Posted on 08/04/2013 2:18:00 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I am an 84-year-old angry Black man. I am Mississippi born, Mississippi bred and Mississippi fled. I am the son of former slaves. My parents and I rode in the back of the bus. We rode in the front of the trains. We drank from water fountains designated for coloreds only. We picked cotton in fields owned by White people.
My parents attended separate but equal schools in Mississippi. I attended separate but equal schools in Mississippi and in Oakland, California. My wife was educated in Oakland public schools and at the University of California at Berkeley. She could not get a job teaching in Oakland Public schools in Oakland in 1954. I hold an undergraduate and a graduate degree from the University of California at Berkeley. I was profiled at a Washington, D.C., hotel in 2010, forced to sleep in a homeless shelter overnight.
I saw nothing in the Zimmerman case that surprised me. The system worked as it was intended. Zimmerman, a White man, was tried by a White justice system for killing a Black boy. The outcome was predictable. Many White people saw this as a non-racial event.
The O.J. Simpson jury found for the defense. The jury found reasonable doubt. The George Zimmerman jury found for the defense. The six White women on the jury found reasonable doubt. Zimmerman admitted that he killed Trayvon Martin. Simpson denied that he killed anyone. The press excoriated the Simpson jury. The Zimmerman jury was praised.
In both cases, the state presented weak cases. There are lessons to be learned from both cases. Laws are made to control the actions of people who can’t afford to break them. Both Simpson and Zimmerman bought as much justice as they needed. Their jurors were presented with reasonable doubt.
In the Zimmerman case, there are some facts that concerned citizens should understand. George Zimmerman is White. The juror of unknown ethnicity is White. The police who refused to arrest Zimmerman and who testified for him were White. The judge, and the prosecution were White. Every critical function carried on in that justice system was performed by a White person. Such is the case in almost every trial or plea bargaining case involving a Black man in this country.
George has been described as Hispanic. That does not mean that he is not White. The term Hispanic is a political designation that describes national origin, not race. Hispanic is a protected designation under our civil rights laws, but the term is not racial. I would guess that George Zimmerman, on his driver’s license under race, is designated White.
The most important fact to know is that the prosecution worked as hard for George Zimmerman as they did for the state of Florida. The prosecution did not challenge the lack of Afro Americans on the jury. The prosecution did not present its own theory of the case; it reacted to Zimmerman’s story of the case.
The prosecution’s case should have been presented on the theory that the wounds displayed by Zimmerman were self-inflicted. Zimmerman inflicted those wounds on himself. Zimmerman knew enough about the law to know he needed such wounds. Such a prosecution theory would have forced the defense to defend against this theory, and it might have caused Zimmerman to testify.
Instead, the prosecution introduced a tape made by the Zimmerman defense. The prosecution should have fought to keep that tape out of the trial. In a just world this prosecutor would be disbarred for malpractice.
The second worst flaw in the prosecution’s case was their failure to challenge Zimmerman’s voice recognition by his friends and relatives. The prosecution needed to recode several voices saying what Zimmerman was alleged to have yelled on the 911 tapes, replay them and ask each of the witnesses to identify the Zimmerman voice.
The third flaw by the prosecution was to bring in a skinny dummy. They should have brought in a live person of the same height and weight as Zimmerman and required that person to pull his gun with Trayvon on top of him. The prosecution should have punctured a heart with Trayvon on top to test blood spatter. If Zimmerman had a broken nose, who repaired it?
Finally, if Trayvon was on top of Zimmerman when he was shot in the heart, why was there no blood of Martin’s on Zimmerman’s clothes? Why was this question not asked at trial?
The justice system worked as it is designed to do. The system exonerated a White man who admitted killing a Black boy. The Justice Department will not bring an action in this case. Just because the man who heads it is Black does not mean he runs it. DOJ is a system that runs the same no matter who is at the top.
Racism is structured into most of the important systems in this country.
1.Communications – 99% of the TV, radio and print media properties are owned by White people.
2.Construction – 99% of the construction in this country is done by White people.
3.Education – 99% of all educational resources are allocated by White people.
4.Transportation – 99% of all transportation is controlled by White people.
5.Justice – this system is 99.9% controlled by White people.
6.Financial – this system is 99.9 % controlled by white people.
When Congresswomen Maxine Waters asked that 0.000001 percent of the $700 billion bailout money go to banks owned or controlled by descendants of former slaves, they tried to put her in jail.
If we think that we get fair treatment in any of these systems, we must re-examine our definition of fairness.
As an angry old Black man I have seen the diminution of racism in my lifetime. We are not there yet. It is unlikely that we will get there in the lifetime of my grandchildren.
****
Joseph Debro is president of Bay Area Black Builders and of Transbay Builders, a general engineering contractor, former director of the California state Office of Small Business, co-founder of the National Association of Minority Contractors and a bio-chemical engineer. He can be reached at transbay@netzero.com.
They have a photo of the supposed author at the link.
This “angry Black man” simply doesn’t understand the White experience in the 21st Century.
Yes, immediate red flag. He's 84, so born in 1929. Say him Mom was 13 when she gave birth in 1865. So she was 77 when she gave birth to him. Pretty unlikely.
Maybe his Dad was 77 when he impregnated his third or fourth wife. That's possible. But he does say "I am the son of former slaves" suggesting both Mother AND Father.
He DID graduate from the University of California...maybe they were using "new math" way back when.
Go to the source and read the comments. He’s not getting any love ...
Comments at the link are ripping him a new one!
Confused - I thought he was Trayvon yesterday.
Well if you get black kids to stop it with the RAP and start studying to make something of themselves and get off the democrat plantation.. things might be different..
But YOU and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharptons have pretty much brain washed the kids to be looking for hand outs from "the Massa" whoever that be presently..
Currently the left is doing the same to all the white students as well.. Your racist screed will not get very far here on this site.. It seems almost ALL THE RACISTS these days ARE BLACK..
You know... LIKE YOU..
His blogger bio has a ‘little’ more ‘truthiness’
http://www.blogger.com/profile/14698297162149084961
“I am a scientist, turned businessman I was borned in Mississippi, ((picked cotton for a day)) and ((escaped the racism of the Jim Crow South)) with my family in the 1940s. I settled in Oakland, CA, but became a citizen of the world. I fought for the inclusion of minority contractors in the all white unions in the 1960s ((I almost marched with King”)) ((Brackets are mine*))
So he “picked cotton for a day”
Almost marched with King
And escaped racism when he was not yet 21 years old
...and didn’t like Unions until he did
Joseph Debro, M.S.Che
Board Chairman, President and CEO
Joseph Debro learned his initial engineering skills during his two years service in the Army Corp of Engineering. Following this service, he earned an AB degree in Bacteriology and an MS degree in Biochemistry at the University of California at Berkeley. He worked as a Bio-chemical Engineer at NASA, on the environment of the first space capsule, which was tasked with designing systems to dispose of waste in space. Mr. Debro co-founded Trans Bay Engineering and worked as its first project manager. He co-founded the National Association of Minority Contractors and served as its first Executive Director. He was the Director of the state of California office of Small Business. He founded the first minority owned surety company in the country, Builders Mutual Surety Company. He wrote the proposal for the SBA surety bond guarantee program and lobbied for its passage through Congress. Mr. Debro has arguably brought more minority trainees into the unions than anyone in Northern California.
Touche
Big deal. My white mother and white uncles and aunts picked cotton in fields owned by other white people. From what I was told, it wasn't exactly torture.
By my calculations, the very least they could have been is 67.
Joseph Debro= Screw Ball
In their 60s-80s...I admit I am not a math person, but really? Depends on whether they were slaves as babies just as the war ended or adult slaves...I am not buying it that his parents were slaves.
The thing that amazes me is those that are convinced Zimmerman is guilty of murder do not seem to give any consideration at all to the possibility of self defense. I am also not buying the idea that this many people are clueless that it is legal to defend yourself.
My dad picked cotton as a kid, did some sharecropping in his time too. Most of them were white families back then.
No, angry one. First you need to re-examine why there is affirmative action. And then come back and talk about fairness.
If your parents had cancer 80 years and they cut it out would you still be angry over it? You merely want to be angry, so I'll leave you with it. Trayvon is dead because he acted on his anger towards whitey - be like him at your own risk. And I'm not going to beat your head to 'get it' either. So your rant is futile, likewise.
The author claims to be a Black man. But how black? I have heard that in “the black community”, blacks judge each other largely by how black they are. So, is this “Black man” black like Harold Ford, Jr. and Beyonce, or black like Idi Amin? Black like Ubama, or black like John Lewis?
Keep it up and there will be a racial divide that is irreparable.
There are more than a few of us who are sick and tired of being sick and tired of negroes bellyaching while they’re raping and killing white people.
I looked him up. One site said he formed the Black group to win contracts by any means necessary. I do not think I want to know him.
“I was profiled at a Washington, D.C., hotel in 2010, forced to sleep in a homeless shelter overnight.”
That one really leaped out at me, too - what was he doing to make anyone profile him - reminds me a bit of Henry Gates ranting and raving when the cops wanted to know if that was his house he was trying to break into.
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