"They hate us for our Freedom" #RememberTrayvon #NoJusticeNoPeace #BlackLivesMatter

We've found "insufficient evidence" that America values black lives enough to hold vigilantes or police accountable for taking them.
— The Dream Defenders  (@Dreamdefenders) February 24, 2015

TRAVESTY, BREAKING NEWS: Today, the US Department of Justice has failed yet again to uphold its mission to ensure justice and public safety for ALL Americans. The DOJ announced it will NOT file charges against the known racist, violent vigilante George Zimmerman for killing 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on the night of Feb 26, 2012.
As we near the eve of the anniversary of Trayvon's death, we hold in our hearts and minds the devastating pain and suffering, and injustice that Black mothers and fathers, Black children and families have had to endure for generations and the all to familiar reality that we as Black people have no choice but to fight for our lives every single day.

This tragic event has sparked a movement that will not die, and birthed a new generation of young Black leaders who have filled the streets of America, demanding justice and shifting the consciousness of people across the nation.
Let us turn our rightful frustration into action, and grow a movement to hold the criminal justice system accountable. ‪#‎RememberTrayvon‬

We can blame the Roberts Court for gutting the civil rights laws.

Federal law surrounding racially motivated police shootings is unaccountably convoluted and hopelessly muddled. But one thing is clear: In their current form, our federal civil rights laws let cops pull the trigger with near-total impunity.

It wasn’t always that way. The law under which Holder could theoretically charge Wilson, now called Section 242, was passed in 1870 to secure robust legal protections for newly freed blacks in the South. Congress had recently passed amendments guaranteeing former slaves citizenship, equal protection of the laws, due process, and voting rights, which the states (including several under Reconstruction in the South) then ratified. But a number of viciously racist groups, including the newly formed Ku Klux Klan, had effectively negated these new rights, terrorizing black communities through arson, beatings, and lynching.

Congress had already passed laws requiring Southern states to recognize their black citizens’ newfound freedoms. But violent groups like the KKK were often aided if not led by local governments and law enforcement. Blacks suddenly had a vastly expanded roster of rights, yet racist officials and crooked cops were colluding to ensure that they couldn’t exercise any of them. So Congress passed the Enforcement Act of 1870, part of which survives today as Section 242. As its title suggests, the act enforced the new amendments by making it a federal crime to deprive any person of his constitutional rights while acting “under color of any law.”

We can blame ourselves.

Truth first then justice.
We’re the ones that failed. Not us specifically, but the people who knew and understood the truth and common sense and had the format to speak out about it. We let another narrative take place so we can avoid calling what we are seeing what it really is.
For example:
We let the media tell us that GZ said the word punk instead of calling them racist for trying to clean something up that was so damn obviously racist.

And we dare not rise up.

For some reason African Americans are supposed to accept the decision of the secret grand jury without question.

 Even as verdict after verdict continues to excuse White authority figures of their wrongdoing, the Black community is expected to understand that police officers have a very hard job. The Black community is expected to understand that approximately 150 police officers are killed in the line of duty each year, the Black community is expected to understand that police officers are human too, the Black community is expected to understand that police officers are just doing their job and the Black community is expected to understand that even if a police officer is in the wrong, you are supposed to remain submissive and never talk back.

For some reason when African Americans peacefully assemble to voice their outrage, or, to plead for justice, it's called a riot.

  During questioning, she referred multiple times to "riots" in Sanford after Trayvon Martin was killed. "I knew there was rioting, but I guess [the authorities] had it pretty well organized," she says at one point. In fact, despite a great deal of salivating anticipation by the media both before and after the trial, there were no riots in Sanford, Florida.

 Trayvon belongs to all America and until you see him as your child too, we all remain in bondage.

GOP Voter Purges Undermine American Democracy

President Obama recently remarked at the National Action Network Convention that "Justice requires the right to vote."
So it behooves us to take a closer look at just one state that has played a pivotal role in the outcome of our national elections.
Of course, for the November 2014 elections, we're only looking at a non-Presidential election. But that election is pivotal to the timeline that our President has available to to implement meaningful change for all Americans. Unless, of course, you're a teabagger who believes that somehow, someway, President Obama will finagle a third term, however cloaked in the specious suggestion, down-low, that it is "political satire." That's Rand Paul's idea of humor: "suggest, mislead, chuckle. You fools." He published thAT red herring on his website. Sure hope his minions recognize they are being played for fools right up front, if they don't read the "fine print" at the bottom of the article.
But I digress. The point of this post is to look at what is happening in just one state, one critical state, in the upcoming "off-election" (meaning non-Presidential election year) and why this upcoming 2014 election is so important. The election results of this state dashed the Gore presidency, plunging our nation into two long wars for oil and an economic catastrophe. Florida 2000.
Under the guise of removing "non-citizens" from the Florida voting rolls, Governor Rick Scott and his appointed Secretary of State Rick Detzner have removed hundreds of voters from the rolls despite the fact that the national database used to cross-check voter identities is "not current enough for accuracy or reliability." Never mind doing it right, just do it, because the GOP doesn't care about accuracy - the GOP's goal is disenfranchising voters.
The targets of voter suppression tactics are those who the GOP calculates will vote Democratic: college students, disabled, people of color, and low-income voters. Indeed, the former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer said: "'The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates,' Greer told The Post. 'It’s done for one reason and one reason only....'We've got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us,’ Greer said he was told by those staffers and consultants.'"

The GOP is just reading the numbers which show that most early voters vote Democratic. "In 2008 Democrats, especially African-Americans, turned out in unprecedented numbers for President Barack Obama, many of them casting ballots during 14 early voting days. In Palm Beach County, 61.2 percent of all early voting ballots were cast by Democrats that year, compared with 18.7 percent by Republicans."
Among the multiple tactics used to suppress voters are: prosecution for voter fraud (which has been shown to be practically non-existent); registration restrictions; limiting early voting; residency restrictions; and, voting ID laws. Our former first black president, Bill Clinton, noted that putting photos on Social Security cards would represent "a way forward that eliminates error" without having to “paralyze and divide a country with significant challenges.” According to the Brennan Center for Justice, as many as 11% of eligible voters do not have government issued photo ID.
In the vanguard of voter suppression is the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), who ghostwrites state legislative bills, then sends them to state legislators for introduction and passage. Here's one example crafted to disenfranchise non-drivers, low-income, minority, elderly and students, for whom the state of Florida is currently blocking the use of a college union as a polling place, according to Senator Bill Nelson.
ALEC is funded through corporations, those very corporations where we spend our money. Using the Color of Change letter, you can tell CEOs to stop funding an organization determined to undermine Americans' voting rights.
As President Obama reminded us in 2012: "As citizens, we understand that America is not about what can be done for us. It’s about what can be done by us, together — through the hard and frustrating but necessary work of self-government. That’s what we believe."

"It's been a banner year for racism in the media and #Black Santa is not amused"

It's been a banner year for racism and race baiting in the media — and #BlackSanta is not amused http://t.co/lKIKm82Xti
— ColorOfChange.org (@ColorOfChange) December 24, 2013