Posted on 03/29/2012 8:16:18 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
SOUTH BEND -- The driver of the gray pickup decked with matching gray rims wore a hoodie over a ball cap and sunglasses when he pulled up in the street.
"I am Trayvon Martin," Joe Breathitt said. "Do you know how many times I've been pulled over because I'm wearing a hoodie and driving this vehicle with these rims?
"You can't just make this about some little dude in a hood. Ignorance thrives in all cultures."
The number of those who turned out at Indiana University South Bend's Civil Rights Heritage Center for the "1 Million Hoodie March" Thursday afternoon may have fallen short of 1 million, but the power of the crowd's voices as people marched up Washington Street to the Martin Luther King Center chanting for justice for Trayvon Martin echoed a thousand times over.
"We are ..." they called.
"Trayvon!" came the response.
"We are ..."
"Here!"
The march was organized by Kevin James, director of the Civil Rights Heritage Center, in the wake of the Feb. 26 shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla.
George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighborhood watch captain, said he shot the teen in self-defense, and several eyewitnesses told Sanford police they heard a scuffle, a cry for help, and then a gunshot.
Zimmerman was seen armed with a handgun standing over Martin's body. He initially called 911 to report a suspicious person walking in the gated community, but the tape later revealed that police told Zimmerman to stay home and let a patrol unit check it out.
Martin wore a hoodie as he walked home from a convenience store, unarmed and carrying a bottle of iced tea and a pack of Skittles.
Zimmerman was not arrested or charged, which set off a backlash of rallies across the country that has since drawn reaction from civil rights leaders and even President Barack Obama.
Thursday afternoon, the Justice for Trayvon Martin support rally hit South Bend.
"We want to bring some solidarity and better control to the community," said the Rev. Terrell A. Jackson, president of the South Bend chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. "We want to take back our children."
Even Mayor Pete Buttigieg wore a hoodie as he marched with the crowd.
"We have to ask what it means for South Bend," Buttigieg said. "I hope we learn that you can't find out something you need to know about somebody just by looking at them."
Breathitt insisted Trayvon Martin's death was more than just a mistaken hoodie.
"You have so many kids die nationally over a hoodie, jewelry ... it happens at an alarming rate," Breathitt said. "As long as we think white and black, we'll never get to it.
"That wasn't racism," he said of the shooting. "That was ignorance."
“Zimmerman was not arrested ....”
Well..... yes he was.
How many times has this happened before? How many times has it happened since? Yet this specific case gets all this attention just in time when the supremes go over Obamacare. And just to make sure, our first foreign born Islamic mulatto POTUS makes the “son” comment. I guess the press is fed up with the OWS crowd so let’s try a new distraction.
“resist we much!”
Al Sharpton
Had hoodie-wearers ever thought that if they wanted to do away with racial distinctions in society, they would begin by quitting flashing ‘hood stuff? Not everything that’s legally permissible is even remotely wise.
Don’t here any protesting on the vast number of Blacks killed by Blacks; men, women, and children. Two weeks ago in Chicago 40 Blacks were shot in one weekend, ten were killed including a six y.o. child.
Where was Sharpton and Jackson on these murders???
NO WHERE TO BE FOUND
I guess for them, it’s peachy keen if “black society” is bent on suicide. (And not just things that are officially crimes — abortions too.)
Hoods and wearers have just changed, but the idea is the same.
I say we start taking names. That way we will know who is too stupid to vote when the time comes.
Ya, these gang members and gang wanna be kids, wear gang style clothes. They wear the droopy pants which sag down. They wear the bandannas and have caps on sideways. They make strange movements with their hands, which I think may be gang signals. They get gold teeth implanted. They get tattoos.
You get the idea that they want to stand out. They want to appear to be gang bangers from the hood.
If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, walks like a duck.
I’m ready to be flamed, go ahead, for the above comment about a duck, and being charged with trivializing this issue. But if certain people dressed and behaved differently, nobody would think they were gang or ghetto type people, regardless of race. If black young people dress and behave in a civilized manner, they don’t face the same reaction which those who behave as if they are in the hood face.
I’m starting a business selling hoodies that say, “We are Rayon”.
Hmmm.
Thinking about getting “I am George Zimmerman” engraved on my .44mag.
Does anyone know why Hoodie was in the neighborhood anyway ? Did he have friends there or relatives ? Was the neighborhood gated ? just curious....
“Does anyone know why Hoodie was in the neighborhood anyway ? Did he have friends there or relatives ? Was the neighborhood gated ? just curious....”
To catch you up to speed- Zimmerman saw Martin bypass the gate system in the gated community so became suspicious. On the 911 tapes, Z. mentions Martin looks like he’s on drugs. Martin had supposedly headed to a convenience store and was on his way back to the residence of his father’s girlfriend. The father and the girlfriend were out for the evening. Martin had been sent to live with his father while on a 10 day suspension from school.
You just can't argue when he presents such convincing evidence....
Occupy Trayvon
Must be the Law of Supply and “Da Manâ€.
Let me try that again.
The price of Hoodies has skyrocketed.
Must be the Law of Supply and “Da Man”.
Trayvon’s father’s girlfriend has a place there. Trayvon was shot somewhere in the range of 60 feet to 100 yards or so from being “back at home” (reports are all over that range), with “home” being the place he is staying at least for a few days.
What’s the over/under on this couple lasting after the sharpton/jackson circus abandons them?
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