Free Republic

Attorney General Eric Holder spoke out against racial profiling Wednesday, arguing the practice undermines the relationship between communities and law enforcement officials. He also reflected on his own experiences with profiling in years past. The attorney general told an audiance at the annual National Action Network convention in New York that his father gave him advice as a boy on how to interact with police if he ever felt he had been stopped unfairly. “I thought of my father’s words years later, when – as a college student – I was pulled over twice on the New Jersey turnpike and...

If I were outlining a racial history of the Obama administration, it would begin with policy: A housing collapse that destroyed black Americans’ wealth; a health care law attacked as “reparations” and crippled by a neo-Calhounite doctrine of “state sovereignty”; a broad assault on voting rights and access to the polls, concentrated in the states of the former Confederacy. Indeed, it would focus on the deep irony of the Obama era: That the first black president has presided over a declining status quo for many black Americans. In short, it would treat race as a real force in public life...

The man dubbed President Obama’s pastor, Joshua DuBois, said Monday night he is dismayed that Americans turn to God to resolve “infinitesimally small” questions not worthy of the Almighty. “If there is one gnawing sadness I have about the contemporary state of religion in America,” DuBois said, “it is that instead of seeking God’s name for the big things, the nearly impossible things, the things that stretch faith nearly to the breaking point, that require a strong God, far too often we make God do the infinitesimally small.” God used to get called on for higher causes, but not now,...

The names of the six-member jury panel that acquitted George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin have been made public for the first time, after a new court order, records show. Circuit Judge Debra Nelson, who had previously ordered the jurors' identifying information be kept confidential, granted access to the names in a ruling March 21.

USC’s Black Student Assembly (BSA) took a somber stance, honoring Trayvon Martin, Jordan Davis and other victims of racial violence at a Candlelight Vigil March 5. BSA Executive Director Ama Amoafo-Yeboah led the service to explore the past seven decades through short speeches and focus on the pattern of legalized lynching, police brutality and the infamous Stand-Your-Ground law and their social implications on race and ethnicity. “The goal of the Trayvon Martin-Jordan Davis Candlelight Vigil is to provide a space through which people can come together across those lines of race and difference that too often keeps our community divided,”...

Two years ago, Barack Obama infamously emphasized skin color above all other factors in his remarks about a boiling controversy, saying, “…my main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” Obama did the same thing again over a year later, immediately after the jury found George Zimmerman not guilty in that case–barging in front of the cameras for the explicit purpose of emphasizing skin color (instead of character and conduct) regarding issues of crime, justice, and public safety, Obama self-righteously prattled on for over 17 minutes in a...

Witnessin the Democrats do what no Republican leader of the modern era has unable to do, expose the Democrat Party for the hypocritical, corrupt and devious entity they have become. In the brief span of one minute eleven seconds, every cornerstone of progressive-liberalism is unearthed, with the typical rhetorical touches, overt and otherwise, designed to elicit the emotion that is their conduit to power.

Tallahassee, Fla. Pastor Dr. R. B. Holmes, whose leadership against hazing and the infamous "stand your ground laws", has announced his candidacy for the presidency of the National Baptist Convention USA., Inc. At a National Press Club announcement last week, Holmes called on the Black church to arise and take back its historic role in fighting social justice issues. "The Black church has become too quiet, too passive, too disconnected when it comes to challenging policies programs and persons that degrade and devastate our people" said Holmes, flanked by dozens of church and community leaders. He also announced the formation...

Florida is ground zero for the weird and unusual, but there are many people, places and events that Florida can point to with pride: Gov. Reubin Askew, our world-class beaches, beautiful wetlands, Disney World, Gasparilla and our universities’ title-winning athletic teams. But George Zimmerman is not something we’re proud of. For those people who have not listened to any form of media for the last few years, George Zimmerman is best known as the neighborhood watchman-turned-vigilante who shot and killed an unarmed 16-year old by the name of Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman played police, judge and jury, assuming Trayvon was “up...

Like the rest of the world, I was stunned to hear Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant argue that it was somehow an unecessary burden for a black man to stand in support of the late Trayvon Martin. If anything, the Trayvon Martin case brought black people together in ways that we haven’t seen since the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The case was clear cut: Trayvon had no weapon. He wasn’t bothering anybody. He was stalked out and murdered for appearing to look like a “thug.” George Zimmerman is a free man and later showed that he...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, you remember -- you may not remember it, ladies and gentlemen. On March 21st, ten days ago, we had a caller on this program, Siobhan was her name. She was from Columbia, Mississippi, and she was African-American. She said that she was ashamed of Obama. Well, guess what? In Houston, on the TV station KRIV, they played a replay of what happened on the radio. They found the local leader of the Black Panthers, the New Black Panthers, to comment on this woman calling this program and me. The woman's call was a long call and...

[Ed. Note—The opinions expressed during this conversation reflect the opinions of the participants and the participants only. This conversation does not necessarily reflect the opinions of Complex Media.] City Guide's Lauretta Charlton and Julian Kimble tackle the most controversial headlines about race that made the news. This month's discussion includes Lord Jamar, Kobe Bryant on Trayvon Martin, interracial dating and Kanye West's Vogue cover story. [NBA star Kobe Bryant told the New Yorker that he "won't react to something just because I'm supposed to, because I'm an African-American," referring to the Trayvon Martin case. Critics argue his comments are out...

Trayvon Martin's mother, Sybrina Fulton, speaks about her support to eradicate "stand your ground" laws. Enough is enough, says Rev. Dr. R.B. Holmes, noting the list of young Black people dead or in jail in states where “stand your ground” laws are in place. “Our young Black boys are being senselessly killed just for being Black teenagers,” said Holmes, who on March 25 announced the formation of the National Pastor’s Task Force, a nation wide coalition of 40 Black ministers who want to repeal or revise “stand your ground” laws. “We have begun the fight in Florida and pledge to...

*Civil rights activist Najee Ali, director of Project Islamic H.O.P.E., is calling for a boycott of all products that NBA All-star Kobe Bryant endorses. This includes his jerseys, and signature gym shoes. The call for the national boycott is in response to Bryant’s negative comments concerning the Miami Heat’s support of the Trayvon Martin family. In the March 31 issue of the New Yorker. Bryant discussed life and race with Ben McGrath. When McGrath asked Bryant’s opinion on the Miami Heat’s show of solidarity with Martin in the now iconic “hoodie” photo, the LA Lakers star stated: “I won’t react...

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder strongly hinted on Thursday that the government will soon determine if George Zimmerman will face federal civil rights charges in the 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin. A self-appointed neighborhood watch patrolman, Zimmerman was acquitted by a Florida jury of murder charges last year and soon thereafter the federal government announced that the Justice Department would be probing the case for any civil rights violations that might have occurred. The 17-year-old Martin was unarmed and just steps away from the doorsteps of his father's gated community home when Zimmerman ignored a police dispatcher's stern advice to...

Ever since George Zimmerman gunned down Trayvon Martin in his Sanford, Fla., gated community, it’s become an article of faith that the rash of lethal shootings in public places—from the Florida moviegoer who was killed after a texting and popcorn-throwing incident to Jordan Davis, shot in his car at a Jacksonville, Fla., gas station to last week’s lethal shooting in an Arizona Walmart—is attributable to the “stand your ground” laws enacted over the past decade in 26 states across the country. Aggressive human interaction, post-Trayvon, now follows a painfully familiar pattern: An altercation occurs. Someone says he feared for his...

More than a thousand people marched on the state Capitol today demanding a repeal of Stand Your Ground legislation. When they left, they left with a threat. Led by the Reverend Al Sharpton, police estimate 1200 people came from as far as Miami with a common goal. “We’re trying to amend the Stand Your Ground law,” said Virginia Lawrence of College Park, GA. “Can you imagine all the injustice?” On stage, Congresswoman Corrine Brown (D-Jacksonville) called the state and Stand Your Ground “stuck on stupid.” Trayvon Martin’s mother said she would not let her son die in vain. “Right is...

We knew last year the diversionary activity around the Miami-Dade School Police Department (M-DSPD), which was coordinated, sanctioned and authorized by Miami-Dade School Superintendent, Alberto Carvalho, was illegal. Now, however – the entire School Board might be legally responsible for engaging in unlawful conspiracy which resulted from the internal investigation within the M-DSPD and the School Boards’ “willful blindness” to the actual finding(s). The District Public Information Officer, Rolando Martin, has admitted to us the current Records Request delay is a consequence of School Board Legal Counsel evaluating our latest FOIA request. [M-DSPD] officers within the department admitted, under oath,...

SANFORD — Former Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman says he's done fighting in court with Special Prosecutor Angela Corey. In paperwork filed at the Seminole County criminal courthouse Feb. 20, Zimmerman says he is giving up his promised fight to make the state pay his legal bills. He's also wants to put an end to his lawyers' fight with prosecutor Bernie de la Rionda, whom they had asked a judge to punish, alleging unethical behavior, including hiding evidence. If Circuit Judge Debra S. Nelson agrees, that would clear the way for Zimmerman to move forward with his defamation suit against...

... The case highlighted Florida's "stand your ground" law, which makes it easier for individuals to use deadly force in self defense by removing the shooter's duty to retreat from a confrontation. She began her speech by noting that Connecticut law does not have a similar "stand your ground" provision. That, she said, is a good thing. "It does not work, it is not fair and that's the reason why my purpose, my life work, is to go around the country" and push for the repeal of such policies, she said.