Re: George Zimmerman to be charged in Trayvon Martin shooting

**Claudia79** Sun 14 Jul - 14:34

AnnaEsse wrote:A good article

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/26/opinion/wilkerson-trayvon

Trayvon's killing and Florida's tragic past

Editor's note: Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson is the author of "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration." One of the migrants documented in the book, George Swanson Starling, fled Florida for New York in 1945 after a standoff in the citrus groves, where he sought fairer wages for black pickers from the grove owners for whom they worked. The standoff -- in Sanford, Florida -- set in motion a plan to lynch him.

(CNN) -- Isolated in the moment, the shooting death of Trayvon Martin may seem a singular tragedy: a teenager mistaken for a criminal by an overzealous neighborhood watchman armed with a gun and backed by a state law that gives greater latitude to people to defend themselves when they feel threatened.

But that moment in February in the central Florida town of Sanford was steeped in a history that has haunted the state, the South and the country for generations.

No matter the state, the circumstances are eerily familiar: a slaying. Minimal police investigation. A suspect known to authorities. No arrest. Protests and outrage in a racially charged atmosphere. Florida is known for its amusement parks, beaches and pensioners from the North. But history bears out that Florida has been as much a part of the South and its vigilante-enforced racial caste system as Georgia and Alabama.

In 1920, a white mob burned down the black section of Ocoee, Florida, 30 miles west of Sanford, when two "colored" men tried to vote. The two black men were killed for having gone to the polls.

The black people who survived the massacre fled. The town remained all-white for generations. Three years later, a white mob burned and leveled the town of Rosewood, a black settlement by the Gulf of Mexico, 140 miles west of Sanford, after a white woman said a "colored" man had attacked her. It was where, a survivor said, "anything that was black or looked black was killed."

It was in 1934 that perhaps the single worst act of torture and execution in 20th-century America happened. In the Florida Panhandle town of Marianna, a farm settlement between Pensacola and Tallahassee, a 23-year-old black field hand named Claude Neal was accused of the rape and murder of a 20-year-old white woman. He was arrested and signed a written confession that some historians have since called into question.

A mob of more than 300 men armed with guns, torches and dynamite went searching for Neal in every jail in a 75-mile radius. The manhunt forced authorities to move Neal across the Panhandle -- by car and by boat, with the mob on their trail at every turn -- before they took him out of the state altogether, to the tiny town of Brewton, Alabama.

Someone leaked Neal's whereabouts, and a lynching party stormed the jail and took Neal, his wrists hogtied, back to Marianna. It went over the news wires that he would be lynched the following day.

Thousands gathered to see the lynching, so many people that the lynching party, fearing a riot, decided to take him to the woods. There they castrated him and tortured him for hours with such cruelty that one of the lynchers was reported to have thrown up. Neal's body was dragged through town and hanged from an oak tree on the courthouse lawn, his fingers displayed as souvenirs. No one was ever charged or spent a day in jail for Neal's murder.

In 1951, the first casualties of the modern civil rights movement, Harry T. Moore, and his wife, Harriette, were fatally wounded in Mims, Florida, 30 miles east of Sanford, when a bomb exploded under their bed on Christmas Day. Moore had been the lone representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Florida, crisscrossing the state to get equal wages for black teachers and the right to vote for blacks, who were denied that right in Florida and the rest of the South.

In more recent times, the first major race riots in the post-civil rights era erupted in Miami over a series of shootings of black men at the hands of white police officers who were all acquitted in the slayings.

In 1979, Arthur McDuffie, a black Marine Corps veteran and insurance salesman, was killed after a high-speed chase. The police said he had died from the crash of his motorcycle. But the coroner discovered multiple blunt-force wounds inconsistent with a crash. A police investigation found that the officers had pulled McDuffie from the bike, handcuffed him and took turns beating him with nightsticks and flashlights until he was motionless. The officers then gouged the road with tire tracks and drove over the motorcycle so that there would appear to have been a crash. The officers were acquitted. The verdict set off rioting in Miami in May 1980 that left 18 people dead and more than 1,000 arrested.

In 1982, Nevell Johnson Jr., a 20-year-old black man, who had worked as a Dade County messenger, was shot dead at a video arcade in Miami by a Cuban-born police officer. The shooting set off three days of rioting in Miami. The officer was acquitted.

And in 1989, a block from the arcade where Johnson was slain, Clement Anthony Lloyd was shot dead on his motorcycle by a Colombian-born police officer after a routine traffic stop. A passenger, also a black male, was killed when the motorcycle crashed. The police officer said he was acting in self-defense. He was acquitted of manslaughter in 1993 in Orlando.

Each case has its complexities, and each reflects an atmosphere that extends far beyond the Florida border. It's a moral challenge not for just one state but for America. Each case has a similar algorithm of caste and controversy in a region where old wounds appear to have yet to heal. But while each of the previous cases seems almost lost to memory now, it is the national outpouring of outrage from people of all backgrounds in response to the Trayvon Martin case that could signal the difference between the last century and this one.

*********

Minimal police investigation

This may account for why the State failed to prove its case.

That article made me cry.
And yet, in 2013, the outcome is still the same.

**Panda** Sun 14 Jul - 14:40

Kemry Hughes | May 15, 2013 at 7:58 pm | Reply

L served more than 8 years for a wrongful conviction In Md prisons back in 1968 and I am still fighting to get the state to address the issue. Even when you win , you still come up wronged. What do I have to do to get this error correcded? Kemry Hughes

Leave a Reply

.This is one of the comments from the link Claudia gave:

I watched part of this on the News this morning, the woman Judge believed the right decision had been reached and Jesse Jackson has asked the Black Community to stay calm.

**AnnaEsse** Sun 14 Jul - 14:42

Claudia79 wrote:
AnnaEsse wrote:A good article

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/26/opinion/wilkerson-trayvon

Trayvon's killing and Florida's tragic past

Editor's note: Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson is the author of "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration." One of the migrants documented in the book, George Swanson Starling, fled Florida for New York in 1945 after a standoff in the citrus groves, where he sought fairer wages for black pickers from the grove owners for whom they worked. The standoff -- in Sanford, Florida -- set in motion a plan to lynch him.

(CNN) -- Isolated in the moment, the shooting death of Trayvon Martin may seem a singular tragedy: a teenager mistaken for a criminal by an overzealous neighborhood watchman armed with a gun and backed by a state law that gives greater latitude to people to defend themselves when they feel threatened.

But that moment in February in the central Florida town of Sanford was steeped in a history that has haunted the state, the South and the country for generations.

No matter the state, the circumstances are eerily familiar: a slaying. Minimal police investigation. A suspect known to authorities. No arrest. Protests and outrage in a racially charged atmosphere. Florida is known for its amusement parks, beaches and pensioners from the North. But history bears out that Florida has been as much a part of the South and its vigilante-enforced racial caste system as Georgia and Alabama.

In 1920, a white mob burned down the black section of Ocoee, Florida, 30 miles west of Sanford, when two "colored" men tried to vote. The two black men were killed for having gone to the polls.

The black people who survived the massacre fled. The town remained all-white for generations. Three years later, a white mob burned and leveled the town of Rosewood, a black settlement by the Gulf of Mexico, 140 miles west of Sanford, after a white woman said a "colored" man had attacked her. It was where, a survivor said, "anything that was black or looked black was killed."

It was in 1934 that perhaps the single worst act of torture and execution in 20th-century America happened. In the Florida Panhandle town of Marianna, a farm settlement between Pensacola and Tallahassee, a 23-year-old black field hand named Claude Neal was accused of the rape and murder of a 20-year-old white woman. He was arrested and signed a written confession that some historians have since called into question.

A mob of more than 300 men armed with guns, torches and dynamite went searching for Neal in every jail in a 75-mile radius. The manhunt forced authorities to move Neal across the Panhandle -- by car and by boat, with the mob on their trail at every turn -- before they took him out of the state altogether, to the tiny town of Brewton, Alabama.

Someone leaked Neal's whereabouts, and a lynching party stormed the jail and took Neal, his wrists hogtied, back to Marianna. It went over the news wires that he would be lynched the following day.

Thousands gathered to see the lynching, so many people that the lynching party, fearing a riot, decided to take him to the woods. There they castrated him and tortured him for hours with such cruelty that one of the lynchers was reported to have thrown up. Neal's body was dragged through town and hanged from an oak tree on the courthouse lawn, his fingers displayed as souvenirs. No one was ever charged or spent a day in jail for Neal's murder.

In 1951, the first casualties of the modern civil rights movement, Harry T. Moore, and his wife, Harriette, were fatally wounded in Mims, Florida, 30 miles east of Sanford, when a bomb exploded under their bed on Christmas Day. Moore had been the lone representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Florida, crisscrossing the state to get equal wages for black teachers and the right to vote for blacks, who were denied that right in Florida and the rest of the South.

In more recent times, the first major race riots in the post-civil rights era erupted in Miami over a series of shootings of black men at the hands of white police officers who were all acquitted in the slayings.

In 1979, Arthur McDuffie, a black Marine Corps veteran and insurance salesman, was killed after a high-speed chase. The police said he had died from the crash of his motorcycle. But the coroner discovered multiple blunt-force wounds inconsistent with a crash. A police investigation found that the officers had pulled McDuffie from the bike, handcuffed him and took turns beating him with nightsticks and flashlights until he was motionless. The officers then gouged the road with tire tracks and drove over the motorcycle so that there would appear to have been a crash. The officers were acquitted. The verdict set off rioting in Miami in May 1980 that left 18 people dead and more than 1,000 arrested.

In 1982, Nevell Johnson Jr., a 20-year-old black man, who had worked as a Dade County messenger, was shot dead at a video arcade in Miami by a Cuban-born police officer. The shooting set off three days of rioting in Miami. The officer was acquitted.

And in 1989, a block from the arcade where Johnson was slain, Clement Anthony Lloyd was shot dead on his motorcycle by a Colombian-born police officer after a routine traffic stop. A passenger, also a black male, was killed when the motorcycle crashed. The police officer said he was acting in self-defense. He was acquitted of manslaughter in 1993 in Orlando.

Each case has its complexities, and each reflects an atmosphere that extends far beyond the Florida border. It's a moral challenge not for just one state but for America. Each case has a similar algorithm of caste and controversy in a region where old wounds appear to have yet to heal. But while each of the previous cases seems almost lost to memory now, it is the national outpouring of outrage from people of all backgrounds in response to the Trayvon Martin case that could signal the difference between the last century and this one.

*********

Minimal police investigation

This may account for why the State failed to prove its case.

That article made me cry.
And yet, in 2013, the outcome is still the same.

It made me cry too. Florida has a pretty shameful history.

**Claudia79** Sun 14 Jul - 15:03

AnnaEsse wrote:
Claudia79 wrote:
AnnaEsse wrote:A good article

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/03/26/opinion/wilkerson-trayvon

Trayvon's killing and Florida's tragic past

Editor's note: Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson is the author of "The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration." One of the migrants documented in the book, George Swanson Starling, fled Florida for New York in 1945 after a standoff in the citrus groves, where he sought fairer wages for black pickers from the grove owners for whom they worked. The standoff -- in Sanford, Florida -- set in motion a plan to lynch him.

(CNN) -- Isolated in the moment, the shooting death of Trayvon Martin may seem a singular tragedy: a teenager mistaken for a criminal by an overzealous neighborhood watchman armed with a gun and backed by a state law that gives greater latitude to people to defend themselves when they feel threatened.

But that moment in February in the central Florida town of Sanford was steeped in a history that has haunted the state, the South and the country for generations.

No matter the state, the circumstances are eerily familiar: a slaying. Minimal police investigation. A suspect known to authorities. No arrest. Protests and outrage in a racially charged atmosphere. Florida is known for its amusement parks, beaches and pensioners from the North. But history bears out that Florida has been as much a part of the South and its vigilante-enforced racial caste system as Georgia and Alabama.

In 1920, a white mob burned down the black section of Ocoee, Florida, 30 miles west of Sanford, when two "colored" men tried to vote. The two black men were killed for having gone to the polls.

The black people who survived the massacre fled. The town remained all-white for generations. Three years later, a white mob burned and leveled the town of Rosewood, a black settlement by the Gulf of Mexico, 140 miles west of Sanford, after a white woman said a "colored" man had attacked her. It was where, a survivor said, "anything that was black or looked black was killed."

It was in 1934 that perhaps the single worst act of torture and execution in 20th-century America happened. In the Florida Panhandle town of Marianna, a farm settlement between Pensacola and Tallahassee, a 23-year-old black field hand named Claude Neal was accused of the rape and murder of a 20-year-old white woman. He was arrested and signed a written confession that some historians have since called into question.

A mob of more than 300 men armed with guns, torches and dynamite went searching for Neal in every jail in a 75-mile radius. The manhunt forced authorities to move Neal across the Panhandle -- by car and by boat, with the mob on their trail at every turn -- before they took him out of the state altogether, to the tiny town of Brewton, Alabama.

Someone leaked Neal's whereabouts, and a lynching party stormed the jail and took Neal, his wrists hogtied, back to Marianna. It went over the news wires that he would be lynched the following day.

Thousands gathered to see the lynching, so many people that the lynching party, fearing a riot, decided to take him to the woods. There they castrated him and tortured him for hours with such cruelty that one of the lynchers was reported to have thrown up. Neal's body was dragged through town and hanged from an oak tree on the courthouse lawn, his fingers displayed as souvenirs. No one was ever charged or spent a day in jail for Neal's murder.

In 1951, the first casualties of the modern civil rights movement, Harry T. Moore, and his wife, Harriette, were fatally wounded in Mims, Florida, 30 miles east of Sanford, when a bomb exploded under their bed on Christmas Day. Moore had been the lone representative of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Florida, crisscrossing the state to get equal wages for black teachers and the right to vote for blacks, who were denied that right in Florida and the rest of the South.

In more recent times, the first major race riots in the post-civil rights era erupted in Miami over a series of shootings of black men at the hands of white police officers who were all acquitted in the slayings.

In 1979, Arthur McDuffie, a black Marine Corps veteran and insurance salesman, was killed after a high-speed chase. The police said he had died from the crash of his motorcycle. But the coroner discovered multiple blunt-force wounds inconsistent with a crash. A police investigation found that the officers had pulled McDuffie from the bike, handcuffed him and took turns beating him with nightsticks and flashlights until he was motionless. The officers then gouged the road with tire tracks and drove over the motorcycle so that there would appear to have been a crash. The officers were acquitted. The verdict set off rioting in Miami in May 1980 that left 18 people dead and more than 1,000 arrested.

In 1982, Nevell Johnson Jr., a 20-year-old black man, who had worked as a Dade County messenger, was shot dead at a video arcade in Miami by a Cuban-born police officer. The shooting set off three days of rioting in Miami. The officer was acquitted.

And in 1989, a block from the arcade where Johnson was slain, Clement Anthony Lloyd was shot dead on his motorcycle by a Colombian-born police officer after a routine traffic stop. A passenger, also a black male, was killed when the motorcycle crashed. The police officer said he was acting in self-defense. He was acquitted of manslaughter in 1993 in Orlando.

Each case has its complexities, and each reflects an atmosphere that extends far beyond the Florida border. It's a moral challenge not for just one state but for America. Each case has a similar algorithm of caste and controversy in a region where old wounds appear to have yet to heal. But while each of the previous cases seems almost lost to memory now, it is the national outpouring of outrage from people of all backgrounds in response to the Trayvon Martin case that could signal the difference between the last century and this one.

*********

Minimal police investigation

This may account for why the State failed to prove its case.

That article made me cry.
And yet, in 2013, the outcome is still the same.

It made me cry too. Florida has a pretty shameful history.

When will this end, dear Lord? George Zimmerman to be charged in Trayvon Martin shooting - Page 2 389741

**Claudia79** Sun 14 Jul - 15:04

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/14/open-season-black-boys-verdict?CMP=twt_gu

Let it be noted that on this day, Saturday 13 July 2013, it was still deemed legal in the US to chase and then shoot dead an unarmed young black man on his way home from the store because you didn't like the look of him.

The killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin last year was tragic. But in the age of Obama the acquittal of George Zimmerman offers at least that clarity. For the salient facts in this case were not in dispute. On 26 February 2012 Martin was on his way home, minding his own business armed only with a can of iced tea and a bag of Skittles. Zimmerman pursued him, armed with a 9mm handgun, believing him to be a criminal. Martin resisted. They fought. Zimmerman shot him dead.

Who screamed. Who was stronger. Who called whom what and when and why are all details to warm the heart of a cable news producer with 24 hours to fill. Strip them all away and the truth remains that Martin's heart would still be beating if Zimmerman had not chased him down and shot him.

There is no doubt about who the aggressor was here. It appears that the only reason the two interacted at all, physically or otherwise, is that Zimmerman believed it was his civic duty to apprehend an innocent teenager who caused suspicion by his existence alone.

Appeals for calm in the wake of such a verdict raise the question of what calm there can possibly be in a place where such a verdict is possible. Parents of black boys are not likely to feel calm. Partners of black men are not likely to feel calm. Children with black fathers are not likely to feel calm. Those who now fear violent social disorder must ask themselves whose interests are served by a violent social order in which young black men can be thus slain and discarded.

But while the acquittal was shameful it was not a shock. It took more than six weeks after Martin's death for Zimmerman to be arrested and only then after massive pressure both nationally and locally. Those who dismissed this as a political trial (a peculiar accusation in the summer of Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden) should bear in mind that it was politics that made this case controversial.

Charging Zimmerman should have been a no-brainer. He was not initially charged because Florida has a "stand your ground" law whereby deadly force is permitted if the person "reasonably believes" it is necessary to protect their own life, the life of another or to prevent a forcible felony.

Since it was Zimmerman who stalked Martin, the question remains: what ground is a young black man entitled to and on what grounds may he defend himself? What version of events is there for that night in which Martin gets away with his life? Or is it open season on black boys after dark?

Zimmerman's not guilty verdict will be contested for years to come. But he passed judgement on Trayvon that night summarily.

"Fucking punks," Zimmerman told the police dispatcher that night. "These assholes. They always get away."

So true it's painful. And so predictable it hurts.

**AnnaEsse** Sun 14 Jul - 22:10

New Black Panthers: Zimmerman verdict means 'war'

The George Zimmerman verdict is a declaration of war that only the devil can applaud, according to the Twitter feed for the New Black Panther Party.

The Twitter account, managed by the group’s national chairman, Malik Zulu Shabazz, further urged followers to “take to the streets [and] stay there.”

“Were at war,” Shabbazz Tweeted. “Its (sic) silly and immoral to call for peace when war has been declared.”

The NBPP slammed what it called the “white mans (sic) justice system,” claiming the courts base their law on “the white is right theory.”

“Only a devil would applaud that verdict. Only natural born devil. By applauding that verdict you in fact admit that you are a devil,” wrote Shabbazz.

“The major problem with whites is they see white as exalted over others,” the Twitter feed added.

Shabbazz Tweeted that “As a lawyer, I am deeply dissapointed & embarassed (sic) at a judicial system that can’t deliver jail time for clear killer.”

Of whites, Shabbazz charged, “You all are born to kill and murder the darker peoples as Jesus says in John 8th chapter 44 verse. ‘A liar and a murderer from beginning.’”

Continued Shabbazz: “Everywhere the white man has gone since released from the caves and hills of europe the white man has killed & murdered the dark peoples :(”

The NBPP is a controversial black extremist party whose leaders are notorious for their racist statements and for leading anti-white activism.

The NBPP’s official platform states, “White man has kept us deaf, dumb and blind,” refers to the “white racist government of America,” demands black people be exempt from military service and uses the word “Jew” repeatedly in quotation marks.

Shabazz has led racially divisive protests and conferences, such as the 1998 Million Youth March, in which a few thousand Harlem youths reportedly were called upon to scuffle with police officers and speakers demanded the extermination of whites in South Africa.

The NBPP chairman was quoted at a May 2007 protest against the 400-year celebration of the settlement of Jamestown, Va., stating, “When the white man came here, you should have left him to die.”

He claimed Jews engaged in an “African holocaust,” and he has promoted the anti-Semitic urban legend that 4,000 Israelis fled the World Trade Center just prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

When Shabazz was denied entry to Canada in May 2008 while trying to speak at a black action event, he blamed Jewish groups and claimed Canada “is run from Israel.”

Canadian officials justified the action stating he has an “anti-Semitic” and “anti-police” record, but some reports blamed what was termed a minor criminal history for the decision to deny him entry.

http://www.wnd.com/2013/07/new-black-panthers-zimmerman-verdict-means-war/#ygEacva9j1p3mdYv.99

**Claudia79** Sun 14 Jul - 22:52

And there you have it, a disgusting verdict being the perfect reason for extremists to do their 'thing'. Fortunately, Travyon's family reacted in a very composed and dignified way which I probably wouldn't be able to replicate if it was my child's killer walking free.

**Panda** Mon 15 Jul - 8:01

LA Violence: Zimmerman Verdict Sparks ClashesPolice fire non-lethal rounds to break up the crowd after protesters threw batteries and rocks at officers.7:27am UK, Monday 15 July 2013 Video: Protesters march in the Crenshaw neighbourhood of Los Angeles
Enlarge A New York march in memory of Trayvon Martin, the black unarmed teenager who was shot dead by George Zimmerman in Florida last year. The 17-year-old was carrying a bag of skittles when he was killed.

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Mr Zimmerman claimed he acted in self-defence and was acquitted of murder by a jury.

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The verdict has stirred emotions and divided people between those who believed Mr Zimmerman acted the way he did because of Trayvon's race, and those who believed that he acted in self-defence.

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A New York march in memory of Trayvon Martin, the black unarmed teenager who was shot dead by George Zimmerman in Florida last year.

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A police officer confronts a protester in Manhattan.

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A demonstration in Union Square, New York.

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A peaceful rally in Miami.

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A woman stages a protest against the verdict in Florida.

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A protester is pushed back on a road in Los Angeles.

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There have been pockets of violence in LA.

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Protesters block traffic by marching through New York.

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PreviousNextGallery: Protests In US Over Trayvon Case
Enlarge EmailBy Tom Parmenter in Washington DC

Violent clashes have broken out between police and protesters in Los Angeles after George Zimmerman's acquittal over the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin.

The LAPD said officers fired non-lethal bean bag rounds to disperse the crowd after protesters threw batteries and rocks at police.

Protesters have been marching on I-10 highway in the Crenshaw neighbourhood in southwestern LA.

Protesters have been demonstrating on the I-10 highway

In New York, Times Square has been closed to traffic to prevent a similar protests from getting out of control.

Mr Zimmerman, a neighbourhood watch volunteer, was cleared on Saturday of the second-degree murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida.

A police officer pushes back a protester on the highway in LA

Trayvon had been pursued through a gated community before he was shot.

The verdict has sparked protests in towns and cities all over the US.

The protests in LA caused traffic chaos

While many people believe the jury got it right in deciding that Mr Zimmerman acted in self-defence, many others believe it has again exposed deep racial divisions.

Some of the biggest demonstrations were staged in NY where thousands of people gathered in Union Square and then later in Times Square.

New Yorker Stacey Ann Chin said: "I have a black child growing up in New York City.

Times Square has been closed to traffic due to the protests

"And I felt like I had to get out of my house today, and motivate the household and get everyone out to come and show a presence, some evidence of resistance, some evidence of our displeasure or our aghast, unbelief about what has happened. "

Carmella Alston, also from New York, said : "I just know that my ancestors, my great-grandmothers, my grandmothers all marched before with Malcolm, Martin, Reverend Jesse Jackson, and even marched with Al Sharpton.

"And I didn't think at this age I will have to be going through this as well."

Mr Zimmerman (R) was acquitted of Trayvon's murder

US President Barack Obama has called for "calm reflection" in the wake of Mr Zimmerman's acquittal.

"The death of Trayvon Martin was a tragedy. Not just for his family, or for any one community, but for America," Mr Obama said in a statement.

"I know this case has elicited strong passions. And in the wake of the verdict I know those passions are running even higher. But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken."

**AnnaEsse** Tue 16 Jul - 21:57

Piers Morgan appears to have set this young woman up for ridicule. In this first extract, he asked her about the expression "creepy ass cracka." Was it a term used by black people for white people? No, says Rachel Jeantel, it means someone behaving like a police officer. Actually, it is a term used for white people. It comes from the slave trade when the white man would crack the whip, therefore "cracker," pronounced "cracka" by young people and rappers.

On the video on this page, you can hear the derisory laughter from the audience when Rachel explains the difference between "n*gga" and "n*gger." "N*gga" she says just means "a male."

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/rachel-jeantel-explains-the-difference-between-ngga-and-ngger-to-piers-morgan/

**Claudia79** Thu 18 Jul - 13:59

http://www.salon.com/2013/07/18/five_racially_charged_self_defense_cases_that_echo_zimmerman/

5 racially charged self-defense cases that echo Zimmerman
Zimmerman's acquittal has drawn attention to other self-defense trials -- and the racial biases they reveal
By Katie Mcdonough

The acquittal of George Zimmerman in the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin has ignited a national conversation about race and the criminal justice system in the United States. It has also brought badly needed attention to the uneven application of self-defense laws across race and gender.

But while the tragic death of Trayvon — and fraught Zimmerman trial — garnered national attention, far too many cases that reveal deep cracks and prejudices in our society and system go unnoticed.

Here, a roundup of five cases — some of which are still being argued in court — that you may have missed:

Marissa Alexander

Invoking Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law did little to protect Marissa Alexander, a 31-year-old African-American mother of three, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison after she fired a warning shot to ward off her husband during a domestic violence incident. Alexander, who had a protective order out against her husband, aimed her shot at the ceiling, injuring no one.

Alexander maintained throughout the trial that she was acting in self-defense, but was convicted on three counts of aggravated assault in 2011. And despite the fact that she had no prior record, she was given the harsh sentence of 20 years because of the state’s mandatory minimum sentencing requirements.

John McNeil

In 2005, John McNeil received a phone call from his son reporting that 19-year-old Brian Epp was trespassing in the backyard of the family’s Georgia home, wielding a box cutter. McNeil, a black man, returned home, called the police and told Epp, a white man, to leave. He then fired a warning shot into the ground, but Epp continued to approach. McNeil then shot Epp, killing him.

Witnesses corroborated McNeil’s account of events, and police initially ruled he acted in self-defense. But months later, the Cobb County District Attorney’s Office brought murder charges against him and won a conviction. McNeil was sentenced to life in prison.

In February 2013, after spending six years in prison, McNeil’s case was reconsidered and he pleaded guilty to the reduced charge of manslaughter and released on time served and 13 years probation.

John White

In 2007, John White, a black Long Island man, was found guilty of manslaughter after a jury rejected White’s claim that he was trying to protect his family from a group of white teenagers threatening his son when his gun accidentally discharged, killing 17-year-old Daniel Cicciaro Jr.

As reported by the New York Daily News that year, White had been “sleeping inside his home in Miller Place, a predominantly white community in eastern Long Island,” when he was woken up by his son, alerting him that he was being threatened by Cicciaro and others. A confrontation outside White’s house occurred, at which point, White says, Cicciaro lunged for his gun, causing it to go off.

In 2010, then-Gov. David Paterson commuted White’s sentence, and White returned home to his family.

Darius Simmons

John Spooner, a white, 76-year-old Milwaukee man, shot and killed Darius Simmons, his 13-year-old neighbor, who is black, after confronting the teen while he was taking out the garbage in front of his family’s home.

According to police, Spooner believed Simmons had stolen from him, and allegedly told the teenager that he would “teach him not to steal” before shooting him once in the chest. Spooner has admitted he shot Simmons, telling police: “They are going to throw the book at me because I shot the kid,” as one officer testified.

The entire incident was captured by a security camera, which Assistant District Attorney Mark Williams has called the most important piece of evidence at the trial: ”You’re going to see the terror in Darius’ face, and you’re going to see how cold-blooded and callous Mr. Spooner was.”

Jordan Davis

Michael David Dunn shot and killed 17-year-old Jordan Davis at a gas station last year because the teen was playing loud music. After exchanging words with Davis, Dunn, who is white, told police that he began shooting because he believed Davis, who is black, was armed: “It was either a barrel or a stick but, sir, they’re like we’re going to kill you and then they said, ‘you’re dead [expletive removed].’ What I should have done was put the car in reverse, but that shotgun come up or whatever it was — fight or flight — and I don’t think there was time for flight at that moment because I was going to get shot.”

Dunn then fled the scene, went to a hotel and ordered a pizza. He was arrested the next day.

When asked by police why he didn’t call them to report the crime, Dunn said: “I wanted to come back to my hometown to do that — with our dog and everybody — where they needed to be. I didn’t want to bring a [expletive removed] storm in Jacksonville.”

Dunn is now facing a first-degree murder charge (and three attempted murder charges), and intends to invoke Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law in his defense.

Katie McDonough is an assistant editor for Salon, focusing on lifestyle. Follow her on Twitter @kmcdonovgh or email her at kmcdonough@salon.com.

**Panda** Fri 19 Jul - 4:24

Zimmerman: what about the words 'not guilty' does Obama's Department of Justice not understand?

By Tim StanleyUS politicsLast updated: July 17th, 2013

604 CommentsComment on this article

For some people, only a guilty verdict would do

The rule in the Zimmerman case seems to be “if you don’t get the verdict you want, try, try and try again.” Ever since George Zimmerman was found not guilty of Trayvon Martin’s murder, the US Department of Justice has been pursuing other ways of getting him behind bars. It wants to nail him for breaking federal race-relation laws – for which it would have to prove that Zimmerman was motivated by racism and that it was his civil rights that he was gunning for when he shot him dead. The DOJ’s argument has already hit some logic hurdles. After examining the case for a year, the evidence hasn’t changed and proof of Zimmerman’s racial bias remains absent. The Sanford police, the FBI and the court failed to find evidence that he’s a racist and, if anything, investigation into Zimmerman’s private life suggests the opposite – this is a guy who took a black girl to the prom and mentored black school kids. There isn’t much of a case to pursue here.

And yet the DOJ can’t help but try. On Monday, the DOJ asked civil rights groups and members of the public for “tips” on Zimmerman and, according to Orlando Sentinel, “said they would very aggressively investigate this case”. They even went so far as to set up an email address so that people could write in with their observations: sanford.florida@usdoj.gov. When the email account goes live, I suggest everyone send in this hot tip – “George Zimmerman has been found not guilty.”

The DOJ’s witch hunt is indicative of the febrile racial politics of many of the liberal commentators on the Zimmerman trial. They were initially outraged – quite rightly – that police let him go and that he nearly escaped having to properly account for his actions. But beyond that point of reasonable anger, his liberal critics unreasonably presumed that a) he was self-evidently guilty on the grounds that he was white and his victim was black and b) it was the duty of the court to find him guilty on that basis alone. Technicalities such as lack of evidence, Zimmerman’s right to a fair defence or the superiority of the court system over the knee-jerk opinions of armchair civil rights protestors were regarded as trivialities. When they didn’t get what they wanted from the trial, it confirmed their suspicion that Florida, America, and the whole wide world are engaged in some bizarre conspiracy. God is a “white racist” who stalks “young black men”, wrote one Ivy League professor. I guess that makes the ten plagues of Egypt an example of divine racial profiling.

When Obama was first elected, the liberal community was split over how an African-American president should deal with issue of race. Some hoped that he would be a post-racial prez, that he would put racial divisions to rest by symbolising the colour-blind egalitarianism of 21st century America. To Obama’s credit, he has generally tried to do exactly that – calling for calm during the Zimmerman trial and largely avoiding comment.

But for other liberals, this wasn’t good enough. They wanted Obama to pick up the civil rights causes of the 1960s and use the presidency as a bully pulpit to root out and challenge racism wherever they perceive it to exist. And in the Zimmerman case, it’s the Department of Justice that has taken this more aggressive, radical path. The tragedy is that it threatens to undo the promise of racial harmony that Obama’s election represented. A sad, unnecessary death has been allowed to turn into a national nightmare by mature politicians and legal experts who ought to know better. For them, justice isn’t blind. It’s political.

**Claudia79** Fri 19 Jul - 13:55

Zimmerman belongs behind bars and I hope he ends up there one way or another. We also had to wait for OJ to finally see the inside of a cell but in the end he did.

ETA: and the 'stand your ground law' is simply unacceptable.

**Claudia79** Tue 19 Nov - 0:32

http://abcnews.go.com/US/george-zimmerman-charged-aggravated-assault/story?id=20926767

What will it take to get this bastard behind bars? Another murder? This is what happens when a murderer gets off scot-free. I hope Travyon haunts the members of that jury until the day they die.

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