In all of the ugliness that has been uncovered since the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, some beauty has also emerged…It has been beautiful to see people pay tribute to this slain boy whether through banding together in rallies to creating art…
Fellow UGA graduate and well-known actor Omari Hardwick brought together several black male actors such as Aaron D Spears, Affion Crockett, Bill Duke, Brian Dobbins, David Oweloyo, Eriq LaSalle, Gary Dourdan, Isaiah Roberts, Jay Ellis, Marlon Wayans, Mo McRae, Omar Benson Miller, Omari Hardwick, Robbie Jones, Pastor Toure Roberts, Sugar Shane Mosely,Wesley Jonathan,and Wren Brown for a poem entitled “Little Black Boy Wonder.” Hardwick wrote and produced the video of the poem, and it was directed by Mo McRae.
I woke up this morning with that hollow, sinking feeling that overwhelms you when you have someone has broken up with you and you realize that you have to go through the routines of a regular day although your heart has been punctured…I was stupefied and saddened by the news late last night that George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Benjamin Martin on Feb. 26, 2012.
It seems that most of my attorney friends on FB expected this travesty to happen based on the progression of the court case. I, on the other hand, hoped that despite how the defense seemed to wield a stronger case, justice would prevail because at the end of all of the legal gymnastics these two facts were all that mattered: George Zimmerman pulled the trigger and he pursued an unarmed teenager…But I guess my naivete has forever been shattered…It doesn’t matter what happened…It only matters what you can prove…at least in court…
I’m a die-hard history buff…I love analyzing how events that transpired years and years ago shape current events…Although I am glad God chose my life to be a part of this time in human history, I must admit that to some degree I have been jealous of those that came of age in the ’60s…They were able to craft and execute the masterful civil disobedience that makes it possible for me to enjoy the many freedoms that I and other black people enjoy today in this country…I would guess that in spite of how life threatening their actions were, they were enthralled and emboldened knowing that they were doing God’s work and that in having something to die for, they had found a reason to live as had been said before one way or another…Why do mention history this morning? I will forever be changed by the election of President Barack Obama twice!!! Finally, I have been a witness to a miracle that I know will forever affect the history of this country…And in a mysterious way, I feel like that has happened again…I firmly believe this case will be written about years from now as it is the case that demonstrates for all the world to see that somehow black life – particularly the life of black boys – doesn’t matter as much as the lives of others…It’s ugly…but it’s the truth…
I’m not saying that everyone is racist, and black people don’t have positions of wealth and power as never before in the history of this country…But what I am saying that in the totem pole of justice, black people, black boys and men, in particular are on the lower end…no matter what happened…Here are some facts that I pulled from the Center for American Progress website…
1. While people of color make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. The prison population grew by 700 percent from 1970 to 2005, a rate that is outpacing crime and population rates. The incarceration rates disproportionately impact men of color: 1 in every 15 African American men and 1 in every 36 Hispanic men are incarcerated in comparison to 1 in every 106 white men.
2. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, one in three black men can expect to go to prison in their lifetime. Individuals of color have a disproportionate number of encounters with law enforcement, indicating that racial profiling continues to be a problem. A report by the Department of Justice found that blacks and Hispanics were approximately three times more likely to be searched during a traffic stop than white motorists. African Americans were twice as likely to be arrested and almost four times as likely to experience the use of force during encounters with the police.
3. Students of color face harsher punishments in school than their white peers, leading to a higher number of youth of color incarcerated. Black and Hispanic students represent more than 70 percent of those involved in school-related arrests or referrals to law enforcement. Currently, African Americans make up two-fifths and Hispanics one-fifth of confined youth today.
4. According to recent data by the Department of Education, African American students are arrested far more often than their white classmates. The data showed that 96,000 students were arrested and 242,000 referred to law enforcement by schools during the 2009-10 school year. Of those students, black and Hispanic students made up more than 70 percent of arrested or referred students. Harsh school punishments, from suspensions to arrests, have led to high numbers of youth of color coming into contact with the juvenile-justice system and at an earlier age.
5. African American youth have higher rates of juvenile incarceration and are more likely to be sentenced to adult prison. According to the Sentencing Project, even though African American juvenile youth are about 16 percent of the youth population, 37 percent of their cases are moved to criminal court and 58 percent of African American youth are sent to adult prisons.
6. As the number of women incarcerated has increased by 800 percent over the last three decades, women of color have been disproportionately represented. While the number of women incarcerated is relatively low, the racial and ethnic disparities are startling. African American women are three times more likely than white women to be incarcerated, while Hispanic women are 69 percent more likely than white women to be incarcerated.
7. The war on drugs has been waged primarily in communities of color where people of color are more likely to receive higher offenses. According to the Human Rights Watch, people of color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than whites, but they have higher rate of arrests. African Americans comprise 14 percent of regular drug users but are 37 percent of those arrested for drug offenses. From 1980 to 2007 about one in three of the 25.4 million adults arrested for drugs was African American.
8. Once convicted, black offenders receive longer sentences compared to white offenders. The U.S. Sentencing Commission stated that in the federal system black offenders receive sentences that are 10 percent longer than white offenders for the same crimes. The Sentencing Project reports that African Americans are 21 percent more likely to receive mandatory-minimum sentences than white defendants and are 20 percent more like to be sentenced to prison.
9. Voter laws that prohibit people with felony convictions to vote disproportionately impact men of color. An estimated 5.3 million Americans are denied the right to vote based on a past felony conviction. Felony disenfranchisement is exaggerated by racial disparities in the criminal-justice system, ultimately denying 13 percent of African American men the right to vote. Felony-disenfranchisement policies have led to 11 states denying the right to vote to more than 10 percent of their African American population.
10. Studies have shown that people of color face disparities in wage trajectory following release from prison. Evidence shows that spending time in prison affects wage trajectories with a disproportionate impact on black men and women. The results show no evidence of racial divergence in wages prior to incarceration; however, following release from prison, wages grow at a 21 percent slower rate for black former inmates compared to white ex-convicts. A number of states have bans on people with certain convictions working in domestic health-service industries such as nursing, child care, and home health care—areas in which many poor women and women of color are disproportionately concentrated.
I don’t have the energy or desire to rehash the the particulars of this case…And frankly, unless you have chosen to not stay abreast of the news, you know what went down…A dark night. A unarmed black teenager in a hoodie. Skittles and ice tea. A neighborhood watchman armed with a gun. Fill in the blanks…
I’ve been praying for God’s will to happen as far as the result of this case, and I trust God’s will has been done…And this morning and in the days to come, I hope no one sees fit to riot…In fact, this morning, in spite of my sadness, I feel peace (easy for me to say I know as I’m not a part of the Trayvon Martin family). It is the type of resolved peace that comes when you know that you can no longer ignore truth and you must take deliberate action…what that action is this morning, I don’t know…But God allowed this verdict to happen and God will show us the way to go from here…
Why the Trayvon Martin murder case matters is because the collective veil has been lifted as someone said on FB last night…And now we must be armed with peace not a piece…
Peace Be Still…This song is on my heart this morning…Let’s lift up the Trayvon Martin family in prayer…
(Editor’s Note: I originally wrote this post in 2009, but as my wedding date draws closer, this post is even more special to me…)
Happy Father’s Day to all of the fathers out there!!! In my Mother’s Day post, I mentioned that my mother is the heart of my family, but I am unquestionably a daddy’s girl! I can think of all sorts of sweet childhood memories of my dad. First of all, my daddy is the ultimate Renaissance man. When my brother and I were young children, he would take us for long walks in the woods. We would feel the bark of the trees, gaze into the sky and listen to the sounds of what we hoped were far away animals. Sometimes, he would walk ahead of us and we would hear him pronouncing different words over and over again. Diction is very important to my scholarly daddy.
On Saturday mornings, back in the day, I swayed to the old school reggae music my father played as he washed his car. Later in the day, he would wash my huge afro before sending me to my mother for her to plait it. Sometimes, we would go to arts festivals at Piedmont Park. At night, my father read Disney books to us before we went to sleep. I credit my father for awakening my desire to be a writer. I remember when my mother was pregnant with my youngest brother David, she had to go into the hospital for several months. She got pregnant with him when she was 40 years old so it was considered a high risk pregnancy. At any rate, the summer before my brother was born in October, my daddy was responsible for making lunch for my brother Delvall and me. Thankfully, the women at the church made our dinners. (My father has been the pastor at Central Christian Church for nearly 30 years – since I was six years old.) Anyway, my father, who can’t cook, boiled hot dogs and toasted buns almost every day for our lunch during that summer. I couldn’t even look at a hot dog without feeling sick for years after that summer…
My dad and my nephew DeAnthony probably crying about not getting his way…
My father has never been afraid to show his faith in public which was the source of utter embarrassment to my brothers and me. Whenever we would go out to restaurants to eat, the three of us would start to cringe as he asked us to bow our heads to pray. And then my father’s deep voice made more obtrusive by his Jamaican accent made us want to hide under the table. I used to get into a lot of fights with the neighborhood kids when I was a little girl. I think they used to pick on me because I went to a private school instead of the elementary school in the neighborhood. I think it was named Kathleen Mitchell Elementary School…Anyway, I may have been small but I had a mighty mouth, and I “wrote checks with my mouth that my actions couldn’t cash.” When my father got wind of these fights, he would sit down with the two of us on the front porch and talk to us about being peacemakers. I used to wish that my father would be the like the other fathers in the neighborhood who encouraged my friends to fight those who picked on them. But now I know it takes much more control to be a peacemaker than it does to lash out verbally and physically…still working on that lesson daddy…
I remember when my first high school boyfriend and I broke up. My father, who has always worked from home, heard me wailing in my bathroom and asked me what was wrong. With my red face and swollen eyes, I tearfully explained how Imani and I broke up before homeroom that morning. My father looked in my eyes and said, “Well, this kind of thing happens in life, and it won’t be the last time.” Those words weren’t exactly comforting words, but I recognized he was trying to comfort me. In hindsight, he was probably a bit surprised that I was finally old enough to be wailing over a boy.
I was on the drill team in high school. Being on the drill team was one of the ways I got out of the house on weekend nights because I wasn’t allowed to go to parties and dances until I went to college. (I was allowed to go the prom though.) One year, I really wanted to go to my school’s homecoming dance in the gym. I asked my father to go, but I was not surprised when his answer was simply,”No.” So I got to scheming. When we had away games, we often didn’t get back to the school grounds until midnight or after. So I lied and told my parents that we had an away game (although it was homecoming) and that he shouldn’t pick me up until at least midnight. I figured that would give me some time to enjoy the dance plus I never invited my parents to come to the games because I knew they would not appreciate some of the provocative dances that the drill team performed.
So I thought I had the perfect plan in place as I sat on the bleachers in the gym talking to my one of my high school heartthrobs, Brian. I swooned over him as he talked and enjoyed watching people dance. The gym was so dark it was hard to make out everyone until without warning, a door to the gym opened and light flooded in. Looking like Al Bundy from the hilarious but now defunct sitcom,” Married… with Children,” there stood my father in the middle of the light. You are not going to believe this. All the way from the bleachers, I could see that my father was wearing pajamas covered by his trench coat. I felt like a deer cornered in the headlights. I could not move as my father looked around for a few minutes before getting to me.
My father celebrating his 65th birthday…whew Dad, you gettin’ old!
Right in front of Brian, my father finally came up to me and said we had to leave. He escorted me out of the gym and to his car. To this day, I don’t know how my father figured out I was at the homecoming dance instead of the game. I don’t know what happened at school in the weeks afterward. I think I blocked it out of my memory I was so embarrassed.
I have a vault of memories I could share, but I won’t. Consider yourselves lucky if you have a father that is in your life because I have learned that many of us did not grow up with fathers including my own father. He often shares that he met his father once in his life after he was already a grown man. I feel sad when I think of my father not having a father like the father that he has been to me. My father, who is by no means perfect, has enabled me to feel secure and cherished and I love him dearly for that…
Any thoughts?
There are countless songs about mothers but not as many, it seems, about fathers, but I have included one of my favorites here. It is “Just the Two of Us” by Will Smith about his oldest son Trey. Also, the video features lots of fathers and their children…Happy Father’s Day to every father!!! Enjoy your day 🙂
