EYE understand the fear #AYearWithoutTamir #JordanDavis #EricGarner #MikeBrown #JFK

Timothy Loehman, who immediately killed #TamirRice on first sight, was never arrested or charged. #YearWithoutTamir pic.twitter.com/5rZmdQakL8

— Ava DuVernay (@AVAETC) November 22, 2015

EYE was in the second grade on 11.22.1963 when the principal announced over the intercom President Kennedy had been shot. I didn't find out he died until I got home. The days that followed were very sad, I remember feeling sorry for Carolyn, John John, and Jackie Kennedy. I also remember being  afraid for the leaders who tried to help African Americans. Sure enough, then came the assassinations of Martin Luther King,Jr, and Robert Kennedy . 

My ancestors lived through 400 years of torture/slavery, my generation lived through domestic terrorism/Jim Crow, my children are living through Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Jordan Russell Davis,Renisha McBride and other victims of senseless violence.

Just saying #BlackLivesMatter pic.twitter.com/2wDOnFJlwL

— Anon Trip (@Anontrip) November 23, 2015

First Donald Trump came for the Muslims

The GOP is at a crossroads that will define its party for years. They can nominate Trump, a man who has demonized American minority groups, or choose someone who truly embraces American values. But if Trump is the Republican presidential nominee in 2016, they will have made it clear to America that the Grand Old Party is no longer the party of Lincoln, but the party of hate.

You think? 

"I want them to see what they've done" Jacqueline Kennedy

I was in the second grade on 11.22.1963 when the principal  announced over the intercom  President Kennedy had been shot. I didn't find out he died until I got home. The days that followed were very sad, I remember feeling sorry for Carolyn, John John, and Jackie Kennedy. I also remember feeling scared for the leaders who tried to help African Americans.  Sure enough, then came the assassinations of Martin Luther King,Jr, and Robert Kennedy Jr. 

My ancestors lived through 400 years of torture/slavery,  my generation lived through domestic terrorism/Jim Crow,  my children are living through Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Jordan Russell Davis, Renisha McBride and other victims of senseless  violence.

In June 1963, President Kennedy promoted civil rights as the governor of Alabama blocked integration of the University of Alabama.

“Today, we are committed to a worldwide struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free,” the president said in a speech. “And when Americans are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only.”

 Will we ever live in the land of liberty and justice for all, or is it just a slogan?  Time will tell the truth.

"I'm marching to save my own life, and the lives of millions of other Black people who will not be able to attend this march"

Memorializing the Freedom Riders

Joseph Postiglione, Freedom Riders' bus after attack in Anniston, Alabama, 1961. Courtesy of Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. - See more at: http://www.southernspaces.org/2009/memorializing-freedom-riders#sthash.CUJdcdJM.dpuf

Joseph Postiglione, Freedom Riders' bus after attack in Anniston, Alabama, 1961. Courtesy of Birmingham Civil Rights Institute. - See more at: http://www.southernspaces.org/2009/memorializing-freedom-riders#sthash.CUJdcdJM.dpuf

 Joseph Postiglione, Freedom Riders' bus after attack in Anniston, Alabama, 1961. Courtesy of Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

Why I Will Not Be Marching to Commemorate the 1963 March on Washington

I am still emotionally reeling from the death of Trayvon Martin and devaluation of Black life in our society. I am outraged at Black unemployment rates hovering above 12% and hundreds of thousands of hard-working Black Americans who live in poverty while working at poverty-wage paying jobs. I am tired of the constant attacks on our rights and policies put forward by radical right-wing legislators that codify inequality and put our lives in danger. I am marching to demand an end to injustices that are having a very real impact on my life today. In a sense, I am marching to save my own life and the lives of millions other Black people who will not be able to attend this march.

Hide your children and your wife.....George Zimmerman is on the prowl for a new gun

Let us March on until Victory is Won!

See you Monday.

"They hate us for our freedom"

 

Dedicated to the family, friends, and supporters of liberty and justice and for all, in loving memory of Trayvon Benjamin Martin, Oscar Grant, Jordan Russell, Sean Bell,  Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, and Cynthia Wesley


This is the second Sunday since the 100% female, 0% African American jury proved that racism is alive and well in America when they acquitted George Zimmerman for the murder of an unarmed African American teen, then tried to blame it on the law, which they didn't follow, and the real race hustlers and their media enablers, blaming  Trayvon Martin and so called black culture for the injustice.

If it's not racism, what is it?

  

So stop wearing your hate with pride. Stop celebrating your anti-science, anti-math ignorance. Stop using code words to mask your bigotry like "family values", especially when you hate my family and when you stand on the same stage as a guy who has had three marriages or if you share a seat in the Senate with a guy who cheated on his wife with hookers while wearing diapers. You should be ashamed. I know that you are just doing this to motivate your misinformed hate cult base because if they actually knew that your ideas will make them poorer than they are now, they would never vote for you. You are doing your best to impoverish your countrymen so rich people can get bigger tax breaks and you can keep on delivering corporate welfare to the special interests who have bribed you, and I am disgusted by the way you gleefully parade your hatred with aplomb. I don't think you do love America. At least, not as much as you hate everyone in America who isn't exactly like you.
You should think about that, and maybe get some help.

And for the record, I do not hate you. I am embarrassed by you and nauseated by your cruel and thoughtless behavior and your all consuming greed, but I do not hate you. I forgive you and I hope you can change someday, but I don't hate you. You have enough hate in you for the rest of us as it is.

Psst President Obama! You could have been Trayvon Martin 4 years ago....

  Yassuh, Boss, Right Away 

So, the white, male, dominated media is patting themselves on the back for allowing President Obama to talk about race for the second time in 5 years after being prodded/pushed to do so by black folks.  Tavis Smiley had the audacity to tell the truth on Meet the Pest, I mean, Press Sunday and got a royal beat down on twitter .

To be clear, this is WHAT Tavis said Sunday on Meet the Press:

   The media narrative now is that Obama walked to the podium for an unscripted address because he felt he needed to say something. But the truth is that “he was pushed to the podium,” Smiley said. “A week of protests outside the White House, pressure building on him inside the White House, pushed him to that podium.” Smiley noted he did“appreciate and applaud the fact that the president did finally show up.” But “the bottom line is, this is not Libya. This is America. On this issue, you cannot lead from behind. What’s lacking in this moment is moral leadership.”

And the problem is what exactly?  What did Tavis say that wasn't true?  According to an article in the New York Times, President Obama met with 5 of his closest (unnamed) advisers on Thursday evening who told him it was time for him to say something. My question is why did they have to tell him it was time to say something?  He didn't know?

Those who don't read the Washington Post weren't aware of the calls for President Obama to speak out from prominent African Americans.

In the wake of the not-guilty verdict in the George Zimmerman trial, President Obama has called on the American people to engage in calm reflection. Few expected the president to denounce the verdict or call upon people to take to the streets in protest, but we did expect him to speak in a way that touched the heartbreak, despair and quiet rage that so many of us feel at this moment.
On multiple occasions, Obama has asked blacks to understand the high wire he is forced to walk on the subject of race. He has pleaded that we cut him some slack. Most have done so even as conditions in the black community have become more desperate.

You won't hear writers like Cortland Maloy on TeeVee saying things like this:

In the never-ending cycle of pleas, protests and prayers over recurring injustice, we’re again approaching the quiet times. Put down the signs. Take off the hoodies. Remove the empty bags of Skittles taped over your mouths. Go in for some “calm reflection,” as President Obama put it in a statement following Saturday night’s miscarriage of justice.

The white, male, dominated media forced President Obama to walk a tight rope on race, they molded him into their vision of how the first African American President of the United States of America should act/talk/think/govern.

 I believe some whites were actually afraid President Obama was going to exact some kind of revenge for slavery and Jim Crow. So, in their zeal to shape the first African American President in their image, they turned him into a token with no power. Someone they could point to and say America is post racial. As if the emasculation of black men in America needed more assistance.

From forcing PBO to throw Rev. Jeremiah Wright under the bus because he preached truth to power, to making him host a beer summit instead of a discussion about racial profiling,  to toning down Attorney Eric Holders' Americans are cowards when it comes to discussing issues of race remarks, the mainstream media enabled the first black President to be the President of everybody but black folks. 

When folks like Tavis Smiley, Cornell West, Glen Ford and others tried to sound the alarm, they were called F-king retarded and the Professional Left (like that was a bad thing) which allowed them to be marginalized and  legitimate concerns/issues to be minimized.

I said it before and I will say it again, President Obama needs to fire everybody except Michelle.

I never believed Obama was going to be the the black people's President and only the the black people's President, because I believed him when he said there were no red states or blue states but the United States of America. But, his advisers were so afraid that if he showed any sympathy or empathy to the plight of blacks it would look like he was giving blacks "special treatment".

If  Barack Hussen Obama didn't have the title of President of the United States in front of his name, he could  also be, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Jordan Russell, The Jena Six , and so on, and so on.......

On Friday, Obama used the words “black” or “African American” 17 times, and the word “white” only once. At times, the president appeared to be the Explainer-in-Chief, clarifying for white folks a history and legacy that they, too, share—but in drastically different ways, and usually as benefit. Yet, by not specifically addressing this audience, by silencing whiteness and choosing to center again and again on black young men, Obama gave whiteness a pass. He gave it power by masking it, and making it silent.
While he warned black folks against violence, which he said would dishonor Trayvon Martin, he remained silent about the little violence we do know about—when a white woman attacked 73-year-old R&B legend Lester Chambers following the verdict. And rather than convening a national conversation about race—which would might mean having frank conversation about white supremacy and privilege, Obama talked about his daughters. Yes, Malia, Sasha and their friends are different, but that’s likely due to their security detail, and to the fact that they live in a world that most black schoolgirls simply do not.

I HOPE President Obama's surprise comments made white people understand what it means to be black in America, but unless he stops letting the white, male, dominated media frame the debate there is no HOPE for CHANGE  African Americans or anyone else for that matter,  can believe in.

Edit~RedEye's Week in Review~Trayvon Martin Edition

33 Days and Counting

"Would you, would fellow African American Congress members care as much if Trayvon were white?"  When I heard Brooke Baldwin ask Representative Corrine Brown (D. FL) this question I had to check my TeeVee to see If I had accidentally tuned in to Fox News. Shudder

These are The Things White People Say about the Trayvon Martin case, in an attempt to marginalize and minimize legitimate complaints.  In other words, it'a cop out, a weapon of mass distraction.

Psst Brooke!  We care about all crime, we express outrage and work for justice in our community everyday, the problem is y'all don't hear us because that's not considered news worthy.  We are not as depraved as they would have you believe.  It's the media.

This is proof Attorney General Eric Holder was right (no pun), America is a nation of cowards about race.  At the time there were some who thought he was putting us down, but there were others who understood  he was asking us to have courage.  Maybe if we had done that, Trayvon Martin, Sean Bell, Oscar Grant, Kenneth Chamberlin,  Rekia Boyd and countless others would be alive today.

If a video and an eyewitness is not enough  to arrest George Zimmerman, and the fact their case is falling apart , I don't know what is.  I wish I could say I had faith in our justice system, but I just can't.  Maybe if there were investigating a gambling bingo bill and corruption......

Today's Must Reads
Trayvon Martin, Troy Davis and the 2012 Election

Excerpt

On the other hand, in the interest of making some whites feel better about themselves, the hacks at CNN sought out the tiny and deceptively named “New Black Panther Party” which seems to exist purely to be called upon by the likes of Sean Hannity and Anderson Cooper when they need a comic black racist bogeyman. The NBPP dutifully rendered its standard performance, complete with scowling and on-camera chest-thumping about bounties and “citizens arrests.”

Don't Let Them Fool You, Keep Fighting for Justice! 
Excerpt

As Bob Marley said, don't let them fool you. Don't let those those punk police fool you. Don't let uncle toms like Rev. Bryant sidetrack you. Don't let those buffoons masquerading as Black Panthers or anyone else trick you into doing something crazy. Keep marching, keep petitioning, keep speaking out, keep blogging until we get justice for Trayvon!

Let us march on until victory is won.

Pardon me, but can a black man protect and defend his family in America?

A provocative post by GrannyStandingforTruth, proudly cross posted with permission and gratitude.~Redeye

"Wisdom is knowing the truth, and telling it."~~Unknown


THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 2010
Uncle Tom's Children

I happen to read the article from different perspectives, white and black, regarding Governor Patterson commuting the sentence of John White, which is stirring up a controversy in difference of opinions as is always the case. What is difference between a black man protecting their home and white man protecting his?


Every once in a while, I like to go back and read a book that I’ve already read in the past. The other day, I picked out of my collection an old book called “Uncle Tom’s Children” by Richard Wright. The first sentence he wrote in the book, “My first lesson in how to live as a Negro came when I was quite small.” That first sentence in the book struck me as sort of odd. I was like why would a black man make a statement like that? However, when I thought about it, it made a lot of sense.

Then it dawned on me. He had to learn how to survive in order to live in a world where black men were endangered species trapped in second-class citizenship because of the racist attitudes of most that did not want to see him get ahead in life or recognize him as a man. In order to survive he had to shift between two different persona's and play by those in power set of rules or it could cost him his life.

Wright’s story mirrored that of many black men living in the South and a few other states during that time period. Most of the rules were aimed at stripping black men of their manhood and filled with constant humiliation. A black man had to play one role for those in power and another role which was his true self for his friends and family. Wright sacrificed who he was as an individual—a man and human being in order to feed and provide a roof over their head. Staying alive played a definite major part in his decision. His life and being able to live it to a ripe old age was of the utmost importance to him, but the main deciding factor in why he chose to play the game by their set of rules—he was powerless to do otherwise.

Richard Wright’s story took place during an era when there was no such thing as Civil Rights for minorities. Blacks had no rights! Black men in the past were lynched at the drop of a hat for trivial so-called offenses and many of those so-called offenses were created falsehoods because of their thirst for black men’s blood. In addition, it was their lust for watching strange fruit hanging from a tree for sadistic entertainment purposes. In my own family tree, there were three victims of lynching.

The newspaper article regarding the lynching of one of my ancestors who was a preacher is in a book called “100 Years of Lynching” by Ralph Ginzberg that focuses on lynching of black men in the past. I have a picture of my ancestor and several newspaper clippings regarding the incident and trial. The culprits who committed this act were brought to trial, but the only punishment they received was a verbal reprimand. They did not spend one day in jail. The justice system back then considered that reprimand—justice served.

I thought about the outcome in Oscar Grant's trial when I read the article about John White. How many more years do those in power want black men to play Uncle Tom's Children?

Wisdom Is Standing Up For the Truth~GrannyStandingforTruth