Opinion
Trayvon’s Death Takes Toll on Family
“Challenging People to Shape
a Better Future Now”
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in October 1975, is a weekly publica-
tion, published each Wednesday by
IMM Publications Inc.,
415 N. Killingsworth St.,
P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228.
S
ybrina Fulton knows what
she will be doing tomorrow.
It is the same thing she did
yesterday. And the same thing she
will do today.
“I cry every day,” she said Sun-
day on TV One’s Washington
Watch with Roland Martin. “I just
don’t understand. My son’s gone
and this guy has never been arrest-
ed.”
Her son, Trayvon Martin, an
unarmed 17-year old high school
junior with no record of trouble,
was killed in Sanford, Fla. on Feb.
26 by George Zimmerman, a
neighborhood watch captain. Zim-
merman was questioned by police
and released after authorities took
his word that he was acting in
self-defense, a version of events
contradicted by witnesses and
calls to 911.
Martin, an honor student who
lived in Miami with his parents,
was visiting in the gated commu-
nity of Twin Lakes in Sanford, 20
miles northeast of Orlando, with
his father when the incident took
place. He had gone to a nearby 7-
Eleven store to pick up a bag of
Skittles and a can of iced tea dur-
ing halftime of a televised NBA
game.
Walking back, he was spotted by
Zimmerman, who was driving a
SUV. Zimmerman, a wannabe
cop, dialed 911 to report seeing a
“very suspicious” Black male in
the neighborhood.
Under pressure, Sanford police
released 911 tapes that clearly
show that Zimmerman disobeyed
police instructions that he avoid
making contact with Martin.
Zimmerman told the 911 dis-
T HE C URRY
R EPORT
George E.
Curry
patcher, “This guy looks like he is
up to no good. He is on drugs or
something.” He also claimed Mar-
tin had his hand in his waistband
and was looking at homes as he
walked.
“These ***holes. They always
fronts this kid, weighing soaking
wet 140-150 pounds, who has
only a bag of Skittles. George
Zimmerman has a red sweat shirt
and jeans on. We believe Trayvon
Martin went to his grave not
knowing who was this strange
White man confronting him.”
Sanford Police Chief Bill Lee
has defended his department’s
decision not to charge Zimmer-
man.
“We are taking a beating over
this,” he said. “This is all very
unsettling. I’m sure if George
Zimmerman had the opportunity
to relive Sunday, Feb. 26, he’d
probably do things differently. I’m
‘We believe Trayvon Martin went to his
grave not knowing who was this
strange White man confronting him’
get away,” Zimmerman told the
dispatcher. When the 911 dis-
patcher asked Zimmerman if he
were following Martin, he replied
yes.
“OK, we don’t need you to do
that,” the dispatcher told Zimmer-
man. Not only did he disobey,
Zimmerman got out of this SUV,
confronted Martin, and fired the
deadly bullet into his chest.
Benjamin Crump, the family’s
lawyer, also appeared on Roland
Martin’s show with the parents.
“He [Zimmerman] gets out of
that car with a 9 millimeter gun,
weighing 200 pounds and con-
sure Trayvon would, too.”
Several witnesses have disputed
the idea that Zimmerman was act-
ing in self-defense.
“I heard someone crying – not
boo-hoo crying, but scared or ter-
rified or hurt maybe,” Mary
Cutcher told the Miami Herald.
“To me, it was a child.” She
explained, “This was not self-
defense. We heard no fighting, no
wrestling, no punching. We heard
a boy crying. As soon as the shot
went off, it stopped, which tells
me it was the child crying. If it
had been Zimmerman crying, it
wouldn’t have stopped. If you’re
hurting, you’re hurting.”
Sanford, Fla. has a checkered
race relations record.
In 2005, two parking lot security
guards, one the son of a Sanford
police officer, fatally shot a Black
teenager, Travares McGill, in the
back. They, too, claimed self-
defense and had their case dis-
missed in court.
Last year, Police Chief Brian
Tooley was forced from office
after the son of a lieutenant was
caught on camera beating a
defenseless homeless Black man.
The department refused to prose-
cute the officer, Justin Collison,
until after the footage was posted
on YouTube.
Tracy Martin told Roland Martin
that his son saved his life in 2004.
“At the time, he was 9 years
old,” the father recounted. “We
had just came from the Little
League football park. We fell
asleep while the stove was on. A
grease fire started. I went into the
kitchen to try to put the grease fire
out. The grease splattered all over
my leg. My body went into shock
and by me and him being in the
house, I started calling out his
name.
“He finally woke up and, at 9
years old, he pulled me from out
of the kitchen, where the kitchen
cabinets were on fire. He pulled
me out of the kitchen onto the bal-
cony. He actually went back into
the house and got the cell phone
and called 911.”
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‘KONY 2012’ and Visible Black Children
W
hether it is in the south-
ern United States of
America or in northern
Uganda in Africa, Black children
are not “invisible.” Black chil-
dren throughout the world should
be given the same respect and
sense of dignity that all children
should be given no matter what
might be the contemporary cir-
cumstances of poverty, injustice,
war or inequality. The simple
truth is Black children are the “vis-
ible” gift and manifestation of
God’s creative love and grace
bestowed on all children every-
where.
Of course here in the Black
Press of America and in Africa and
across the Pan African world, we
have a responsibility to give voice
to the sentiments of the vast
majority of Black people who are
justifiably very alarmed once
again at the misguided so-called
good intentions of filmmakers
who overtly portray the pathologi-
cal stereotype that African chil-
dren and people are hopeless
victims of self-destructive home-
grown, evil villains who will con-
tinue to engender a living hell for
African people until the “saintly”
intervention of Western military
might and power are mercifully
poured out to save Black people
from Black people.
More than 75 million viewers
over the last several days have
already watched “Invisible Chil-
dren’s Kony 2012” film that
Page 4 The Seattle Skanner March 21, 2012
E DUCATION
S ERVICES
Benjamin F.
Chavis Jr.
exposes the violent wrath and utter
misery perpetrated on Black chil-
dren, women and men as a conse-
quence of the rampage of the
inflicted on thousands of people in
Africa at the cold ruthless hands of
Kony and his band of LRA victim-
izers. But for me and many oth-
ers who study how African people
are courageously continuing to
challenge and end this type of suf-
fering and fratricide in Uganda
and in other troubled places in
Africa, while at the same time
striving to build a better sustain-
able African economy and democ-
racy to improve the quality of life
This ‘Kony 2012’ film is just the latest
example of possible good intentions
that end up seeding
counterproductive and turbulent
clouds of misunderstanding and
disgust about Africa and Black people
in general
Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA)
led by Joseph Kony in northern
Uganda. Although this brutal con-
flict in Uganda has been going on
for almost three decades, it has
now captured the momentary
attention of the world community
as the result of the “Invisible Chil-
dren” 30-minute film.
For some it took the sheer bold-
ness of film director Jason Russell
to wake up the rest of the world to
the atrocities that have been
for all across the African conti-
nent, this “Kony 2012” film is just
the latest example of possible
good intentions that end up seed-
ing counterproductive and turbu-
lent clouds of misunderstanding
and disgust about Africa and Black
people in general.
I recall that noted author Ralph
Ellison in his award-winning
novel Invisible Man published in
1952 often challenged the stereo-
typical popular view at that time
that Black youth in particular were
misunderstood not just by the cir-
cumstances of Black life but also
undervalued and under-recognized
by the systemic, yet dialectical
forces of racism, discrimination
and inequality. In other words
Black youth and people were per-
ceived as being “invisible” in a
society that discerned race and
ethnicity as fundamentally deter-
minative of the character and
worth of a human being. We have
come a long way since the early
1950’s. Yet, to our collective dis-
may the so-called invisibility of
Black children, women and men is
still too prevalent in too many
places and even in the spectrum of
the post-modern film industry as
evidenced in “Invisible Children.”
According to an account report-
ed in the Christian Science Moni-
tor, “Invisible Children, and
Kony2012’s director, Jason Rus-
sell, have been criticized for over-
simplifying the conflict’s causes
and for spending more money on
management, media, and movies
than on grass-roots projects.” This
is more than a question of where
the money raised has gone.
Beyond the money, this film will
has a lasting impact on the con-
sciousness of young people all
over the world about Africa and
about Black people.
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www.theskanner.com