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.
The haves and the have nots. Basically he nave nots are better described as want mores. Now matter how much there is, there is always more. Forced socialism can be defeated with the simple phrase “thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s goods”.
Not saying these are his family papers, but I think they are.
Name: Joseph Debro Senior
Spouse: Salena Debro
Birth: abt 1908 - Mississippi
Residence: 1935 - Jackson, Hinds, Mississippi
Residence: Jackson, Hinds, Mississippi
1940 United States Federal Census Census & Voter Lists
Name: Joseph Debro Junior
Birth: abt 1929 - Mississippi
Residence: 1935 - Jackson, Hinds, Mississippi
Residence: Jackson, Hinds, Mississippi
http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?gl=allgs&gsfn=Joseph&gsln=Debro&gss=seo&ghc=20
According to the 1940 census, his father was born & 1908 & his mother in 1910.
Name: Joseph Debro Senior
Age: 32
Estimated Birth Year: abt 1908
Gender: Male
Race: Negro (Black)
Birthplace: Mississippi
Marital Status: Married
Relation to Head of House: Head
Home in 1940: Jackson, Hinds, Mississippi
Map of Home in 1940: View Map
Street: Barrett
House Number: 1408
Farm: No
Inferred Residence in 1935: Jackson, Hinds, Mississippi
Residence in 1935: Same House
Sheet Number: 9A
Number of Household in Order of Visitation: 181
Occupation: Laborer
House Owned or Rented: Owned
Value of Home or Monthly Rental if Rented: 400
Attended School or College: No
Highest Grade Completed: High School, 4th year
Hours Worked Week Prior to Census: 48
Class of Worker: Wage or salary worker in private work
Weeks Worked in 1939: 52
Income: 624
Income Other Sources: No
Neighbors: View others on page
Household Members:
Name Age
Joseph Debro 32
Salena Debro 30
Joseph Debro 11
Julius Debro 8
Gloria Debro 5
Unless he was raised by his grandparents or great-grandparents, who were in their mid-60s when he was born, he's lying.
It's possible there are a few old people in the country who had a biological father who was born into slavery, although that father almost certainly wouldn't remember ever having been a slave.
Biological mother? Not a chance.
Looks like the first paragraph set off the Math Alarm for just about every Freeper reading this.
Maybe the guy meant he was the descendent of slaves.
However, so am I, although I’m extremely white. Slavery was the normal state of most humans throughout history.
The angry Black man is right about at least one thing: yes, George Zimmerman broke his own nose on purpose, to spite angry Black man’s slave parents!
His article is so full of lies and race baiting stupidity that even if his claim that both parents were slaves, as opposed to my theory, it matters little.
Shame, it sounds like he’s accomplished a bit in his life, but throws it all away for some imagined claims of racism.
Great minds....:)
This is funny. h=Here is a black owned newspaper from the San Fran bay area. Hardly a conservative reader. I bet he can’t figure out where all the responses in that paper to his article came from,LOL.
Wow. The comments at the site universally excoriate this racist POS.
Let's fix this.
"I am an 84-year-old angry and ignorant Black man. Not to mention a lying sack of horse manure."
84 years old, presumably born in 1929. Slavery ended in 1865, meaning if his mother was born in 1865, she was 64 when she gave birth to him.
And here's a guy who is very accomplished and the made the best use of his opportunities. In what other country could he have accomplished so much, any yet, be so full of anger, rage and hatred.
Why not encourage other Black Americans to take advantage of the opportunities in this country, then maybe those percentages for Blacks wouldn't be so low.
Somehow, this dude overcame racism, but Blacks today can't overcome "racism". As Gertrude Stein said of Oakland, "There's no there there." Looking today in America to blame White Racism is self-defeating and stupid.
Everyone hit the BS button on this clown.
The arithmetic was just the start of it.
His rap might have gone somewhere in 1971 when the credulous kooks of California would have bought it uncritically, but that was then.
Now he just outs himself as a few pancakes short of a full stack.
She asked that $7000 be put in a black-owned bank? BFD, why waste anyone’s time over seven grand ?
He was repeating the stories he grew up hearing. The old folks filled him up with them and he feels like he lived them.
My grandfather survived the Galveston hurricane of 1900. He told his children and grandchildren about it and I was so young that I feel like I was there.
The difference is I KNOW I was NOT in Galveston in 1900 but this guy doesn’t seem to know what happened to whom.
Good observation.
I am sick to death of angry black people. Grow the hell up, all of you and recognize that white people have nothing to do with your success or failure. Work hard , shut up and sleep well.
99%???? I would be surprised if it was 25%. Before the housing crash, the construction industry regularly cried that without a steady supply of illegals there wouldn't be a single house built in the US.
Yeah huh. They get up and spout their lies and we’re supposed to cower and eat it.
Not today. Not tomorrow.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.