Shame on My Home Town

This young man was visiting relatives, here in the town in which I have lived since October of 1996. The ironic thing is that we moved down here because of our own tragedy. My husband's only child, my 17-year-old stepson, had taken his own life, we believe because of confusion and worries about his sexuality. Funny how racism, homophobic attitudes, sexism and a number of related "isms" seem to rob us of our humanity.

I have no doubt in my mind that the verdict in the Zimmerman case was wrong, coerced, bought, whatever and I have no doubt that the police and other officials here in Sanford are about as corrupt as they can get. If anyone disagrees, write your own blog essay about it. I don't have time to hear your justifications of the unjustifiable. Zimmerman was told to back off. He was armed. Trayvon Martin was just walking home. He was unarmed unless you want to infer that a can of iced tea and a bag of skittles are deadly weapons. Of course he fought back against that stalking moron. Anyone would. And now, Zimmerman is alive and Trayvon is dead and his parents, friends and family are still mourning.

One juror, the only juror of color, did speak out and I have to wonder what was said to her to make her go along with the verdict when she so obviously believed that Zimmerman was guilty? Racism rears its ugly head again. The trial was a farce which ended up trying a dead boy for his own death.

I have a nephew-in-law, a fine man retired from the navy. He is the love of my niece's life, they have a sound marriage and have raised a beautiful daughter who has had to deal with racism. Trent, my nephew-in-law, was profiled in a stupid parking lot, a couple of weeks ago. This breaks my heart.

 

I have a wonderful grandson-in-law. Chris has graduated Full Sail University and is working hard to make it in the music industry. He is a wonderful husband, a terrific step-father and I could choose no better husband for my granddaughter. He has been profiled more times than he can count..he has dealt with the people being afraid of him for NO GOOD REASON other than the color of his skin.

 

 

My great-granddaughter, who lives with the lovely couple above in San Antonio, is very brown. Her Dad is Mexican and her coloring definitely shows her Hispanic heritage. We all know how white Texans tend to feel about people of Hispanic origin. I worry about her. I worry about my great-niece, ready to follow in her father's footsteps and has enlisted in the Navy. I worry about my two great nieces on my husband's side. Both have African-American fathers. And the thing is, I SHOULD NOT HAVE TO WORRY ABOUT THIS CRAP!

 

Earlier, this summer, our dysfunctional, lopsided Supreme Court eviscerated the most important piece of legislation to be signed in my lifetime, The Voting Rights Act. Somehow, we have to fix this mess they made. Antony Scalia should retire..yesterday. Clarence Thomas should have long since left the court. He is a disgrace to the robe. Hopefully, as in this article; http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/07/doj-has-plan-work-around-supreme-courts-voting-rights-act-decision/67627/ we can manage to work around and, eventually, repair what they tried to break. The death of Trayvon Martin, the profiling of young, black men, the inequality in the justice system where young, black men are concerned are all good reasons why we still need the Voting Rights Act.

 

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg penned the dissenting opinion on this idiotic action taken by the freaky five and wrote an indictment; " ..... accusing the conservative justices of displaying “hubris” and a lack of sound reasoning.“[T]he Court’s opinion can hardly be described as an exemplar of restrained and moderate decision making,” wrote the leader of the court’s liberal wing. “Quite the opposite. Hubris is a fit word for today’s demolition of the VRA.”

Joined by the three other liberal-leaning justices, Ginsburg scolded the conservative majority and its rationale for throwing out Section 4 of the law — which contains the formula Congress has used to determine which states and local governments must receive federal pre-approval before changing their voting laws.

The current political climate is nasty. The war against women, the fight against the Dream Act and the racist idiocy displayed in broad daylight by men and women who should know better is execrable. There are only a couple of weapons we can wield in this battle. We can write letters to the editors, to our Senators and congressional representatives telling them what we think of what is being done. We can exercise our right to vote and not leave it up to anyone else. We should be encouraging everyone to get ID's (for those backwards states that are trying to censor the vote), register and VOTE. VOTE THEM OUT. Attack the members of the SCOTUS repeatedly in print. Editors love well-written letters like that. Talk to your neighbors. If you have children just reaching voting age, talk to them. If there is any way you can involve yourself in activism, do so. But don't just sit there and let another young man die because a miserable excuse of a wannabe cowboy was legally armed and used an ugly, poorly thought-out law to vindicate his act of MURDER.