Just a few days after the Zimmeran not-guilty verdict rocked the nation, Democratic strategist, pollster, and CNN contributor Cornell Belcher, gave a speech to the NAACP Convention in Orlando, Florida. As happens all too often, the speech was largely ignored, but we would like to revisit it, as it contains some powerful messages.
(h/t Yasuragi.)
Mr Belcher made some critical points that we should discuss as we plan strategies for the way forward.
He asked:
... [I]n the face of this tragedy fanning a deep hunger for action -- what would Fannie Lou Hamer do? What would Baynard (sic*) Rustin do? What would Cesar Chavez do?
[...]
So what is the community to do now? (I initially wrote "What is the progressive community to do now?" But I quickly checked myself because, frankly, the so-called mainstream progressive political organizations that always, always have something to say around gender issues or immigration or marriage equality issues have been deafeningly silent up to this point on the issue of the Zimmerman verdict.)
For the most part, progressive political organizations continue their conspicuous silence about the issues surrounding the murder of Trayvon Martin. The media -- both old and new -- have cleverly steered the conversation away from all the relevant issues and are earnestly whaling away at the real problem as they see it -- black folks and their penchant to misbehave.
Mr. Belcher continues:
Borrow from Howard Dean's 50-state strategy and organize neighbor-to-neighbor canvassing programs where people inside the community are engaging the people they live beside in those communities in a conversation about why this matters.He ends with this rousing call:
Let's bring organizing power to our protest so that 2014 is defined by the Trayvon voter!-----------------------------
Even before Belcher spoke, one of our own Kossacks had already diagnosed the problem and prescribed the remedy in this call-to-action cartoon:
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The Trayvon Voter
Being a Trayvon voter is not the same as being a single-issue voter. Far from it. The Trayvon voter would be a motivated, determined citizen concerned with a host of issues including but not limited to:
◙ Repealing the SYG laws
The ineffective SYG laws.
"A recent study out of Texas A&M University found an 8 percent increase in homicides over a ten-year period in states with “Stand Your Ground” style laws in place. Another study by the Urban Institute found twice as many homicides are deemed justifiable in “Stand Your Ground” states. The studies found no reason to think the laws do anything to reverse the large racial disparities that exist when homicides are ruled justifiable, and some evidence they actually worsen the gap. Nor was any evidence found that “Stand Your Ground” laws deter burglary, robbery, or assault.http://blogs.lawyers.com/...The study found about 500 to 700 extra killings per year in the 23 states that have the laws."
◙Working toward the end of racial profiling
Racial profiling is the practice of substituting skin color for evidence as grounds for suspicion.It is so tightly woven into the American psyche that it will be well nigh impossible to "put an end" to it. We can, however, curb the worst excesses of it. In a historic ruling this week, Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin found that the Stop and Frisk Program violated the constitutional rights of minorities and described it as racial profiling.
That is a huge step forward. The dismissive, offensive and tone-deaf response from the Mayor and his Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly, show just how far we have yet to go.
"We go to where the reports of crime are," he added. "Those, unfortunately, happen to be poor neighborhoods, or minority neighborhoods.... There are always people that are afraid of police ... some of them come from cultures where police are the enemy. Here, the police department are our friends.”So much for Kelly's "neighborhood" theory:
In terms of recovering weapons and other contraband, stops of Whites yielded a slightly greater share, proportionally, of contraband other than weapons (1.98% versus 1.75%). The difference in the recovery of knives and weapons other than guns is greater among Whites as well (1.46% compared to 1.06%). In terms of recovering guns, the situation is reversed: proportionally, stops of Blacks and Hispanics were slightly more likely than stops of Whites to result in the recovery of a gun (0.17% versus 0.07%), but this difference is extremely small - 0.10%.http://www.theatlantic.com/...
◙Putting an end to the school-to-prison pipeline
We are a society which spends more money incarcerating our children than we do educating them.
- A 2007 study by the Advancement Project and the Power U Center for Social Change says that for every 100 students who were suspended, 15 were Black, 7.9 were American Indian, 6.8 were Latino and 4.8 were white.According to the ACLU, "children of color are disproportionately represented at every stage of the school-to-prison pipeline." It is ironic, sad and disturbing that the same people who gave us SYG laws are the same ones profiting from the exploding prison population.- The same study reports that the U.S. spends almost $70 billion annually on incarceration, probation and parole. This number lends itself to a 127% funding increase for incarceration between 1987-2007. Compare that to a 21% increase in funding for higher education in the same 20-year span.
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Trayvon Martin continued to fight until his last dying breath. When he realized that his physical strength would not be enough to overcome his murderer, he used the only weapon he had left...his voice. He screamed until the hollow point bullet took his last breath.
It was said that Emmett Till's murder was --
...a spark in the upsurge of activism and resistance that became known as the civil rights movement. The sight of his brutalized body pushed many who had been content to stay on the sidelines directly into the fight.http://www.pbs.org/...
Let 2014 be the year of the Trayvon Voter. Yes, we can.