So for my next post, I thought I'd shed light on something that I thought about heavily over the summer. While I am writing this, I am listening to The Beatles "Revolution" and other songs of the sort, so if I go off on a anarchy type of rant please forgive me.
The topic of this post, as stated in the post title, is the Trayvon Martin case and the controversial decision of the jury. When I heard the verdict, I was angered but not surprised. My lack of surprise came from reading a variety of articles which covered the trial and the point of views that were taken in the articles.
When covering any story that comes to the news as worthy to be covered I like to see different points of view, so I do my research on different media outlets -still never expecting to get what actually is happening- so I research right wing opinions on Fox News, and conservative opinions on CNN, then radical opinions on independent websites, and whatever else I can stumble upon.
Quick Side Note: If you believe everything that the news tells you, you are a fool. These media outlets are the same as everything else in today's society, businesses. They gain money by drawing in viewers, whether that is by delivering news the fastest or coming up with a controversial topic that will keep people watching until the next big thing comes up. I digress.
Like I was saying, I knew how the verdict would be because of the insensitivity of the majority of White America and the image of the black male in the eyes of America as a whole. During the time the trial was going on, I saw the most inadvertent racism I have ever seen in my life. Whether it was black people calling Zimmerman white, or white people labeling Trayvon as a thug, even recently to these dumb white kids thinking it's cool to do something called "Trayvoning" I was fucking disgusted to live in this country.
When reading some article on CNN, I realized what it was about Americans, and maybe people in general. The lack of empathy in people in today's society is absent. For whatever reason, the fact that none of the jury could put themselves in Trayvon's shoes on that night is mind blowing to me. If Trayvon was any other race/gender/whatever the death would have been a tragedy, I digress. This led me to think, as most people did, didn't Trayvon have the right to stand his ground?
So the jury empathized for Zimmerman, but not the dead boy and the grieving black family, OK cool. That was kind of expected. Especially with how the defense built their case before the trial, saying Trayvon sent pictures of guns and weed like most "thugs" do. This bullshit "defense" was allowed to question the dead man of his character, which was too much for me to fathom. But if the jury would have empathized with Trayvon with one second, they would have seen how deranged Zimmerman must have seemed, following a young teenage boy through the rain. You know how many fuckin weirdos and pedophiles are out in today's world? If I was Trayvon I would've kicked his rent-a-cop ass too, once again I digress.
Anyways, we know how that turned out, nothing we can change now even though Zimmerman bugged tf out after the trial and I'm sure he's still pretty scared for his life. Back to the point. This whole case made me think about one thing in depth. "Hmmm" I thought "I wonder who else had a case built against them where we were not allowed to be empathetic for them for a single moment."
Let me just say, I am one who believes that people are innocent until corrupted. So one thing I've always thought about since I was in 4th grade, on the date of Sept. 11th, is why would people just want to harm America? Even more, why would people who are half way around the globe want to just destroy a whole nation? They don't even know anyone who lives here! Back then I wasn't into researching, though, I was just a young boy. I began to look into that in high school in my AP US History class, and learned of all the bull America did which led to the rise of al Qaeda and hate of America.
So what tf am I doing relating Trayvon Martin to al Qaeda? Using my logic.
The white women on this jury will never know what it is like to be a black man in America, not for a single second. Going to Obama's speech, only a black man in America knows the struggle to be oppressed daily in the "land of the free" for as long as we have. This is now being closely followed by how any brown skin toned man in America feels, as the "majority" is actually a "minority"; Digressing once again.
So from this situation -in which every one of these white women would have used any weapons available, even concrete, to break out of the grasps of this fuckin rent-a-cop- we see the complete lack of empathy for the real victim, you know the one that was shot and killed, because of fear placed on them by an image created by history.
For this next part, I'm not trying to say I agree with terrorism or any acts that they commit, but I do want to offer a new way to think about something we only see as Americans and not just beings in the universe. These men are labeled as terrorists, they are painted as the most disgusting, violent, soulless people on this Earth by the media, but they have to have a reason/mission for what they are doing, right?
**For this next part, reference my first post. I am not an expert, I am not a Master nor do I have a PhD from any institution on this subject, I only have knowledge which I have gained from personal research.**
So al Qaeda is just a group, which has taken an aggressive approach to what America does, in my opinion. Pushing its religion as the only one which is right in the world. An article I read on Frontline says that their mission is to oppose all non-Islamic governments with violence and force. I won't go into detail about the group, because I'm not an expert. For the sake of my argument this will be enough.
Now, for a hypothetical situation, let's put a group of Americans, let's say die hard Christians, in the situation of these people who believe that we are the devil and by killing us they gain access to the highest heavens.
Let's say that a government that is lead by a group of people who are power hungry and corrupt at times come to our hemisphere and we see them fighting wars with our neighbors for a "good cause"; but during these wars we witness them attempting to steal all valuable resources from the land, which we make our country's money from, and they do unGodly things consistently in the process. Well how are we supposed to believe that these people are here for a good cause if all they're doing is killing people and scouring the land of all valuable natural resources?
I believe that this group of die hard Christians would feel that it is their right to protect themselves, their families, and the world from this demonic force which has had such an impact on a civilization full of sinners and corruption. If you don't think this would happen, Google the crusades. I mean sheesh, we even have people who are from America and see exactly what our government does overseas and become terrorists themselves -digress.
The use of drones and bombs that we deliver into places over there is a whole other thing within itself by the way, but I won't start on that.
Now like all things, do I think this group has strayed from their original mission, of course. Killing innocent people is not protecting the world from the same White Devil that much of the world fears, but does a different approach of the origin of this group make sense to me, definitely.
So if you haven't caught how I'm relating the acquittal of Zimmerman to empathizing with Middle Eastern people here it is. Not everyone is white, big news flash. Not every black male is a fuckin thug and not every brown skinned male is a terrorist. The lack of understanding by some of White America, and America in general, is absolutely crazy to me sometimes. All I'm saying is, just imagine there were bombs dropped outside of your neighborhood on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Your life would be miserable, absolutely terrifying.
If that's too much for you to think about, think about why Black America was enraged at the acquittal of George Zimmerman. Imagine you came home and your son was murdered when he was unarmed, by a rent-a-cop who was told repeatedly to stand down; then that person was acquitted because they painted your son as an animal and the jury believed it because of the false image portrayed to the American people.
The media will do what they have to do in many cases to make people believe what they want them to believe. My challenge to you is to stop listening to "facts" and be a person, who recognizes that the person being labeled as a monster or an animal or soulless is just a person just like you. They have thought processes behind decisions just like you. They must use the restroom, eat, sleep, fight temptations, etc. just like you do. The only difference is the environment and the decisions that were made based off of that environment.
So next time you start to wonder how people could terrorize the world, ask yourself if you're talking about the American military or "terrorists." Next time you think, why do black people still blame white people for slavery and the system of America, do some research about those topics, I'm sure you'll be enlightened at what you find.
“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.” -James Baldwin
“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
As always, these are just my thoughts.
-Marcus J
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