deep south Archives - Where Is The Outrage?

Trayvon Martin – Who let the crazies out?

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Seriously. What the hell? Since the moment I first started blogging on Trayvon Martin, I have asked for cooler heads to prevail. All I want is justice to be done. I want a thorough investigation. I would like for somebody to tell me why George Zimmerman was not arrested and placed behind bars on the night of the shooting.

We’re getting more and more extraneous information having little or nothing to do with the events on that fateful night. The fact that George Zimmerman was required to take anger management classes is pertinent. How can someone who is required to take anger management classes have a gun? Well, I know the answer. We’re talking about Florida. We are talking about the deep South. Basically, in the South, you get arrested and thrown behind bars if you don’t have a gun.

Several days ago, Spike Lee in a paroxysm of immense stupidity decided to post George Zimmerman’s address in his twitter feed. I understand that many of us get very upset and angered over this incident but we cannot allow vigilante justice to take root. We need the system that we have to work. If the system doesn’t work then we need to change it. It is that simple. Spike Lee, owning up to his mistake, (turns out he gave out the wrong address) has admitted responsibility and has settled with the family. The New Black Panthers have placed a bounty on George Zimmerman’s head. My goodness. I just don’t see how that’s helpful.

Pundits, pontificators and general knuckleheads have all come out of the wall like a scene in one of those zombie movies. They all have something to say about this case. This includes Ann Coulter. She decided to show her face on the Laura Ingram Show just to spew her own particular brand of hate. We need more investigating and less prognosticating.

By ecthompsonmd|2012-03-31T13:15:23-04:00March 31st, 2012|Legal, Race|5 Comments

Slavery by Another Name

My sister asked me to watch the PBS special, Slavery by Another Name. I don’t know about you, but I have really have to psych myself up to watch one of these specials. I find them very, very depressing. The show was fascinating, enlightening and damn depressing. In a nutshell, Whites used various methods from the end of reconstruction to 1940 to re-enslave Blacks. Now, I paid attention in high school and college. I don’t remember one lecture on this stuff. I knew that during reconstruction there were several Blacks who were voted into Congress from the deep south. Many Blacks opened businesses and bought land. Then something happened. It all vanished. Basically, a series of laws and statues were passed that said in essense – if you are Black, you ain’t got nothing. Tons of laws were passed that criminalized things that you and I would not think of as crimes – playing dice, walking on railroad tracks, the inability to prove that you are employed at any given moment. Once you were arrested, fines were thrown at you. If you couldn’t pay the fine, you had go to jail. The city or state would then rent your services to local businesses. You became cheap labor, cheap and expendable labor. The Master didn’t own you like in the past. Now, you could be shot by your boss. You were buried and your former boss would go and get another loaner (slave) from the state. Peonage. What the Hell? I had to go look that up. I have never heard the word peonage (the use of laborers bound in servitude because of debt). Cheap Black labor became the engine that pulled the deep south of poverty. At the end of the Civil War, there were four million poor Blacks and four million poor Whites in the south. By 1940, there were eight million Whites living in the middle class and millions of Black Americans were simply out of luck. They didn’t even get a little taste of prosperity for their hard work. I highly recommend Slavery by Another Name, but you might want to take a little something to help steady your nerves before watching. It is a very powerful program. I’m reading the book now. So, you might note that my mood is a little testy!

By ecthompsonmd|2012-03-06T07:14:57-04:00March 6th, 2012|Race|Comments Off

Half-term governor bails on bus tour (Updated)

After much fanfare, Sarah Palin (trade mark pending) began a bus tour of America, which was stupid from the start. What was the purpose? If she was going to whip up support then you would have figured that she would have started her tour in the deep south where she had tons of support. Instead, she decided to start her tour in the Northeast! In the liberal northeast. What was she thinking? Well, there seems to be some question as to whether Sarah has quit her tour. The fact that there is a question really says everything that you would want to know.

Update: I have a problem understanding why anyone would take former Governor Sarah Palin seriously. Does anybody understand why she left her governorship? Basically, she gave a speech announcing that she was leaving the governorship never stated why she was leaving. So, fundamentally, she quit. In my opinion, I don’t know this for a fact, it appears that she quit in order to make more money. It appears that she quit in order to be in the spotlight more because as governor of Alaska do not exactly in the national spotlight. How can you take somebody like this seriously?

By ecthompsonmd|2011-06-22T19:02:31-04:00June 22nd, 2011|Party Politics|Comments Off