Congratulations Fearful Whites
Congratulations fearful whites for supporting murder and getting your acquittal. Congratulations for supporting a stalker and killer. Congratulations for supporting death and murder because you are afraid. I can’t wait until the next person is murdered because someone is afraid of a black man. Well done.
It has happened before, in Selma, in Birmingham, in Detroit, New York, Chicago, in urban areas with black youth, in rural areas with poor black families. Cowards unable to deal with an unsatisfying life, or just outright racists, kill and use self defense to justify murder. Many others have gotten away with killing black men in the past. And yes, black men kill black men out of fear. I am, however, discussing the killing of black men, with impunity, by white man.
Our society shows our fear through incarceration rates of black men, through representations of black men in the media and through exclusion of black men from many areas of society. We use legal codes to justify racial profiling, which is what “stand your ground” laws make acceptable. However, standing your ground isn’t okay if you are a black man.
Black men are presumed guilty by much of society. And black women aren’t immune to this selective justice. Marissa Alexander fired warning shots to hold off her abusive husband, Rico Gray. Nobody was hurt, but the police quickly arrest her and prosecute her. She has been sentenced to twenty years in prison. Kill a black man, go free, shoot a bullet as a black woman, go to jail.
There is implicit bias in our society to find black men guilty. It differs from explicit bias, for most of us find racism outwardly abhorrent. It is the less obvious bias that leads a defense attorney to question why Trayvon was in the neighborhood and why was he dresses like “that”. It is this implicit racism that leads the police to not only let Zimmerman go after the shooting but drug test the dead black man and not the man with the gun who did the shooting.
The media trumps up the fear of the black man and that leads to unequal justice for blacks. Certainly, there are many causes of this, inequality in educational and economic opportunities among them. Many people learn to fear the other in our families, from the media, and from society.
Majority white juries have let killers of black men and women free before. This is not new. Many whites are so afraid that they understand why others are afraid and would act to defend themselves against the fear inducing black man. And because they identify with the fear, they excuse murder. Why would a mostly white jury identify with a dead black man, he’s dead and he’s black.
A fearful person who knows few if any blacks can easily identify with someone who kills a black man. Aren’t most if not all whites afraid of black men? We have all seen on television, in newspapers, in magazines and elsewhere what black men are capable of. And if you’ve seen one black man, you’ve seen them all. Yes, it has happened before.
So today you can celebrate, fearful whites. Just as white men, and others, did during the good old days of slavery and the days of the post reconstruction South. Cheer your victory. For now, frightey whitey can kill black men again with impunity. Congratulations.
Peace,
Tex Shelters
