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About The skanner. (Portland, Or.) 1975-2014 | View Entire Issue (March 21, 2012)
Opinion Trayvon’s Death Takes Toll on Family “Challenging People to Shape a Better Future Now” B ERNIE F OSTER Founder/Publisher B OBBIE D ORE F OSTER Executive Editor T ED B ANKS Advertising Manager J ERRY F OSTER Account Executive L ISA L OVING News Editor H ELEN S ILVIS Multimedia Editor D AVID K IDD Graphic Designer M ONICA J. F OSTER Seattle Office Coordinator J ULIE K EEFE S USAN F RIED Photographers The Skanner Newspaper, established in October 1975, is a weekly publica- tion, published each Wednesday by IMM Publications Inc., 415 N. Killingsworth St., 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. T HE C URRY R EPORT George E. Curry Zimmerman told the 911 dis- 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. weighing 200 pounds and con- 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 ‘We believe Trayvon Martin went to his grave not knowing who was this strange White man confronting him’ “These ***holes. They always 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, probably do things differently. I’m 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 dismissed 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.” Read the rest online at www.theskanner.com P.O. Box 5455, Portland, OR 97228. Telephone (503) 285-5555. E-mail: info@theskanner.com World Wide Web site: http://www.theskanner.com Fax: (503) 285-2900 The Skanner is a member of the National Newspaper Pub lishers Associ- ation and West Coast Black Pub lishers Association. All photos submitted become the property of The Skanner. We are not re - spon sible for lost or damaged photos either solicited or unsolicited. © 2012 The Skanner. ALL RIGHTS RE SERVED. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART WITHOUT PERMISSION PROHIBITED. To see The Skanner News on your smart phone go to theskannermobile.com or scan this QR code with your app. • • • • • • • • Local news Opinions Jobs, Bids Sports Entertainment Music reviews Bulletin board RSS feeds ‘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 children and people are hopeless victims of self-destructive home- grown, evil villains who will continue to engender a living hell for African people until the “saint- ly” intervention of Western military might and power are mer- cifully 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 Portland 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 consequence 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 others who study how African people are courageously continuing to chal- lenge and end this type of suffering 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 democracy to improve the quality 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 of life for all across the African continent, this “Kony 2012” film is just the latest example of possi- ble good intentions that end up seeding counterproductive and turbulent clouds of misunder- standing 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 Monitor, “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 consciousness of young people all over the world about Africa and about Black peo- ple. 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