An Army Veteran turned white supremacist entered a Sikh temple in Wisconsin Aug. 5. and went on a shooting rampage, just 16 days after the Colorado movie theater massacre. At the hands of gunman Michael Page’s work, six worshipers were left dead and four wounded. Of those wounded was a police officer. Page, 40, later killed himself after being wounded by another police officer.
A reflection of my first impressions of San Jose, Costa Rica
It was a normal Costa Rica morning, warm and sunny with a promise of afternoon rain. I left my hostel in San Jose, like usual, to head for my daily spanish class in San Pedro. I was feeling unusually giddy, and strolled casually across the street unaware of the fact that cars, not pedestrians, have the right away. As I arrive halfway across the vast calle, a car speeds up behind me. I dart to the other side and turn to find the driver of the car with his head half out the window, yelling a phrase that ends in Negrita.
This scene disheveled my whole day. My spanish is not the best, so I didn’t catch the rest of what this man was saying to me, but I knew for certain that Negro meant black. I quickly drew from my life experiences in the U.S. and concluded that the man was angry and had taken a jab at my racial background. I was appalled, how could my Pura Vida sanctuary be filled with racism! The scene kept disgusting me.
The question I would really like to ask him is, if he could look into Trayvon’s eyes and see how innocent he was, would he have then pulled the trigger? Or would he have just let him go on home?” said Tracy Martin, Trayvon Martin’s Father.
George Zimmerman arrested April 11, and charged with second-degree murder in the Trayvon Martin shooting.
Trayvon’s parents and the American public just may get the answer to this question. George Zimmerman, self-appointed neighborhood watchman who shot 17-year-old Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26, was arrested and charged with second-degree murder after protests made this issue a national priority.
“I can tell you we did not come to this decision lightly,” Special Prosecutor Angela Corey said in remarks broadcast live on TV and online. “We do not prosecute by public pressure or by petition. We prosecute based on the facts in any given case, as well as the laws of the state of Florida.”
The green-eyed monster known as racism came out of it’s dungeon, thrashed it’s teeth and scratched in vengeance last weekend. The culprit: bigoted, insensitive adults. The victim: young, cute, and adorable African American actress Amandla Stenberg from the box office hit and young adult’s trilogy The Hunger Games.
“Sense when has Rue been a nigger,” one enraged tweeter wrote.
“Why is Rue a little black girl? Stick to the book, dude,” another responded to the movie.
The one thing I love about reading a book is having the creative freedom to imagine my characters and fantasy world the way I want them to look. It’s my prerogative to interpret the writer’s description as tight or loose as I want. Author Suzanne Collins describes District 11’s tribute Rue as having “dark skin and eyes.” It’s perfectly okay for a person to read “dark skin” and think of a white girl with a deep tan and overly brown eyes. But to speak out against Hollywood depicting this image as a Black person is outrageously ignorant.
From CNN iReport"New York photographer Darrel Dawkins wants to send a message about the Trayvon Martin story, as do many iReporters who shared self-portraits in support of the movement. 'We shouldn't stay silent. We should basically talk about those who are out there discriminating and those who are racist'."
We’ve all heard the story of the innocent looking elderly lady who clutches her pocketbook in fear as a young black mal
e walks past her, or the people that move to the opposite side of the street to avoid “danger that may arise” from being in the presence of the previous described person. These young individuals get followed around in stores and even get kicked out of locations because they look as if they will steal or cause trouble. I admit even my senses heighten and I turn on my defense mode when I am approached by a strange black male. Society has told us to automatically perceive them as a potential threat. “They have track records,” we think. Appalling! Some may holler. But to those it happens to, it’s just normal everyday living.
For 17-year-old Trayvon Martin this battle of prejudging escalated from a temporary feeling of discomfort to a bloody altercation that demanded he pay the price of his life.
Let’s travel back in decades to a time of segregation. A time where the term African American was unheard of because Blacks were not considered equal citizens. A time where the term Colored had nothing to do with Crayola, and Negro was the nice way of calling someone inferior, ignorant and uncivilized.
In this time, the possession of dark skin was thought to be a curse and mandated subjection to second class treatment and undeserving cruel punishments. When someone said KKK, they were not uttering extreme agreeance, but alluding to the white hooded night riders who terrorized neighborhoods in the name of white supremacy. Black leaders had to face the realization that they would by beat, jailed, executed and lynched for speaking their beliefs.
As I take this journey back to the 1950’s, a verse from the Negro spiritual comes to mind:
Sing a song full of the faith that the
dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us
Of course at this moment I am not singing a song, yet I am doing another form of expression. I am blogging a blog to reflect on the journey my ancestors took to equality. I am blogging a blog to express gratitude to those leaders who stood in the face of adversity and fought so my generation can be the best we can be. I am blogging a blog to honor a great American Hero, The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Fearless Expressioner 