Discussing Trial In AA Group on DU

[onpatrol98]

I will be discussing the Trayvon Martin trial in the AA Group, if at all. I accidentally placed the first post in GD and wandered off to tidy my home. Came back and didn't even read through the posts. I just assumed they wouldn't be good.

If I discuss this trial at all, it will probably have to be IN THIS GROUP in order to keep my sanity.

Thank you for this group on DU!

Enough said...

[JustAnotherGen]

1. I saw it!

It prompted me to post this on the Trayvon Martin thread back here. . .

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1187919

[Number23]

2. That's pretty much how I feel about ANY issue that affects black people

I discuss it in this forum or nowhere on DU. I learned a long time ago that discussing issues of racism is not a good idea with a group of people who are so ignorant of American history and so blind to their own unearned privilege that they think regularly pining for the "good old days" of the 1950s is something that all good Americans do. And don't even get me started on the rage-inducingly ignorant co-opting of the legacies of MLK, Malcolm and just about every other black civil rights leader.

Come to think of it, I don't really discuss anything on DU outside of this forum. This forum and the BOG are the only forums in the last three years that I've posted any OPs.

[NOLALady]

4. I'm 100% with you.

DU has become toxic for some of us.

[onpatrol98]

8. Absolutely...

You really do have to love the pining for the good old days. With all the crazy talk about how Michelle Obama should have addressed her heckler, I thought we had returned to their good old days.



This case is so very sad. I'm blown away by the fact that this man can even open his mouth, say self-defense, and be taken seriously by anyone.

I mean...come on. He follows someone (stalking, let's be honest). He follows a kid with an ice tea and skittles. He's armed with a chambered bullet.

Am I really supposed to believe that a black man (with a chambered fire arm), following a white teen through a neighborhood, while the youth was holding tea, with skittles, and talking on the phone...could have told anyone that it was self-defense and been taken seriously?

It's enough to make you cry.

It's like watching the Twilight Zone. If Zimmerman gets off, it probably will be a return to their good old days. Mississippi has a brand new open firearm carry law. It goes into effect Monday.

[Number23]

10. GIrl, even if this was two white people, this would have been an open and shut case

CASE CLOSED. Next!!

But because the victim was a black male, HE was the one who gets accused. HE was the one who gets drug tested. HE is the one who gets smeared all over the Internet. And yes, it is enough to make you want to cry. Or scream.

And now, assholes are jumping all over the young lady at his trial. I'd take a million of her over one of them any day of the damn week. It's the same dumb fucks who called Charles Ramsey a "minstrel show" because he didn't speak the King's English and wear a monocle. The amount of sheer dumb assed ignorance that comes from people who can't scream loud enough about how "smart, educated and informed" they are is just UNREAL.

[FreedRadical]

3. I don't talk about TM with other communities either

It hits me just too close to home. I am a father of a child lost to gun violence and apathy from "the system". There was a white child involved.

I get pretty indignant pretty quickly. Not much good for anyone.

I have noticed a hardening in myself when it comes to race issues. Harder and harder to play that s**t. Bleeds over into too many areas.

The inability or unwillingness for some to understand supports the privilege.

[JustAnotherGen]

5. oh :-(

I am a father of a child lost to gun violence and apathy from "the system".

No words on this - - but sometimes it's good to let people know that they have been heard and we acknowledge their perspective and their pain.

[kwassa]

6. and the lack of public reaction.

Most parents who have lost children to gun violence get only a brief mention in the news, if at all. Many of these murders are never solved. Those parents, like you, suffer as much as Travon's parents do. Worse, in a way, as their children are forgotten by the justice system.

[onpatrol98]

7. I am so sorry for your loss...

I can understand the hardening. I agree...I think it comes with the privilege.

[Number23]

9. I know so many people that feel the same way you do

Even if we have not lost children, seeing so many of our children still being told in 2000 and fucking 13 that they are still "less than" because of their skin color or where they live is enough to "harden" anyone. That their health, their spirits don't matter as much as those of others. It is nothing short of sickening and could harden anyone's heart.

I am so sorry for the loss of your child. My most sincere and deepest condolences.

[FreedRadical]

11. Hey, Wow. Thank you.

The crickets freaked me out.

I really do not want to live my life in a hardened way. I want to be fair. But I WILL expect fairness.

Also outside of my therapist office, I don't talk about this stuff much. However when I hear willful ignorance or fake compassion, I get frosted. Seems to be best not to mention it.

Though I am at the ten year mark, it is still fresh as yesterday.

So thank you

[Number23]

12. And JUST in time to explain why so few black people start threads about race in the main forums

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10023175647

We have this steaming pile of stupid shit. Look at the recs and the responses. People actually saying that civil rights activists in the 1950s and 60s were treated better than Bradley Manning is being treated.

I absolutely refuse to let these stupid people make me as unhinged and mindless as they are.

[JustAnotherGen]

13. Dropping an f bomb

That entire thread with the MLK thread in the OP is fucking offensive.

[Number23]

14. The OP of that giant turd goes to great lengths to describe herself as a "self-hating black woman"

Last edited Sat Jul 6, 2013, 09:04 PM - Edit history (1)

(which I'm sure is supposed to be self-deprecating or ironic or both) Now, I don't entirely know what is going there and to be honest, I GENUINELY couldn't care less. But it just goes to show that there are all types around here.

There are not many black Obama detractors here. Hell, there are not many black posters here period. But there have been a few. One that comes to mind was RaineyB. Rainey was hugely disappointed in the president and she made that abundantly clear. But Rainey was also here in the AA forum regularly and there was no question that much of her disappointment was because she felt the president could be doing much more to help black people out. I disagreed with her on alot of things but I liked Rainey alot and I was very upset when she got tombstoned. I still don't know what happened.

If black folks want to criticize the president I welcome that! I have my issues too and would love an honest conversation. But when you resort to bullshit to slam the man and his government, we're going to have a problem.

And I was just talking about how people here are quick to co-opt MLK and others in the most rage-inducingly idiotic ways to prop up their idiotic "beliefs" and then that POS turned up front and center on the home page. You cannot make this shit up.

[Jamaal510]

15. I just saw that thread, too.

I gave the OP a piece of my mind and basically made it known that it was a bunch of libertarian BS trying to compare what is happening with those leakers to MLK, who advocated equality. I don't normally make angry comments like that on here, but I was so disgusted by people trying to co-opt the CR movement for their own anti-Obama agenda.
I said it before, but yeah...sometimes, I forget that this is even a Democratic website. It's disgusting how many recs that thread has actually received.

[Number23]

16. I put my two cents in the thread as well. Not that it will do any good

And I couldn't agree more with what you said, and it is disgusting to me as well the idiocy that some people will say/post here just in order to score points with the lunatics that call GD home. I was moderately encouraged though because there were several people that noted that the OP was full of shit, that her comparison was absurd, and that her very OP was the ultimate contradiction to her thesis that dissent was being stifled.

I'm not surprised one bit by the number of recs that it got. In fact as I said in the thread, the only surprising thing given the quality of this place now is that it wasn't sitting on 300 recs.

[Number23]

17. Heh, just saw your post. Other people mentioned that the existence of Fox News

and other media outlets critical of the president pretty much torpedoed the "point" of her OP too. Not that it will do any good.