until proven guilty, not guilty until proven innocent. The prosecution's case against Troy Davis was grounded entirely on circumstantial evidence, coerced and recanted witness testimony, and a dismissal of sworn witness testimony that SOMEONE ELSE HAD CONFESSED TO THE CRIME. How does any of that leave us within the boundaries of reasonable doubt? 

A hundred years ago (and more recently), in the state of Georgia (and elsewhere), when a Black man was accused of committing an offense against a White, his Constitutional right to a fair trial by a jury of his peers was conveniently overlooked. He saw no jury, no judge, no courthouse. If he were lucky, he saw torches, heard the mob coming. If he were lucky, he could get away. Thousands of Black men, women, and children were not lucky. They were not tried. Declared guilty by default, as a fact of the color of their skin and the nature that presumably accompanied it, they were kidnapped, tortured, hanged, riddled with bullets, burned [though not necessarily in that order]. Their images were printed on front pages and postcards, their body parts were auctioned off to the highest bidders, community members who wanted a souvenir.

Though they have varied their methods with time--substituting a fixed trial with incapable public defenders and coerced witnesses for the previously non-existent trial, the emotional torture of caging a boy for the entirety of his manhood for kidnapping and physical torture, and a lethal injection for the satisfaction of hearing a neck snap--you cannot tell me they do not still lynch Black men in the state of Georgia. The only difference is the entire process is entirely legal, rather than extralegal now. You cannot tell me Troy Davis's rights were upheld. You cannot call this justice. I see only predeterminism and vengeance, and when these things are idolized in the place of justice, America has failed itself. These cannot be equated. I am neither comfortable in my own skin or with my own patriotism in the face of a system that does not know the difference, with checks and balances that are meant to help allowing states to get away with murder.

I am not a religious woman, but with everything in me, I hope that Troy Davis finally knows freedom. I also hope that we remember that the irony of the "I am Troy Davis" campaign launched this week to protest his impending execution is that there many Troy Davises spread around the country (Mumia Abu-Jamal, anyone?), probably thousands around the world. Even in cases where guilt is unequivocal, is retribution ever truly just? My friend Brittney's family did not call for it, even when the grief and rage seemed overwhelming. I will admit that there are some crimes so heinous that my first reaction is you, offender, do not need to live any longer. This is primarily reserved for people who rape and murder 27 women and make suits out of their skin, etc. But taking a life should never make one sleep easier at night. Inflicting more of the seemingly unbearable and insurmountable pain one person's loved ones had to go through when they were taken onto another person's loved ones...why is this something to pay forward?

I will never get a Twitter because this rant is almost 1400 words long and that's the way I like it, but so that I may stand in solidarity, I would re-tweet this all night:

#toomuchdoubt