Interracial Relationships: Time to Move Toward Colorblindness

More than 45 years after Loving v. Virginia, the Supreme Court case that made interracial marriage legal, many Americans still consider interracial marriage and dating taboo.

When Bill DeBlasio was elected mayor of New York City on November 5, a plethora of news articles about his marriage to Chirlane McCray, who is black, made headline news. Media sprung in to action claiming that the de Blasio's interracial marriage "shattered the traditional ideas about race and politics." Their marriage commanded the news-cycle spotlight, more than the fact that de Blasio was the first Democrat elected mayor of New York City since David Dinkins in 1993. 

Plaintiffs, Richard and Mildred Loving
in Loving v. Virginia (Time.com)

De Blasio's election also conjured up a diverse set of viewpoints on marriage and interracial dating. Tiya Miles, the chair of the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, blogged on the Huffington Post about her experience seeing her black male family members with women who she wrote looked like "Barbie." 

"Try as I might to suppress the reaction, I experience black men's choice of white women as a personal rejection of the group in which I am a part, of African American women as a whole, who have always been devalued in this society." 

Miles's feelings of personal rejection might be relatable to many African-American women, but certainly not all. Many have found happiness dating outside (or within) their race. McCray is an example.

America has further to go when it comes to interracial relations, but it doesn't hurt to take baby steps. A first step is to avoid seeing race as monolithic. It's become ubiquitous for many to lump the ideas expressed by a few members of a cultural group into the same prism of identity for all members of that group (i.e. black voters when Obama won re-election last year).The danger is that the "lumping" creates separatist attitudes. Nikki Giovanni said, “Deal with yourself as an individual worthy of respect, and make everyone else deal with you the same way.” 

Bill de Blasio celebrates win with
his son, Dante, left, daughter Chiara, and wife Chirlane

Reading Miles's article, I couldn't help but think that there's no proof that all black women rest their self-worth on a black man's decision to date outside his race or that all black women feel devalued in society. Attributing her personal feelings about rejection to "African-American women as a whole" does not move the idea of colorblindness in this country forward. It negates an opportunity to move away from monolithic-ness. 

In the article, Black Women, Interracial Dating andMarriage: What's Love Got to Do With It? Miles candidly talks about where these feelings came from.

"Once I overheard my black boyfriend telling his buddies how he preferred white women; on another occasion (with a different black boyfriend) a guy told me he didn't care that I was breaking up with him because he could go out and get a white woman," Miles wrote. (She said that this happened when her boyfriends were barely 20 years old. They were probably scared—a lot of bros have tried and been rejected by black women too.)

But Miles said she doesn’t see that moment as “the driving force behind my resentful feelings about black male-white female relationships." Instead she said it was about her “awareness of all of the (straight) African American women--beautiful, smart, good women, some of them my own family and friends--who might not have a honey to bring home this Thanksgiving holiday because they cannot find a date, even as rising numbers of eligible African American men will be wooing white women.”

But if we step back and take a look at America, the interracial wooing isn't exclusively rising among black men. It seems to have become less taboo, since Shonda Rhimes brought us Scandal; Fox allowed SleepyHollow; ABC greenlit Betrayal (where one of the subpolts is about an older white man's regrets about moving on without his black woman lover) and Rookie Blue (the detective, Traci Nash, is dating Steve Peck, her white co-worker); and audiences watched Megan Goode and Wes Brown on NBC's Deception before it was canceled. If that's not enough, Orlando Bloom and Condola Rashad, Phylicia and Ahmad's Rashad's daughter, are starring in Romeo and Juilet on Broadway.

According to Ivory A. Toldson, Ph.D., a Howard University professor and research analyst for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation; and Bryant Marks, a psychology professor at Morehouse College and faculty associate at the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research, it is a "cultural myth" that successful black men are likely to be unavailable to black women because they prefer to marry outside their race.

Toldson and Marks point out that among married black men with a personal income above $100,000, 83 percent have black wives. Among married black men with college degrees, 85 percent have black wives. Toldson cautions against exaggerating a behavior that we might see as negative, when in reality it occurs a small percentage of the time.

In Waiting to Exhale, Angela Basset's character, Bernadine, is devastated when her husband of 11 years leaves her for a white woman. 

She rips down his ties, suit jackets, shirts and pants from their shared closet, gathers all of these things up, takes his belongings outside and puts them in a car. Then, she sprinkles gasoline all over the car, lights a cigarette, smokes it and tosses the match into the car. Everything he owns burns in that car. A profound scene of the woman scorned.

But another scene proved poignant, Bernadine confronts her soon-to-be ex-husband, John: 

Bernadine: I give you 11 f----g years of my life and you're telling me you're leaving me for a white woman?

John Harris Sr: Would it help if she was black?

Bernadine: No. It would help if you were black.

Does the fact that the woman is white really cause her to dish out that rage of rejection? If it were Lela Rochon's character, Robin, who is African-American, wouldn't Bernadine be just as devastated?

Angela Bassett in Waiting to Exhale

Miles might say no. "Whiteness has been a privileged and prized identity in the U.S.; our national culture has made it this way. So when black men select white women and de-select black women, they are doing so in a context of charged racial meanings."

According to a 2005 census data poll, 82 percent of African-American men marry within their race as compared to other minorities; Hispanic men, 65 percent, and Asian men, 48 percent. And 97 percent of white men marry white women. 

Statistically, black men are not deselecting black women.

Miles says that “the human family is so genetically close that we share more than 99 percent of our DNA. Genetically speaking,” wrote Miles, who is married to a man of Native American descent, “there are no racial categories; race is merely skin deep. Dating and marrying across racial lines should therefore be natural, common and acceptable.” But, she finished that thought saying that the United States is not a colorblind nation.

I agree, The USA isn't a colorblind Nation, but it might begin to be if we take baby steps and realize that we all have the same DNA.

What do you think?

I'm Just Trying to Get Home Too

RCJ News OP-ED

At a reasonable time several nights ago, I walked to Duane Reade to buy a pack of M&M's. When I came out of the store on my way back to my apartment, it happened. For the 18-millionth time -- I know that's not a number or a realistic figure, but I'm making a point -- I've walked down a New York City street to hear a random Harlem area stranger lean in to me and say: "Sexy."

This is not a compliment.

The headline is not mocking Rachel Jenteal's explanation of what Trayvon Martin was doing on the night he was shot and killed by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman (in an exclusive interview, Jenteal told Piers Morgan on CNN that Martin was "trying to get home" on the night he was killed). That was a real tragedy and I wrote about it on RCJ News. I am, however, trying to explain that I'm tired of being harassed.

"Hey baby", "Hey Princess" or any other distillation are not compliments either. Catcalls, sexually explicit comments, and groping or unwanted touching is street harassment. Can we include leaning in too?

Recently, Michaela Cross, a University of Chicago student posted her account of street harassment after traveling abroad to India. Cross said that she

Michaela Cross in India
(photo credit michaela cross and ourweekly.com)

and others experienced repeated sexual harassment in India and those encounters resulted in her diagnosis of PTSD.

She wrote a essay that was tracked by CNN. Here are parts of her story:

"Do I tell them about our first night in the city of Pune, when we danced in the Ganesha festival, and leave it at that? Or do I go on and tell them how the festival actually stopped when the American women started dancing, so that we looked around to see a circle of men filming our every move?

"Do I tell them about bargaining at the bazaar for beautiful saris costing a few dollars a piece, and not mention the men who stood watching us, who would push by us, clawing at our breasts and groins?

In my reporting, I have covered several areas in New York City and I have watched many women leave their apartments, specifically those women in public housing, to be harassed by large groups of men outside their building. I remember seeing a man try to grab a woman's arm as she walked by. She was moving briskly. As if she knew something was coming and trying to avoid it. A pseudo "duck and cover" technique. Maybe she knew him, maybe she didn't. It doesn't matter.

In broad daylight, I walked by five men after covering a story in Brooklyn who said "oh, she's sweet, she's sweet" leaving me with a deafening sexual undertone. They did not need to grope me for me to feel uncomfortable.

But I felt excruciatingly uncomfortable more than a decade ago during a college trip. I took a Greyhound Bus with a group of friends to Biker Beach Week in Datyona Beach, Florida (the things we did at 19...). I was completely unprepared for what I saw. Keep in mind that everyone is wearing short shorts and bikini tops. I was wearing a tank top and jean shorts. We were walking down the street and passed a group of guys. The minute we walked pass them, I felt a smack on my backside. I didn't know how to react, but I remember staring the bro down in complete shock.

Women like Cross, and those women walking into their buildings are not assaulted with guns, but, I'm sure these women are being provoked like Martin was. How? Cross' account of reaching her boiling point while traveling in India: "When people compliment me on my Indian sandals, do I talk about the man who stalked me for 45 minutes after I purchased them, until I yelled in his face in a busy crowd?"

A few years ago, the Huffington Post reported that the NYC City Council heard testimony from women who felt unsafe and threatened after experiencing street harassment. They even considered introducing legislation to thwart the harassment, but the issue was: how could they execute it. Council member Julissa Ferreras, chair of the women's issues committee, was supportive of the legislation and certainly, Holly Kearl, who was mentioned in the article, would be as well. 

"Because of street harassment, from a young age women learn that public spaces are male territory," Kearl told the Huffington Post. Kearl is the author of Stop Street Harassment: Making Public Places Safe and Welcoming for Women. "They learn to limit the places they go, they try not to be in public alone -- especially at night -- and when they are alone, they stay on guard."

(RCJ News reached out to Council member Ferreras, but emails and calls were not returned)

In Egypt, where women are harassed constantly and aggressively on the streets -- some incidents are due to weak public order since the revolution ousting the President Mubarak in 2011; and now, the same unrest is happening with the ousted Morsi -- men are trying a new shaming method to help prevent street harassment. The Washington Post posted a video on their blog showing two male activists, who had just witnessed women being harassed, pin the harassers against a wall use a stencil to spray paint in Arabic, "I'm a harasser" on their T-shirts. A riskier method, but indeed, the harassers got the point.

A softer solution to the execution problem, is an app (and there really is an app for everything) called "Not Your Baby."  The app will allow users to input where they are and who is harassing them. A response will be generated to the user "in the moment" for direction from others who have been harassed on how they dealt with it. Stopstreetharassment.org has also created a new app where victims can upload in real time information about where they experienced harassment on the street. 

But, there could be technical difficulties if you use it on the subway. A temporary solution in that case is to ignore it.

Stop street harassment art by Brooklyn artist 
Tatyana Fazlalizadeh. (photo credit feminspire.com, Fazlalizadeh)

Coincidentally, however, while waiting for the subway, one guy with his wide-brimmed sport team hat and baggy jeans, again, leaned in to me for a full sentence: "It is too hot to be drinking that coffee [on the subway]." Really? Or, you could have walked by and said absolutely nothing. 

Ugh, I get it, critics. I've heard it 50 million-thousand times (again, trying to make a point): they are only being friendly; just smile back and say hello. But, the difference is that it is unwanted attention. And I don't want to smile back. 

I wonder if harassers feel provoked while trying to get home.  

What do you think?

The West/Smiley Criticism of President Obama Comes Down to Ego

By D. Price

RCJ News Op-Ed Contributor

Dr. Cornell West’s take on President Obama’s comments following the George Zimmerman verdict—“But we are a nation of laws, and a jury has spoken”—have left me stunned. Here is one of West’s comments: "We know anybody who tries to rationalize the killing of innocent people is a criminal. George Zimmerman is a criminal. But President Obama is a global George Zimmerman because he tries to rationalize the killing of innocent children...”

Growing up in New Jersey and New York, West’s name was highly regarded in my home. Primarily because of my father, who like West, also studied theology and is a Princeton alum. I remember Dr. West’s name coming up in several of my father’s conversations on myriad topics ranging from politics, race and Christianity.   

Princeton University Professor Dr. Cornel West (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

Princeton University Professor Dr. Cornel West (Credit: AFP/Getty Images)

  

Now an adult with my own family, I’d like to think West’s name will be highly regarded in my home; synonymous with people like Cory Booker, Anthony Foxx and (yeah) Jay-Z. But, sadly, after West’s recent rants, I am not hopeful the latter may be true.

West is not the only black activist or media figure who feels President Obama’s post-verdict remarks were insufficient in addressing the dissatisfaction Trayon Martin supporters feel. Tavis Smiley took to Twitter stating: “Took POTUS almost a week to show up and express mild outrage. And still, it was as weak as pre-sweetened Kool-Aid.”

Honestly, I was a bit surprised President Obama commented at all. While I wanted him to, I understand the compromising position in which he is often placed because of his biracial status. Especially in this particular case, when black, white and brown faces were involved.

So forgive me, but that is why I assumed the “Dr. West’s” and “Tavis Smiley’s” of the world would be less caustic in their public judgment of the president’s comments. Yes, the Trayvon Martin verdict speaks to the serious level of racial injustice in the United States. But, in President Obama’s defense, what everyone must remember is that while he “could have been Trayvon Martin 35 years ago,” there is a significant difference between he and Trayvon Martin that many African Americans choose to ignore: President Obama’s mother.

The president has been careful about racializing issues during his presidency, which may attribute to blacks overlooking his biracial status. Regardless of whether he has chosen to identify more with his black roots than his white, President Obama cannot escape the fact that he shares a commonality with the racial majority in America. That is why he must be extremely careful of every single thing he says.

But West seems not to be so careful. To say that, “President Obama is a global George Zimmerman,” is offensive and blasphemous. The word rationalize means an: Attempt to explain or justify (one's own or another's behavior or attitude) with logical, plausible reasons, even if these are not true. While West and others might not agree with President Obama’s comments that the “jury has spoken…” right or wrong, the verdict is final. The president’s statement doesn't mean he agreed with the jury’s decision. He was simply reiterating the facts, which cannot be changed, so now it is time for everyone to move forward.

West also said that the president is responsible for “criminalizing” the black poor and creating the “re-niggerizing of the black professional class.”  This I find quite interesting for two reasons: West is a member of the black professional class, and, while West does a superb job of pinpointing all that President Obama is not doing, I have yet to see any successful proposals or solutions of his own, such as voter registration drives, that aim to combat the plight of Americas’ poor.

A bit softer than West, regarding President Obama’s second public statement following the Trayvon Martin verdict, Tavis Smiley on NBC’s Meet the Press said, “a week of protests outside the White House, pressure building on him inside the White House, pushed him [the president] to that podium.” Maybe it did. Either way, Smiley later stated, “I disagree with the president, respectfully, that politicians, [and] elected officials, can’t occupy this space on race.”

If it is in fact public knowledge that the president would rather not use his position to discuss race and/or the events surrounding the Trayon Martin verdict, as one could easily see how that might become problematic, what more is there to say?

Maybe it’s just a case of different opinions. Maybe West, Smiley and Obama simply cannot agree to disagree. Whatever it is, there has to be more to West and Smiley’s blatant animosity toward the president than that.

Ironically, there is.

In 2008, then, Senator Obama, declined Tavis Smiley’s invitation to the 2008 State of the Black Union forum in New Orleans. With campaign and traveling conflicts, he offered to send Michelle Obama instead, to which Mr. Smiley declined. Feel free to read the president’s apology letter to Tavis Smiley, here.

Smiley and West (Credit: DemocracyNow.org)

Four years later, a similar, yet, more personal blunder occurred with West. According to him, phone calls to President Obama were not returned, and he and his mother were slighted on tickets to the second inauguration. You can read more about that story, here.

Most Americans do not know what it is like to have a personal relationship with a United States president. And those who are privileged to be among the elite inner circles obviously feel entitled to certain luxuries such as: having Mr. Obama speak at their functions, return their phone calls or provide them with tickets to presidential events.  But if the goal is to do work that reduces or eliminates the ills that plague black America, how can that be done when leaders of the black community continue to tear theirs down in public every chance they get?

Based on the facts presented, I cannot be certain that Dr. Cornell West and Tavis Smiley would be harboring the same disgust for President Obama’s policies on race and economics, had the events in 2008 and 2012 not occurred. For that reason, Cory Booker, Anthony Foxx and yes, Jay-Z, will continue to be highly regarded names in my home.

Edward Snowden Can Keep A Secret

The recently sheltered, and alleged leaker, Edward Snowden is good at keeping secrets. Just not secrets about national security.

According to news sources (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2341691/Edward-Snowdens-girlfriend-Lindsay-Mills-feels-betrayed-world-caved-in.html), Snowden never told his girlfriend, Lindsay Mills, 28, that he planned to leak pages of classified documents, jeopardizing US national security and adding strain to US relations with other countries, notably Russia, where Snowden was granted a year of asylum.

Ueslei Marcelino/Reuters

NBC news has reported that Snowden's lawyer, Anatoly Kucherena, said that his client misses Mills, and in an article by UK publication the Daily Mail online Snowden kept her in the dark in order to protect her. Snowden and Mills lived in Hawaii and were dating for four or five years before Snowden suddenly fled to Hong Kong to leak the secrets. Friends close to the couple, some who did not want to be named, said that they were set to get engaged. And recently when talking to the media, Mills' father, Jonathan Mills, said that his daughter was heartbroken and "barely holding on" after Snowden left her without warning.

Arguably, one of the biggest leaks in US history comes down to loyalty. Snowden loved his girlfriend and wanted to protect her, so he kept a secret from her: he did not place her in harms way (if there would be repercussion on her from his leakage). Snowden has the ability to be loyal to Mills. But arguably, not to the NSA or USA, at least not during his three months as a CIA contractor.

But by revealing the US surveillance strategies -- the leaks allegedly revealed the depth of the National Security Agency's (NSA) 'spying' on communications transmitted between countries through their emails and phone calls -- isn't Snowden in effect putting his girlfriend in jeopardy? She is an American. And the government, simply put, is monitoring communications to protect its citizens.

Jonathan Mills said that Snowden was a man who "has strong convictions about right and wrong" and that "he must have found something disturbing him enough that he would go this far." What Snowden leaked was information regarding NSA operations called PRISM: collections of data from U.S. phone call records to search for possible links to terrorists abroad and surveillance of online communications to and from foreign targets to detect suspicious behavior. What was shocking about what he leaked was perhaps how much personal information the government has access to about us.

Lindsay Mills and Edward Snowden (by\telegraph.co.uk/Inside Edition)

But, doesn't the average American citizen already know that the government is, in a sense, 'watching us.' Is there really such thing as privacy in any country and how should that right evaporate if we are being protected? Legally, once issues of national security are involved, the government has standing to take protective action to do anything and everything it can to keep the country safe. It's not the prettiest thing in the world but, why risk not keeping us safe just so that an NSA agent in Virginia will not know what kind of clothing you buy -- although, I agree that they really do not need to know everything that we do.

So, Snowden was more loyal to his convictions (aka himself) than he was to Mills. After all, Mills is in 'the news cycle'; naked from any real protection.

What do you think?

Her Marriage to Lose

Huma Abedin is in Charge of her Decisions*

The problem is not her, it's him.

Huma Abedin’s husband, New York City Mayoral Candidate Anthony D. Weiner is in the middle of a second media lashing, but Abedin should not be.

Weiner recently admitted in a press conference with his wife by his side that he exchanged more salacious text messages with additional women after being snarled up in a sexting Twitter scandal that cost him his seat in the House in 2011. Sydney Leathers, 23, has come forward as one of the women he sent sexually explicit messages to under the pseudonym “Carlos Danger.”

But despite all of this, Abedin stood by him, making her own remarks at the press conference on Tuesday night. "Anthony’s made some horrible mistakes, both before he resigned from Congress and after. But I do very strongly believe that that is between us and our marriage."

She appears to be a fiercely loyal woman who is ambitious when it comes to what she wants and a successful husband might be something she's checked off on her list.

Not too long ago, prominently in the 50s and June Cleaver 60s, women stood by their men without saying anything at all. Sacrificing themselves for their husbands' success. At pseudo-aristocratic schools, for example, women were mocked for playing the "waiting game" in college, to graduate or not graduate, as long as they were headed for matrimony. A top notch Art History education doesn't matter just as long as she has dinner on the table by 7 O’clock. A Wellesley College professor like the one played by Julia Roberts in Mona Lisa Smile might have said exactly what she did in the movie:

“The perfect likeness of a Wellesley graduate, Magna Cum Laude doing exactly what she was trained to do. Slide. A Rhodes scholar. I wonder is she reciting Chaucer while she presses her husband's shirts. Slide. Heh, now you physics major's can calculate the mass and volume of every meat loaf you ever make. Slide. A girdle to set you free! What does that mean?... What does that mean?... What does it mean?”

Abedin is that Mona Lisa smile: A woman who has put her husband first before her career. A painful sacrifice? Yes. But hey, don't we all want our significant others to be successful?

It's also the “age old” traditional sacrifice that women have publicly shunned, but privately accepted; and then later on, endured those consequences. Especially a politicial wife.

Putting it simply, we all make some sacrifice or take what others might say is a foolish step for love. Brilliant women of the 50s stay at home with pots and pans; and in our time, Carrie Bradshaw's play for Mr. Big in Sex and the City made her seem foolish in some viewers’ eyes (secretly, don't we wish more men would do foolish stuff for us).

Instead politician’s wives, like Abiden, hear about the “mistakes” they’ve made from their woman peers that end up plastered in headlines like, "The Public Humiliation of Huma Abiden” and “The good wife? Oh, give us a break!” to name a few. It is completely unnecessary commentary. Seriously.

This agitated energy is again lost in a prosecution storm to publicly embarrass her even more for drawing a line in the sand. Yet, it seems to infuriate pundits. Lisa Bloom of CNN/HLN wrote,

“Isn't it time to call the spectacle of the suffering political wife, standing by her man in the media glare as he admits to his latest sexual offense against her, what it really is: spousal abuse?" ... "We have the right to say that we will not enable this anymore; we will not endorse it; we will not bless it just because it is her 'choice'."

The so-called media prosecution should aim itself at Weiner. And help voters figure out whether or not he is fit to run for office regardless of whether or not he's received public calls by actors (Alec Baldwin), rivals (NYC mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio) and media (the New York Times editorial board) to step down.

In her remarks, Abiden said it's been a few years since the first scandal and through “a lot” of therapy they have learned something. Not all women would have made Abiden’s decision to stand beside their men, but in 2013, exposure of these sexting, prostitutioning or canoodling scandals have forced political wives to be more present and more public than they want to be.

Today, Americans are in the ripe newness of successful watchdog adulterous political failures and it's carving out a new niche for commentary, not for going after the politicians, but instead after their spouses.

Since it's no longer 1950-something, just let women make their own personal choices and not get so "pundit-fied" about it.

What do you think?

*Photos by NPR.org and NYPost.com

You Can't Bring Skittles to a Gun Fight

Why Zimmerman Provoked Martin by Actively Profiling Him

They say that you can't bring a knife to a gun fight, which means that if you're going to get in to a fight at least let it be a fair one. But in the Trayvon Martin case -- the suggestion is not that Martin was prepared to fight (he did not have a weapon on him) or was even looking for one -- fairness was not the reality. Martin had Skittles and a soft drink in his hand, and George Zimmerman was carrying a gun.

Allegedly, Zimmerman, who was recently acquitted in the killing of Martin said that he was attacked by Martin and shot him to defend himself. Martin was walking through a Sanford, Fla. community neighborhood on the evening of February 26, 2012 when Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman got out of his car to follow Martin. Zimmerman said that the two got in a physical fight and that's when Zimmerman shot and killed Martin.

The star witness for the prosecution in the case, Rachel Jenteal, Martin's friend, said it plainly: "He was just trying to get home."

Someone who is just trying to get home should not be profiled at all and certainly not in the same fashion as someone who is actually criminally suspicious. In order for a police officer, which Zimmerman was not, to stop someone they must have reasonable suspicion that the person has or is in the process of committing a crime. But here, that's not the issue. The issue is is active profiling provocation? And is it sufficient provocation that it rises to the level of aggression?

If a defendant is charged with murder and claims self defense, then the defendant, in this case Zimmerman, is saying that he or she was not the first aggressor: 'I did not start the fight, I was attacked.' Legally, however, the first aggressor is the person who started or provoked the fight and the jury has to decide who that was based on the order of events leading up to the fight. The first aggressor, in most cases, cannot claim self-defense and the defense wants to establish that the defendant was not the first aggressor. However, if the evidence points to the defendant being the first or original aggressor, the only way he or she can reclaim self-defense and "get off" for a legally justifiable homicide is if they withdraw from the fight and are attacked again.

Let's look at the analysis this way: You can't bring Skittles to a gun fight, you're just not prepared. But if you are carrying a gun, then you're prepared to fight.

When Zimmerman got out of his car and followed Martin because he was suspicious of the teenager he intended to take some kind of action. Zimmerman called the police, but did not wait for them to arrive nor did he say that had Martin engaged in any criminal action. According to court documents, he made up his mind that he would pursue Martin rather than wait for the police: "Fucking punks," Zimmerman is recorded as saying before leaving the car, "these assholes always get away."

Get away from doing what? Was Martin engaging in criminal activity? No, there is no evidence of that. The "assumption," as John Guy stated, was that Zimmerman believed Martin was doing something bad, yet there was no evidence of that. Only Skittles, oh yes, and Arizona Iced Tea.


So, what does all this have to do with starting a fight. It has to do with human instinct and the mind set of the person. Being pursued by someone is not fun. It's scary, and the instinct is to turn around and face it or run. The aggressor initiates the fight by finding a way to pick the fight. And active profiling is picking a fight, you're asking for confrontation.

Based on interviews with Rachel Jenteal, Martin was a "loving guy" who would not hurt anyone (there was testimony from Zimmerman's trainer that he was "soft," but, at what point was he fearful because he followed Martin at night with a gun). An altercation occurred as Martin probably felt as though he had to defend himself from a "crazy ass, c******."  And Zimmerman shot him.

According to a report from NAACP President Benjamin Jealous (on CNN), Zimmerman had a history of profiling people. But as it was probably too prejudicial, this fact was not entered into evidence. A history or record of profiling is some form of provocation. Provocation is aggression. Aggression is not self-defense. It's just like bringing a gun to fight someone carrying Skittles: you know you can't lose.

What do you think?

*Photo credit nydailynews.com

DOMA, the Voting Rights Act and Me

Up until a few days ago, I did not think that gay rights could affect me. My reasoning was narrow: I'm not gay.

But, when I read the New York Times breaking news alert on my BlackBerry, (yes, I STILL have a BlackBerry) that the Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional, I wondered what does this milestone really mean. I thought, okay, gay people can legally get married...in some states, but not all states. And...

I didn't think this way brutishly, I just did not fully engage in the magnitude of what it meant for gay people. After all, to be honest, I had had mixed feelings about Court's ruling on the Voting Rights Act just days before DOMA.

Historically, the Court seemed to plainly say (with respect to the Voting Rights Act): we are in touch with what civil rights meant to the country in the 50s and 60s, 70s and 80s and 90s, but today, it doesn't mean the same thing anymore. Constitutionally, the Court said: we find that the right to vote for minority people is held to a lower level of scrutiny than it did in the 50s and 60s, 70s and 80s and 90s; it falls below the strict scrutiny standard, and floats somewhere between intermediate scrutiny and the rational basis test. (the strict scrutiny standard gets the highest level of review in which the challenging party must show the Court that there is a greater compelling government interest than that fundamental right -- voting is a fundamental right, marriage is not).

To me, it seemed as though the Court was taking away one right and giving another. Substituting decades of a necessary freedom to the impingement of another. As if, both rights could not co-exist or one suddenly became more important, more popular than the other. I was confused. The gay community was granted a right not guaranteed by the Constitution. Yet, simply, the right to vote was deemed constitutionally guaranteed and amended for all persons (African-American men were guaranteed the right to vote with the passage of the 15th Amendment; women earned the right to vote under the 19th Amendment to the Constitution in 1920), but taken away. The ruling was a reversal of sorts and yet, extremely hypocritical.

Marc Morial, President and CEO of the National Urban League, wrote about the meaning of the Shelby County v. Holder, the case permitting the establishment of Voting Rights Act for The Grio:

"There is no “unalienable right” more fundamental to our democracy than the right to vote.  Yet, last week, the Supreme Court made a tragic decision by ruling that Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act is unconstitutional. For the purpose of providing stringent remedies where appropriate, Section 4 established a formula to identify those areas in the country where racial discrimination has been most prevalent.  Section 4 is the foundation upon which Section 5 stands, which requires states or local governments with a history of voting discrimination to get approval from the federal government before making any changes to their voting laws or procedures.  While the ruling did not invalidate the principle that preclearance can be required, it held that Section 4 can no longer be used – virtually rendering Section 5 ineffective unless and until Congress creates a new formula to determine which states and counties should be covered by it."

The White House issued a statement on the reversal of Shelby County v. Holder. President Obama suggested that while the Supreme Court acknowledged that "voting discrimination still exists" their ruling turned a blind eye to justice. 

Frankly, I thought about black gay persons. Does this mean that they can marry (in some states) but they might be hassled for legally casting a vote in other states? That in some future context, they have the right to legally marry in that state, but not to inextricably vote? This overarching justice by the Court still seemed as though it would not reach all persons.

I covered the Pride Fest Parade here in New York and was present for a press conference where Harry Belafonte, an award-winning African-American actor and activist, was honored as one of the parade's Grand Marshals. Belafonte, who is not gay,  spoke about injustice in the gay community and quoted Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail: "injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." But Belafonte did not use the word civil rights to describe the gay community's struggle for equality, he instead, referred to it as human rights.

I began to wonder: weren't gay persons asking for a civil right too? Are the benefits that come with the right to marry considered a civil right or a human right? Is there an astute difference?


Regardless of whether the Court ruled that DOMA is unconstitutional, the gay community might understand, like I do, that equality comes in bits and pieces. And this fickleness, without parallel comparison, proves that we have a lot more in common than I thought.

What do you think?