yup...
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.
He’s a self-described “angry black man”? Who cares????? It sounds like he’s a racist to me.
Interesting that the readers comments in the black newspaper where the article appeared could have been written by Freepers.
The same angry black men back back in the days of Jim Crow, had laws enacted because the "angry black men" then as they are now...are ANGRY and violent...
Angry black men do not mix well in "civil society"...99 percents of "civil society" don't want "angry black men" mingling with us...
Jim Crow laws were enacted to protect CIVIL SOCIETY from ANGRY BLACK MEN...
Civil society at the time of Jim Crow laws...weren't holding ANGRY BLACK MEN down...the ANGRY BLACK MAN is quite capable of holding himself back...
ANGRY BLACK MEN with chips on their shoulders do not have plans of playing nice, playing by the rules and joining civil society...
Jim Crow laws on the books have been replaced by people who have common sense and avoid the angry black man....
Prolific breeders THEN as they are NOW...
I was born in 1942 in Arkansas, I was moved to CA in 1945 when my mother came here. I never saw any segregated schools in CA. I attended two different schools in LA before mom remarried and moved north, both schools were integrated. The schools in Northern CA were integrated, although few blacks lived in that area, the ones that did attended the same schools as the whites, mexicans and Miwok(or Miwak if you prefer)Indians that lived there. This guy is full of sh**.
So the subtext here is that this guy has been one dumb ass , racist N-word all his life.
He’s the president of a builder’s association, as well as a general engineering contractor and a bio-chemical engineer, and he complains how badly this country has treated him.
Incredible!
He also lies really well.
More observations: For someone with a graduate degree, his obvious lack of math skills make me wonder if he is lying about being a college graduate, or if UC-Berkley didn’t teach math back then, because as we see from the original math, it’s numerically just this side of impossilbe for him to have been the son of a former slave. Strike one.
Next strike: According to a scholarly review of the subject, 76.6% of media ownership is non-hispanic white males. (Source: http://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/fp-legacy/out_of_the_picture.pdf) That means that minorities own more than 25% of media. So much for what he calls “facts”.
I see no sourcing support for his outlandish claims about the rest.
This opinion piece has no credibility whatsoever. Move on, seriously nothing to see here except one more fool playing the race card.
***I am the son of former slaves.***
WHAT?
You were born in 1929 and your parents would have been slaves in 1865 at the latest?
So if you mother was born the last day of the Civil War, and was technically born a slave, she would have given birth to you at age 64?
Get over yourself.
This lying man is a goose stepping member of the black klan.
So did my mother and father, they were both white, so what does that prove?
This is most unfortunate. It has been my experience that older black men are frequently quite wise and very proud of their achievements at a time when racism actually did exist openly.
yup...
A son of former slaves (plural, both parents being former slaves), his parents would have to have been 80 to 90 years old, when he was born.
If he’s going to lie he should get some one to do the math for him first.
Nothing is preventing any black from making the American dream come true, it takes work and determination to advance in this world. If your lazy and just blame everyone for your lack of responsibility then you have no one to blame but yourself. Cry me a river boo f-n hoo. Signed angry white guy.
Well actually slavery is still going on. It’s called the Democrat party and its continued enslavement of blacks through government programs. It’s what I like to call “vote mills”. They keep them on ice by using government programs until it’s election day, then they harvest them.
His mama name be Sarah! Mebbe he be miracle chile!
But, the author said his PARENTS were both slaves. That means his mother had to be at least 64 when he was born (and, let’s be candid, just what kind of slave work would an infant perform, as his mother would have to have been born NLT 1865; thus, if she were born into slavery, she didn’t do a lick of work, as she would have been an infant).
But that’s all beside the point, because I think it is clear this gentleman is a liar.
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