My two-cents worth and then some. An online journal by LP Brown.

Browsing Category Race Matters

Not Black Like Me

by on ·Race Matters

Recently, as a friend and I were walking home from the neighborhood fitness center we encountered a casually dressed white man who looked to be about 30-something. He was pushing a trendy baby stroller. Riding in it was a cute, rosy-cheeked, infant with wispy tufts of blond hair. We exchanged polite greetings as we passed each other, and I waved at the infant who was sucking on her balled-up fist and curiously observing the sights around her.

“Wow,” I said after we were out of the man’s hearing range.

“What? Wow what?” my friend asked while looking around to see what might have caught my attention.

“I know this will sound crazy,” I say to her. “But I don’t see that much anymore.”

“See what?” she asked.

“A white person with a white child.”

To answer the question that you, dear reader, are probably asking yourself:  Did she say that?  Yes, she did. And I am as serious as a defendant pleading a case before Judge Judy.

Decades ago, during my youth, whenever I happened to see a white family, all of them were white. They looked like white families did on the fifties and sixties TV programs like Leave It to Beaver, Father Knows Best, and The Brady Bunch. Now, transracial adoption is changing the complexion of families in America. Except for a controversial Cheerios commercial and a few other contemporary TV ads, the situation is much more evident in real life than it is on the boob tube.

It is no longer uncommon to see white people in the supermarket, at social gatherings or strolling the street with their rainbow crew or shades of brown-skinned children.

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Slave Babies as Gator Bait

by on ·Opinion, Race Matters, The Way I See It

Black BabyHow many times have you hear it said that finding a solution to the ongoing racial strife in this country would be much easier if people talked about it more? That statement has been made many times over the years by people yearning for racial harmony. Following the deaths of Trayvon Martin, Freddie Gray, Eric Garner, Walter Scott, and others too numerous to list here, amicable people – black and white – keep reiterating “Let’s talk.”

Is race relations an issue that people really want to discuss or is it simply that some  individuals merely pay lip service to the idea of dialoguing, because they think that’s what blacks want to hear?

I’m pondering this question because recently there was an interesting discussion on a genealogy website concerning whether – in addition to other atrocities — some black infants born to slaves were used by whites as alligator bait. The conversation began after one of the members of the gen group posted a post card and video relevant to the subject. (You can see it when you click on the link.) Several of the group members commented on the topic. Some said that it could have happened, others said it was a myth.

Curiosity about this subject led me to check the Library of Congress online newspapers. My search revealed that in newspapers published from 1836-1922 alligator bait was mentioned in 119 papers. I reviewed 24 of those 119 before abandoning the task. At least nine of the 24 made direct reference to black children (and in some cases black adults) as alligator bait, including the February 5, 1899 edition of The Richmond Times.

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Is Bad Karma Chasing George Zimmerman?

by on ·Opinion, Race Matters

Cheetah-24470924Rewind the calendar to the evening of February 26, 2012. George Zimmerman shoots and kills Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida. Seventeen months later Zimmerman is acquitted. It appears that ever since then the gun toting, former neighborhood watchman has been tap dancing around the law. And while he is reveling as star of his own reality show, karma is chasing him like a cheetah after a gazelle. Look at some pages from Zimmerman’s playbook in the aftermath of his exoneration.

On July 23, 2013, Juror B29, the only minority on the all-female jury, stated on Good Morning America that “George Zimmerman got away with murder.”

In September, George’s wife, Shellie Zimmerman, filed for divorce. That same month, she called police to her home and told officers that Zimmerman threatened her with a handgun and attacked her father. During the marital drama, the estranged Mrs. Z admitted publicly that she has doubts about George’s innocence in the Martin case.

Last November, Zimmerman was arrested and charged with felony aggravated assault for allegedly threatening his girlfriend, Samantha Scheibe, with a gun. Two weeks later Scheibe asks that the charges be dropped.

In December, perhaps envisioning himself as the next Picasso, Zimmerman began selling his paintings. The first one reportedly sold for $100,000 on eBay. As he attempts to sell his second piece of art, karma trips-up his high horse causing him to fall into a thicket of copyright infringement allegations, tumble downhill, and land beneath a cease-and-desist order.

On February 5, 2014, what would have been Trayvon Martin’s 19th birthday, it was announced that Zimmerman will fight rapper DMX in a celebrity boxing match.  Screeeeech! Hold up! Did someone say celebrity?

Zimmerman is no celebrity. Infamous yes.  Celebrity no.  Many consider him as nothing more than a cold blooded killer who murdered an unarmed 17 year old boy.

It’s been reported that DMX was selected from among 15,000 applicants to fight Zimmerman, and word is that the rapper has vowed to “beat the f**k out of him.”  The bout – if it takes place — is scheduled to last 3 rounds. The time and place have yet to be announced.  In the meantime, there is a Change.org petition circulating online to prevent the event from occurring. When last checked there were over 81,000 supporters on the petition.

Last July, in a televised interview with Sean Hannity, Zimmerman made a controversial statement relevant to his murder of Trayvon Martin. “I feel that it was all God’s plan” he mumbled.  Really? Christians believe that  God works in mysterious ways.  If the boxing match happens, there are Trayvon sympathizers who would count a knockout punch as one of those ways.

 

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Truth and Consequences

by on ·Race Matters, The Way I See It

This commentary was co-written with a gentleman who chooses to remain anonymous.

N-word--15952934Truthfulness, sincerity, and honesty are qualities to which conscientious people aspire. In fact, the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution affords us the right to speak the truth; and a court deposition – like that which brought an outcry of “foul” to Paula Deen –requires an oath or affirmation of truth.

Deen is paying the price for her decision to be truthful about her past use of the “N Word.” She has been dropped by the Food Network and will likely lose other endorsements, because big businesses do not always appreciate honesty and loyalty from its promoters or consumers. Many organizations perceive their employees as mere pawns used to generate profits, and those pawns are quickly disposed of when their words or actions threaten a potential loss of profits.

Deen chose to be truthful about something that occurred in her distant past and — just like that — the very industry that celebrated her dropped her like a hot potato in order to distance itself and avoid financial repercussions. I commend Deen for speaking the truth, but shake my head at her naivety in trusting an intolerable and hoggish capitalized society.

Sides are being taken on the issue of Paula Deen’s use of the “N Word.” If truth be told there are numerous Caucasians in all walks of life who use that word in the privacy of their home or among their close friends and trusted co-workers. Deen admitted to using the word, and for being truthful she faces the consequences. We live in a hypocritical society, where pretence brings more rewards than honesty and truth; and where it is better to pretend to go along for the sake of getting along, then to risk being ostracized and penalized by a public where political correctness is the rule of the day and the so-called “new norm” sets the standard.

What is very troubling about this matter is the fact that it is acceptable for some people to indiscriminately use the “N word” while others are ostracized for it. Is the use of the word “Reserved” for use only by a select group?

Do I think Deen should have been fired from the Food Network and then figuratively stoned? No.  Do I dislike hearing that word with all of its negative connotations being used at all? Yes.

Paula Deen will not sink into poverty because she loses a few endorsements, but she may be distraught because she told the truth. Any white people who may decide in the future to admit to using the word consider this (and I am paraphrasing an old cliché): “It is better to be thought to be a racist, than to open your mouth and be accused of being one.”

 

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Justice for Trayvon Martin

by on ·General, Opinion, Race Matters

 “Each time a person stands up for an ideal or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.” ~Robert F. Kennedy

The media  — social and broadcast — is carrying the torch for Trayvon Martin after the Sanford, Florida police officials let it drop.  Now the movement to get justice for Trayvon is raging across this country faster than a California wildfire.

Even before the unarmed, 17 year old was shot on February 26th, Blacks who live in Sanford voiced frequent complaints of bias against the local police.  Now, a month after Trayvon was killed, the U.S. Department of Justice and a special prosecutor appointed by the governor have been drawn into the furor surrounding a law upheld by states across the U.S.  A law that some feels mean Stand your ground – Black man down.

Read more about this on www.Bboomersnet.com

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