Posted on 05/12/2014 7:40:57 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s hard to imagine there’s more to say about Trayvon Martin’s death, but I continue to wonder about his life.
I’m still haunted by the few details that made it into public discussion, in particular the fact that he’d recently been suspended from school—an event black boys are three times as likely to experience as their white peers. George Zimmerman’s defense team attempted to use Trayvon’s suspension as a smear, to label him a thug. The funny thing is, if Trayvon had not been killed, that’s precisely how it would have been used against him in life. Suspensions have been established as defining steps along the school-to-prison pipeline. At 17, Trayvon’s opportunities were already shrinking, inequity had begun closing in around him.
And so, in July 2013, I found myself uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Person after person asked for my reaction to the verdict in Zimmerman’s trial. Over and over, I avoided answering. My challenge wasn’t a lack of thoughts; they just didn’t fit into the narrow space in which we are allowed to consider the stretched lives of black men in America. I suspect a great many of us feel this way. We think about Trayvon Martin or Jordan Davis or Oscar Grant—or, if we’re black, likely someone in our family who died early and needlessly—and we are paralyzed by the immense odds those men faced in the first place. We know that their deaths cannot truly be understood without first examining the context of their lives.
Throughout 2014, Colorlines will examine that context. This week, we launch “Life Cycles of Inequity: A Series on Black Men.”
Each month, we will publish a package of content focused on a life stage or event that for black men in the United States is uniquely confined by broad, societal inequities. We begin with high school boys—Trayvon’s peers—and we will conclude with the early mortality that takes too many of our fathers, uncles and partners in their middle ages. We’ll explore issues ranging from school discipline to fatherhood, from job markets to health care access. The video above—in which a group of teenagers speak with one another about confronting implicit bias—offers an introduction to the series. Tomorrow, we’ll explore the forces driving the school-to-prison pipeline.
The series is deliberately broad, but we certainly won’t cover the breadth of the black male experience. We won’t even exhaust the range of inequities that impact our lives. Rather, we’ve focused our efforts primarily on places where existing data shows a profound relationship between poor outcomes and being a black man. In some stories we’ll try to explain that relationship, in others we’ll highlight efforts to end it. Overall, we hope simply to join a broader dialogue about the ways in which inequity shapes so many parts of life for black men.
Our stories will vary in both form and approach. We’ll have investigations, essays, dispatches and graphic features—and opportunities to dialogue with you about it all. Each package will be anchored by a short film in which we hear directly from black men who are trying to build lives in spite of the inequities our reporting explores. We’re honored to have award-winning documentary filmmaker André Robert Lee to direct the series.
André and I were honored to meet the eight young men in our opening video in Oakland earlier this year. They talked with each other about walking into classrooms and being pre-judged, about being tracked—in ways both overt and subtle—as problems. From the White House to family rooms around the country, Trayvon Martin’s murder has sparked renewed debates about how to interrupt this kind of bias. We’ll continue following and contributing to that discussion here at Colorlines. But throughout this series we also hope to remind everyone that we’re talking about human experiences—that real people are trying their best to build lives amid this whirlwind. Humanity can be sorely lacking from politicial discussions involving race.
Finally, throughout the year we’ll be inviting you into this discussion as well. We’re particularly interested in hearing from other black men who have experienced the issues we’re covering. Join us on Facebook, Twitter or by chiming in to the comment section of the site. We hope to hear from you.
Plantation slavery: Worst. Idea. Ever.
This guy looks like an African American Alfred E. Newman. He’s even got the space between his teeth.
“He was found with stolen goods and burglary tools in his school backpack . . ..”
The Miami-Dade School District had its own in-house police dept., and the relevant administrators/officers decided that student offenses that could by law be deemed felonies would be dealt with administratively in-house, and not be referred to municipal police officials.
The school officials chose to deal with Trayvon’s two offenses (I believe he also had drugs or drug paraphernalia in his backpack) by suspending him, whereupon his father and mother, who resided in that district, sent him to Sanford to live with Dad’s girl friend.
maybe killing them off was the best way to get democrat votes out of them?
When they damn America and then find that they have damned themselves too, they shouldn’t be very surprised!
Drinking "Lean" and robbing people's houses will tend to have that effect, Kai.
Keith Ellison is the moonbat Islamicist Congressman from Minnesota.
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Of course you are correct.
I even ‘looked it up’....saw the name Keith on one of the blurbs, the name ellison came to mind, I clicked to ‘verify’ and had Post in my query so apparently a mention etc...
When I typed it in I wasn’t sure BUT...since I had ‘looked it up’.....
NO EXCUSES, just a plausible explanation....
Thanks
True dat rockrr. So at the tender age of 17 our little ‘’Willy Loman’’ here (Trayvon) is all washed up .No hope,no chance , in the greatest country on earth no sunshine on the horizon of life.Mmmm. ‘’ I cain’t get nothing from nobody cuz dey cain’t get everything from nobody to give to me ‘cuz it’s all whitey’s fault anyway ‘cuz it’s raciss’. Boy, talk about somebody dead from the neck up. This author I mean. How come the ‘’inequity’s’’of life didn’t stop him? Not to sound too harsh here or quais-racist but deserved what he got. Instead he thought a better plan for his life would to sit on his ass , steal , beat people up and break into houses. Again, I don’t mean to be insensitive here but the tragic irony in all of this, given his short, violently criminal life it ran him over bit his butt. Instant karma is a bi!tch.
trayvon WAS a thug. end of discussion.
Not one word about the collapse of the black family, and the corresponding moral collapse in the black community.
Which leads slightly the collapse of the family in the culture at large and the collapse of morality in the broader society.
Poverty and crime each have a direct tie to broken and shattered families, and to substance abuse, and those two are themselves closely related. These are moral issues and while they can be treated by social institutions, they can never be solved by anything other than a moral revival. The country as a whole is desperately in need of it and the black community even more so.
You think you’re seeing a representative sample from Africa ?
Africans who make it here are from the elite or exceptionally talented and educated. ergo, Obama’s dad.
You live in a dusty village in Africa (or SE Asia) you ain’t going to make it through immigration and the self-sufficiency requirements.
What’s the point of displaying the author’s appearance? Why spoil the mystery?
If you're a white businessman or woman, are you going to hire somebody of whatever color with no education, a criminal record, and a thoroughly sh...y attitude? That's a great many young blacks. I mean, how many black people even believe people like Wright anymore? Is the level of self-delusion that high among black Americans?
So, why not forward that to him? After all he did invite you to give input. Posting here isn’t going to help a bit....I doubt anyone would substantively disagree w/ your points.
And to those that care, I am just a generation removed from living really rural.
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