At JustUs Talking, Melanite X writes
At What Age does a Black Male Become a Threat?
My grandson is too young to know anything about the events surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin or the trial of George Zimmerman, yet the outcome of the trial may have a significant impact on his life. He’s too young to watch the news and frankly doesn’t care about it unless it concerns his favorite character, Elmo, after all he’s not yet 2 years old.
He started talking about six months ago, his first intelligible word was ‘Hello’. He understands it is a greeting so he uses it constantly, whenever we’re walking down the street or through a store he says hello to everyone he sees and will continue to say it until they respond to him. Because he is still a baby and very personable, he almost always gets a smile and hello back from the people he greets. Sometimes, people ignore him, or look the other way, but to date I’ve never noticed any anger or hostility or fear directed his way.
Right now when people see him they see a cute, well-dressed little boy with a winning smile and engaging personality, his blackness is a matter of minimal significance. Unfortunately, I know at some point that will change. At some point—I’m not sure at what age—people will look at him and the first thing they’ll see will be his color and everything else about him—his smile, his openness, his intelligence, his desire to engage—will be filtered by their view about his color, whether they find his very existence menacing and they will act accordingly. This fact is not new to me, it’s something I’ve thought about ever since his birth but the events of this weekend have elevated that occasional thought into a real worry.
At what age does a black male become a threat in America? Is it 15, 10 or is it as young as 5? I know police have not been hesitant to handcuff and arrest young children and treat them like criminals. The [photo on the right] is seared into my memory:
At what age does a black male become a threat? I wanted to believe that we are no longer a country that sees all black males as potentially threatening but that’s a belief not grounded in reality. The reality is we are a country where a substantial percentage of the population sees black males (particularly young ones) as potentially threatening despite having twice elected a decidedly non-threatening black man as President.
My grandson is being raised to feel free in all environments, to move fluidly across the broad span of socio-economic spaces in society. That’s how I raised his father and it’s how his father wants to raise him. One would think it’s admirable to raise a child that way but I’m beginning to fear it could be a liability. We can raise him to feel free everywhere but what happens when he runs into someone who doesn’t believe he is free to be anywhere? What happens when he runs into someone like George Zimmerman who believes people who look like him are ‘punks’ or criminals who should be monitored, controlled and even killed if they seem threatening. How do I protect him from that without restricting his freedom? [...]
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Blast from the Past. At Daily Kos on this date in 2002—From the right: Wag the dog. Please!:
I hate to say this about anyone, but NY Post columnist John Podhoretz is an asshole. To what do we owe this ad hominem attack? In his latest column, Podhoretz urges the president to invade Iraq in order to boost his numbers and improve GOP chances in November.
You're in some domestic political trouble, Mr. President. You need to change the subject. You have the biggest subject-changer of all at your disposal. Use it.
Even if Iraq is unable to kill a single soldier or airman, Americans will still die. Fatal accidents are common in the military, and such accidents are obviously more common when waging war (just ask the Canadians).
For this columnist to callously condemn Americans to certain death in order to boost the president's political fortunes is nothing short of barbaric.
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Tweet of the Day:
Last year, there were nearly 533,000 stops under the stop-and-frisk program. #inners
— @allinwithchris
On today's
Kagro in the Morning show,
Greg Dworkin gives us some analysis of the plummeting health care coverage premiums approved for the New York market beginning next year, and rounds up the reactions to "Nuclear Tuesday," Jenny McCarthy, and more. Then, post-game analysis on the nuclear option, what it means going forward, and why a
WSJ weep-itorial on the subject is cramped in its thinking and completely stupid. Next, the first half of that long-promised Brookings essay on Sandy Hook Promise. Finally, a look ahead at what we'll try to get to during the balance of the week.
High Impact Posts. Top Comments.