I grew up during the height of the civil rights movement and my parents raised me just as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King dreamed, by instilling in my siblings and I that we judge people on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. All three of my K through 12 schools were always fully integrated. They were naturally integrated because my neighborhood was integrated. There was no bussing because it wasn’t needed. Dr. King dreamed of his kids growing up in a world where his children would play with white children and no one would think twice about it. If Dr. King had come to my backyard or the vacant lots where we played he'd have seen a human rainbow of kids playing together. Yes, occasionally fighting each other, but the fighting was never about skin color. It was always about some infraction of the rules of the game we were playing or someone inadvertently getting hurt and losing their temper. It never had anything to do with race. Any squabbles that occurred were soon forgotten and we soon went back to our normal “business” of playing. When we chose up teams the captains would pick players based on their abilities not the color of skin. My friends and neighbors were African-American, Hispanic, Asian, White, Protestant and Catholic, gentiles and Jews. You know what? While it meant something to each of us as individuals it didn't mean anything to us with regard to our friendships and how we treated each other.
Someone once said of former Senator Bill Bradley that because of his basketball career, between high school, college and the NBA, he had probably showered with more African-Americans than most white people know. While I never played in the NBA the same could probably be said of me since between the sports teams on which I played and my serving four years in the Marine Corps, I too have probably showered with more African-Americans than most white people know.
This brings me to the tragic death of Trayvon Martin. This case has shined a spotlight on a man that may have over stepped his bounds, but in the long run was merely, as the jury found, defending himself. This is a man who was labeled a bigot because the victim in this case happened to be African-American. This so-called bigot tutored and mentored African-American kids and took an African American to his prom (I wonder if this "bigot" wore his formal Klan hood to it). This is a man who was on his way to Lowes one night and spotted someone wearing a hoodie close to homes, not on the sidewalk, in a community that had a recent string of burglaries. He spotted a person wearing a hoodie from behind, yet it has been determined by the national media and those that make their living doing their best to keep the races at odds with each other that this man profiled this person based on race. I defy anyone to tell me they can tell someone's race when the person they're looking at from behind is wearing a hoodie. George Zimmerman was later able to determine that Trayvon was African-American, but when he first spotted him that wasn’t possible. If anything was profiled it was the hoodie, not Trayvon's race. I understand that Trayvon was trying to stay as dry as possible on a rainy night which is why he was close to the homes. However I can tell you that if it was my neighborhood and there had been a recent string of burglaries and I spotted someone wearing a hoodie going from house to house, not walking on the sidewalk, I can't say I wouldn't have been concerned about what they were doing. The truth in this tragic case is that a young person was killed who happened to be African-American, not because he was African-American.
The way the national media has covered this case many Americans are convinced that “whitey” once again killed an African-American and that this is a common occurrence. After all America is a racist country. We all know this despite the fact that we elected an African-American as president twice. Well the truth is that over 90% of the murders committed on African Americans are committed by African-Americans. This should outrage everyone, but especially those in the African-American community. The Bureau of Justice Statistics in their 2007 report stated that 8,000 and in some years close to 9,000 African-Americans are murdered annually. Again more than 90% of these murders were committed by African-Americans. That means that over a 10 year period more African-Americans were killed by African-Americans than serviceman and woman killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Viet Nam combined. Note that these numbers are for murders only. The numbers wounded are even higher. Why aren't Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Oprah Winfrey screaming for a Federal Investigation into this? Why is the NAACP silent on the subject? In Chicago, during the time of the George Zimmerman trial, 5 year old Sterling Sims, his 31 year old mother Chavonne Brown, 16 year old Antonio Fenner, 14 year old Damani Henard and 15 year old Ed Cooper were all murdered. That’s a 5 year old, 3 teens and a young mother, all of them African-American, were murdered. Did you hear anything about it in the national media? My source for this information on these victims is http://homicides.suntimes.com/. These weren’t the only murders of African-Americans in Chicago during that time period (or since). They’re just a comparison to the utter hypocrisy of the national media, Jesse, Al and Oprah and how vocal they are with regard to the Trayvon Martin death and their silence with regard to these deaths. Jesse and Oprah both call Chicago home. How can they possibly be silent about what’s happening in their own backyard? Oprah has her OWN network and is considered by many to be the most powerful l woman in media. The lack of coverage on this epidemic is deafening in its silence. I find it hard to believe with her influence she couldn’t convince the national media to put the spotlight on this. T. Willard Fair, president of the Urban League of Greater Miam, recently said "the outrage should be about us killing each other, about black-on-black crime." I couldn't agree more.
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