“Now children , what does the fact that Trayvon Martin was carrying Skittles prove? That’s right! It proves he was racially profiled!”
Combine one of the worst school systems in the country with race bias and ignorance, and you get “Trayvon Martin Day.”
In Washington, D.C, Malcolm X Elementary in Southeast D.C. declared this Friday “Trayvon Martin Day.” The nearly all-black school is using the case of Martin’s shooting death in his confrontation with George Zimmerman as part of its “Let’s Keep Our Children Safe” seminar, “to better educate students and their parents about race relations and social injustice,” and to help reduce the needless violence and bullying in the community, according the Principal J. Harrison Coleman.
That’s interesting. And how, exactly, does the death of a Florida teen in which the circumstances are still unknown and the facts have been polluted by race-baiting demagogues, news media sensationalism and a Congressional lynch mob warrant inclusion in a seminar with those lofty goals?
“The children at Malcolm X know the name Trayvon Martin,” Coleman said. “They know the incident. They know because of what they see in the news and what they experience every day.”
Really? Which news reports would those be, Mr. Coleman? The ones that described Zimmerman as a white man stalking a black teen? The news reports that edited out the middle of Zimmerman’s 911 call, so it sounded as if his prime concern was that Martin “looked black”? Was it the news reports in which members of Congress said, without any proof whatever, that Martin was being profiled, and shot for “walking while black”? Was it the news reports that said that Zimmerman was lying about being bruised and bloodied in a fight with Martin?
Not only don’t the students “know the incident,” you don’t know the incident, just as I don’t know the incident and none of the prospective jurors in the case, if it gets to trial, knows the incident, because the facts are in doubt, and the evidence is ambiguous. You do know the rumors and presumptions running amuck in the black community, thanks to people like Al Sharpton and the New Black Panthers. How can you teach anything without facts? You can’t. All you can do is increase ignorance and suspicion by focusing on an incident that has already been tainted by hate-mongering and warped beyond recognition.
Coleman told reporters that every adult who attended the seminar would receive an Arizona Iced Tea and each student would get a bag of Skittles. Did he stop paying attention to the story six weeks ago? The Skittles/Ice Tea/hoodie stunts were cheap tactics designed to highlight Martin’s harmlessness, on the assumption that he was being racially profiled by a bigoted “white Hispanic.” This was all before the correct 911 call was released; before it was determined that Zimmerman was no more “white” than Tiger Woods, before it became clear that there is no evidence that Martin was being profiled at all, or that the incident, tragic as it was, appears to have had nothing to do with race. So how can the purpose of Trayvon Martin Day be “to better educate students and their parents about race relations and social injustice” when race was not involved, and social justice had nothing to do with the incident? What kind of “education” is this?
It is rotten education, like Washington, D.C. school children get all year long. But it is also ignorant and irresponsible education, based on bias, lazy thinking and sloppy research. The death of Trayvon Martin, with no convincing evidence showing that it involved racism, bigotry, social justice or bullying, is being smugly used as a lesson in all these things, as the local media smiles and nods.
And the Trayvon Martin Ethics Train Wreck goes on…
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Source: WJLA
Ethics Alarms 
Attended my grandson’s high school senior class award ceremony this morning; a joyous occasion until a memorial scholarship was awarded and presented by Kelli O’Laughlin’s parents. I don’t think there were many dry eyes at that point. The 14-year-old was murdered on October 27th by a black man who had broken into her home. He also stole her cell phone which he used to torment Kelli’s mom with text messages. He had been observed in the area by three witnesses who did not profile and, unlike George Zimmerman, did not call the police. And Kelli is dead.
http://www.mysuburbanlife.com/lagrange/lifestyle/x2128842397/Kelli-OLaughlin-murder-Copy-of-Cook-County-States-Attorneys-Office-news-release
How is that in any way related to this post?
By the way, this is how her community reacted – they rallied around the family. All of the neighborhood communities joined her birthday memorial with white ribbons on trees for miles around. http://hinsdale.patch.com/articles/april-2-designated-kelli-joy-olaughlin-memorial-day
We’re hearing a number of stories like that, Mary. They’ll continue, too. At least, right up to the point where people get stop worrying about getting “Zimmermanned” and do a little “Trayvoning” with these murderous criminals. Jack’s story illustrates how this culture of race hate being perpetuated and used as an excuse for criminality against whites has its roots in early childhood. When you have children attending an elementary school named for Malcolm X, one of the most infamous bigots of our history- and who was killed by one of his own people for not being murderous enough!- such things should not surprise us.
How does one make the case that assuming an unarmed child was racially profiled (by a man who has harassed Black men before) lead to justifying criminality against whites? And how does that logic in any way discredit the belief in minority communities that white people believe they’re the victims of some violent uprising that apparently only exist when whites are killed by nonwhites (which you may recognize as not being the case with George zimmerman)?
What harassment against blacks? Zimmerman tutored black kids and filed a complaint against the police for mistreating a black man. These are the kinds of rumors that have made Zimmerman a walking target. Stop spreading them.
One other point. This emotional mantra about the “unarmed young black man” needs to be put in perspective. This encounter happened in the hours of darkness. It started with a night watchman spotting an unfamiliar young man in a gated community amid a high crime area; on foot, acting peculiar and wearing an item of clothing often associated with criminals because of the anonymity it affords AND the capacity to conceal a firearm. Only an utter fool would dismiss the possibility that this was an armed criminal. At nighttime, with its limited visibility, and under these conditions, a police officer will all but assume it. Political correctness will not fend off a 9mm round aimed between your eyes. My early realization of this may be why I’m still around to collect my pension!
Thank you. The point I was trying to make is that these were similar circumstances with totally different outcomes, including the reactions of the two communities. I don’t understand hooty’s reasoning or lack thereof. I am a refugee from Chicago; the neighborhood I lived in has become a shooting gallery, and black children are usually the targets. Is there a huge outcry?No. But that’s another subject that would take many blogs and many posts just to try to understand.
It is so much more appealing to manufacture a monstrous racist murder to protest than to accept and address the problem of black on black crime that cripples the black community and ends hundreds of young lives every year,,,especially in DC.
I remember how, a while back, I was listening to some commentary about the vicious and unprovoked murder of a promising black high school student in California. (You probably remember that one, Jack.) The kid’s mother had spoken to cameras on the incident. I believe it was Sean Hannity who made the obvious point afterward, “This woman EXPECTED to lose some of her children to violence!”. This is something that few politically correct journalists will address. Violent crime among blacks has long since come to that in largely black neighborhoods- only becoming notable when it spills out into other communities. AND it’s become accepted as the status quo. We now see the same with recent Latino migrants. Why should the murder of children by other children EVER be accepted as normal? It’s that very acceptance that worries me more than the fact that such crimes do occur. It sets the stage for more and worse over time.
Simple answer: It shouldn’t be accepted. Some of us fight for socioeconomic policies to lessen the problems (more progressive tax code, marijuana legalization), while other fight against them.
Errr… you’re equating the campaign for socialism with this?!
Since when have a more progressive tax code and marijuana legalization become socialism?
When they’re part and parcel of the overall campaign… as they have been for quite some time.
The comments about Zimmerman from hooty were unwarranted, but his original point was solid.
What’s similar in the situations? A black guy was walking at night. In one community, a black kid was reported on, stalked, and eventually ended up dead. In another community, a black guy was not profiled as a criminal, but killed someone.
Unless your point is that we should be afraid of black people in our communities, I see no reason to connect your story with the Zimmerman/Martin incident.
Anytime you’d like to make a point about something real and relevant, just feel free.