Young James T. Kirk

I have never missed the new release of a movie based on Gene Roddenberry’s vision of the future known around the universe as the world of Star Trek.  From the release of the first film Star Trek: The Motion Picture with the original cast whose greatest claim to fame is that they played the main characters to the original series, to the last film featuring the Next Generation cast in Star Trek: Nemesis when Commander Data was destroyed while trying to stop Captain Picard’s alleged body double, I was there.  If I wasn’t there the very day the movie was released I can guarantee you that I was there within a week of the release, happily giving my money.

The actors playing Captain Kirk and his plucky shipmates are far too old, if not far too dead, to reprise the roles they made famous.  So the latest version of the original starship Enterprise, serial number NCC-1701, will launch with an all new cast.  I saw the trailer of the new movie.

The trailer started with James Tiberius Kirk looking like he might have been all of eleven years old, give or take a year, in the twenty third century driving a second generation convertible Chevrolet Corvette being chased by police officer on a floating motorcycle.  Little James Kirk, played by child actor Jimmy Bennett, drives the car off of a cliff and barely escapes with his life.  He is defiant and he is a troubled youth.  In the next scene James Kirk is a little older and rides his old fashioned wheeled motorcycle to an assembly area where the brand new Constitution class starship Enterprise is being put together.  The rest is Star Trek history.  James Kirk straightens up and becomes the most successful captain in Starfleet, the multipurpose defense, research, and exploration arm of the Federation.

Star Trek wants to portray James Kirk as a wayward kid who managed to straighten up and fly right.  Wayward kids turning themselves around are pretty common when the story is about a white kid.  It’s a good thing that this new version of Star Trek didn’t have James T. Kirk depicted as a black kid in the twenty first century stealing cars in Florida.  Otherwise, he’d be sentenced to a boot camp where he stands the chance of being murdered by the camp guards while the camp nurse looked on with approval.  But that would be okay for many people who believe black people are beyond redemption.

Consistently we are presented stories of menacing white youths who able to change their lives around with just a little well placed guidance.  But menacing black youths are beyond salvation.  Why else would so many people excuse and even celebrate the abuse, even the murder, of black children by so many agents of authority.  Why?  Could it be that we rarely see black youths, black people, finding salvation?  Could it be that we are only fed the image of black people rarely changing off their path of self inflicted destruction and annihilation?

Terminator, War Games, Manhattan Project, 2 Fast 2 Furious, Breakfast Club, Lost In Space, Juno, Soul Man, American Beauty, American Graffiti, Never Back Down, the Covenant, Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, Hard Candy, Vamp, The Craft, My Bodyguard, Peter Fucking Pan, and many others.  Twilight, the hottest movie out right now is about a young white vampire in love.  As long as he or she is white, our racially generic but predominantly controlled by white people culture is more willing to cut a bloodsucking night crawler some slack before we would give a young black person a break.  The latest version of Star Trek seems to follow the tried and true formula of making a great hero out of some troubled white youth who will come through in a pinch when the greater good is at stake.

I would imagine that when the police officer on the floating bike saw the little white boy James Kirk he saw some potential.  When the police officer took James Kirk to wherever little thugs go in the twenty third century, somebody there saw the potential of the little white boy being brought to their custody.  We are being programmed to give troubled white youths every opportunity to succeed.  This latest version of Star Trek is just another in a long line that reinforces the notion that we should look at the bigger picture and tolerate the insolence of white children.

But we all know that had that been a little black boy climbing away from wrecking that three hundred year old Chevy some of us wouldn’t bat an eye if the cop thought he saw a shiny object in his hand, pulled out his phaser, and blew him away out of fear of a black person.  We wouldn’t think nothing of the cop of the future pulled out his baton and started beating an eleven year old black kid for resisting arrest.  Some of us would even go so far as to celebrate if the wannabe Judge Dred on the floating bike had simply dispensed some twenty third century justice and blew the little juvenile offender away regardless if there was a shiny object in his hand or not.  Misbehaving black children are nothing but thugs.  Everybody knows that.

God Doesn’t Have To Damn America

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire that has been prepared for the devil and his angels! For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink. I was a stranger and you did not receive me as a guest, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they too will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not give you whatever you needed?’ Then he will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did not do it for one of the least of these, you did not do it for me.’ And these will depart into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” – Matthew 25:41-46

Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s sermon where he damns America for its intolerance against the black community has been the source of a lot of conversation about race relations. Mr. Wright claims that Hillary Clinton has never been called a nigger. Ms. Clinton did not deny this charge so chances are extremely high that this is true. Mr. Wright said that Ms. Clinton didn’t know what it was like to be a struggling black person here in America. Ms. Clinton is as much a Caucasoid as they come so this is probably true as well. In fact, a lot of what Mr. Wright said was accurate and factual.

America has been built on the backs and with the blood of the children of Africa. Generally speaking, while black people toiled in fields of agriculture with no pay, no benefits, no rights, no education, no citizenship, and no acknowledgement of the fact that they were human, white people enjoyed the fruits of black people’s enslavement. While not all white people owned slaves, they benefited from the low price of many goods and services because the investment in labor cost was so minimal. While not all white people owned slaves, white people benefited from the fact that blacks remained uneducated and were less likely to compete in the job market for many positions that required an education, talents, or learned skills.

In this environment, some black people were able to overcome these conditions so overwhelmingly stacked against their success. The dominant community allowed some black people to go free if their owners gave them permission. Some black people were able to accumulate wealth as long as they were careful to stay within the strict confines that constituted acceptable black behavior. But black people could never forget that their success and their status were subject to tolerance from the dominant community. This may help to explain why many well to do blacks, who used to be aware of the inequity between the black community and the white community but now have accumulated their own materialism and wealth, do well to say nothing against the status quo of white privilege and black subjugation.

Any white person could jeopardize a black person’s position in the dominant community controlled so greatly by the members of the white community. For example, a white woman can accuse a black man of rape and unleash a mob of white retaliation on the entire black community regardless of the merits of the claim. And after the violence against the black community is done, white people are free to go back to their lives without any fear of justice for their transgressions against black people. This type of behavior was rampant in the days of slavery and continues today with such intolerance for black people who think they have the right to defend themselves from white people. John White made this error when he tried to defend his family and property from the drunken mob of white youths led by Daniel Cicciaro. The Jena Six made this mistake when they had the audacity to fight back against white students who instigated racial conflicts when they hanged nooses from trees and initiated fights with their pranks of racial intolerance.

Black people are constantly overlooked by the dominant community. The dominant community will pull out a series of excuses and reasons why it was impossible to help black people caught in the catastrophic flood of New Orleans after hurricane Katrina. People in the black community are constantly told to exercise personal responsibility and to show some initiative to lift themselves out of the perpetual condition of black subjugation. It is okay to let black people lose their houses to predatory lending practices that force black people with good credit into sub prime loans that make borrowing more expensive. But, when the ripple effect of so many black people losing their homes suddenly affects the banks and investment firms on Wall Street the government is quick to do what it can to save them.

A nationally syndicated radio talk show host calls black women nappy headed ho’s and the dominant community says its black people’s fault because black rappers who get paid by the corporate music industry controlled primarily by white people makes the subject so confusing. The main character from a nationally syndicated show about bounty hunters call his son’s black girlfriend a nigger and the dominant community says this is okay because it happened behind closed doors. A white comedian gets on stage and espouses the lynching of black hecklers repeatedly calling black people niggers and asking somebody to get him a rope and the dominant community gives him a break because he’s under so much stress. A former Secretary of Education makes the suggestion that crime can be reduced by aborting all black babies and people defend his words by saying that people are trying to take his words out of context. And through all this, people who bring attention to the disparity that has become the standard operating procedure in America are the problem.

With all this racial disparity under America’s collective belt, the dominant community expects black people to simply go along with the status quo of white privilege and black subjugation without complaint. For the most part, the broader community doesn’t care about what happens to the black community. We would prefer to sweep all of this racial discord under the proverbial rug and pretend that everything is okay when racial relations are anything but okay. The black community is constantly under distress from this racial status quo. And when black people have the audacity to say that there is something wrong here these black people are ridiculed and minimized as wanting a pity party or having a victim mentality or wanting a handout or whatever standard knee jerk reaction that minimizes this disparity.

Is Mr. Wright out of line? Did he say anything that wasn’t true? No. He says that while others may sing god bless America there are plenty of people who can say god damn America. That should be no surprise. I’m sure when the people were standing outside the Superdome in those days after Katrina a lot of them were saying god damn America. When black people were being hanged from trees and being dragged behind cars with nooses around their neck I’m pretty sure that were saying god damn America. When black men are trying to defend their home from drunken white mobs I’m sure they were thinking god damn America. When black people were losing their homes in the sub prime mortgage meltdown while the government handed various American corporations billions of dollars on a silver platter I’m sure these people were saying god damn America. When qualified black people are rejected as a candidate for a job or for a learning opportunity or as President because someone says they don’t know why they don’t trust them, then god damn America.

America celebrates the fact that black children are murdered in boot camps for taking their grandmother’s car without permission. Police punch teenaged black girls in the face for breaking curfew and America is horrified that black people complain. America defends the fact that black teenaged boys are getting ten year prison sentences for having sex with teenaged girls. Black teenagers are being tried for second degree attempted murder for getting in fights with white teenagers and the dominant American community feigns confusion when black people rally to come to their aid. A black celebrity stands in front of white people and rips the black community a new one while he absolves the dominant community of its culpability in the condition of the black community. Black celebrities distance themselves from the black community and elevate themselves above their racial identity into the racially generic ether that is overwhelmingly dominated by members of the white community or who are very sensitive to white standards of thoughts are hailed as an example of black opinion that is acceptable, and manageable, by the dominant community.

Regardless of what a lot of people think the established political and corporate leadership does not have the welfare of the black community at heart. People may go into the black community and give some noble sounding speeches full of racial equality rhetoric with suggestions of finally giving some desperately needed fairness to the black community. But when these people get elected the black community will suffer even larger pattern of disparity while the status quo remains safe and even more reinforced.

A politician will promise to rid drugs from the black community. More police will patrol drug infested areas. More arrests are made of individuals who indulge in illegal drugs. People found with fifty grams of crack cocaine, an illegal drug found mostly in the black community, will receive the same sentence as people who carry five kilos of powdered cocaine, an illegal drug more associated with the white community. But the arrest of more people in the black neighborhood who use and sell drugs is nothing more than a simple placebo designed to placate the fears of people. Why are there so many black people using drugs? Where are the drugs in the black community coming from? How are the drugs getting into the black community? Some black people may applaud this heavy handed approach to the drug problem, but the strategy of locking up the drug seller or the drug user does not get to the roots of the problem which is the despair in the black community and the lack of opportunity for improvement in our lives. The long term solution is not in the incarceration of more sellers and users. God damn America!

America likes to tell black people to lift ourselves out of our predicament. Essentially the American government says that the conditions in the black community are not a concern for the dominant culture. This country would rather spend a trillion dollars and four thousand American lives in Iraq on a war to liberate that country from the tyranny of Saddam Hussein who never threatened a single American life. This country would rather go halfway around the world and stick our national nose in another country’s affairs and create a Pandora’s box like the world has never seen than do anything to help alleviate the despair of the black community. God damn America!

There is a great deal of despondency and depression in the black community. There is an overwhelming sense of disconnect from the major community. Instead of trying to build bridges and trying to build communities we are content to let the despair fester like an open wound. A country that is so willing to let such a large part of its population suffer such disparity is nothing that calls for god’s blessing. Such a country should be cursed. It should be damned to the deepest pit of hell. In a nation of such wealth and prosperity we tolerate so much disparity along racial lines. In Matthew 25:41-56, Jesus said that we will be judged by how well we take care of the least of us and not by how well we tell others to get their own bootstrap. As Mr. Wright said, it is in the bible. The bible indicates this happened just two days before the Passover.

America is willing to spend as much time as it takes to understand what drives a white man to strap a fake bomb to their person and hold an entire office of presidential campaign workers hostage. The city will waste no resource in order to find a peaceful solution that will allow the troubled man to get some help for his mental condition that drives his lack of judgment. But let it be a black man who has a history of mental problems and threatening the community with a hairbrush. After five minutes of trying nothing the police will have no choice but to open fire in order to keep the black man from brushing somebody’s hair. God damn America!

But in all honesty we have damned ourselves. The drug problem that is festering in America got its foothold in the black community because people were willing to ignore the plight of the black people who indulged in drugs. The people who are willing to let the education of the black community lapse will pay with higher cost of a social welfare burden that will be a drain on local, state, and federal treasures. The lack of adequate medical care that permeates the black community will drive up medical cost for everyone without being an effective help to anyone. And as a country, we are more than willing to sit back and allow corporate America to rape black people with higher costs for credit, insurance, and housing until we get to a point where those chickens have come home to roost and we find ourselves facing a global financial crisis of epidemic proportions that has the dollar falling against currencies around the world. Our inability to provide a share in the prosperity of America to everyone will come back to damn us all.

Governor Eliot Spitzer

New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, who resigned amid accusations that he patronized prostitutes, is now in a legal fight to avoid criminal charges. Mr. Spitzer made his public reputation over his willingness to pursue criminals and protect the public’s interest. As the attorney general for the state of New York, Mr. Spitzer prosecuted prostitution rings and their patrons. He gave his constituents the impression that his integrity was light years away from reproach. He was a steamroller of justice. He was the pit bull biting the ankle of crime.

But through a series of incredibly unfortunate incidents Mr. Spitzer is revealed to be little more than some of the criminals he pursued. It is true that he has done some public good. He is not a totally wicked person. Then again I’m sure if we look hard enough, many of the people he prosecuted did their fair share for their community. It should be noted that the good works and generosity if a criminal doesn’t mitigate the fact that we are talking about a criminal.

Mr. Spitzer has resigned. As a Governor patronizing prostitutes, Mr. Spitzer opened himself up to all kinds of potential problems. One of the scariest scenarios has the Governor opening his office up to the potential of being blackmailed. Imagine the owners of the prostitution ring or one of the prostitutes themselves demanding a favor of the Governor. Hey Spitzer, I got a speeding ticket the other day, could you fix it for me? Oh I think you can! Well what if I went to the papers about our little business deal? That’s what I thought. See you next Thursday.

Mr. Spitzer is humiliated. Long assumed to be a bastion of integrity he is exposed to have the same weaknesses and failings as the people he came down on as hard as possible. And yet, even though he knew that they had a little something in common, he had no sympathy. He stands in front of a podium with his dutiful wife Silda who he betrayed at his side. He has three young daughters that he has to face. Chances are that they have come to the obvious conclusion that they don’t who their father is. Those days when he wasn’t able to come on time, when he was working late, when he couldn’t come to their special events, are now questionable. Mr. Spitzer may have a lot of explaining to do to his children and to his wife.

I was listening to a radio pundit discuss Mr. Spitzer’s situation and make the suggestion that this man has suffered enough. He lost his job and he is very publicly humiliated. What more does the public want to happen to this guy?

I am reminded of Genarlow Wilson, the black seventeen year old who was sentenced to ten years in Georgia’s state prison for having oral sex with a fifteen year old girl. This black young man was humiliated and his mother had to endure the publicity for her son’s indiscretion. What more did the state of Georgia want from Mr. Wilson? They wanted justice. They wanted to send a clear message that society does not tolerate this kind of behavior from black people. I am reminded of Martin Lee Anderson who was sent to boot camp for joyriding in his grandmother’s car. The attorney general of the state of Florida didn’t hesitate to send this young man to a boot camp where he lost his life within hours of his arrival.

What would I want from former Governor Eliot Spitzer? I want him to face the same circumstances for prosecution that he subjected others to. I want him to face the same maximum extent of punishment that the law allows just like Genarlow Wilson had to endure for a crime so petty that his sentence almost defies comprehension. I would like for him to go to boot camp like Martin Anderson and feel what its like to try and breathe while having a baton across the throat and ammonia tablets up his nostrils. If maximum prosecution is good enough for black children who are not allowed to use the lack of judgment that comes from the exuberance of youth as a defense then it should be good enough for a former Governor and a former attorney general who knew exactly where the line of the law stood.

It doesn’t matter if New York state normally prosecutes such behavior or not. Mr. Spitzer opened himself up to prosecution the moment he made the choice to break the law. He’s a lawyer and he knew the law. His disdain for the state, his disrespect for law, his scorn of his constituents invites maximum prosecution. If people are squeamish about prosecuting Mr. Spitzer all they need to do is imagine what would happen if he was a teenaged black male. The way the law comes down on black youths? I’m sure nobody would have a problem throwing the proverbial book at him then.

House Party

WARNING: Although it is not my intent to just flat out and insult anyone, some people may find this article extremely offensive. If merely the suggestion of behavior that people with a white mindset may find disgusting is enough to offend you, then may I suggest you stop reading now and move on. However, if you are intelligent enough to keep the message of this article in its proper context and read it completely to its end, then welcome.

When Martin Lee Anderson was murdered by the seven guards and a nurse at the Panama City, Florida boot camp I was taken aback by the number of painfully insensitive comments coming from people in the white community. The cover up that ensued after his murder started with the county coroner attributing his death to a latent sickle cell trait despite the fact that the guards were seen on video standing around Mr. Anderson and beating him. The guards even confessed to shoving ammonia tablets up his nose and holding his mouth shut in order to suffocate the young man and gain his compliance.

But what was more troubling was the fact that so many people with a white mindset were actually celebrating because the juvenile judicial system had taken another one of our black children out of the picture before he had the opportunity to become another thug terrorizing America. So many good white people are so afraid of Mr. Anderson and the potential trouble from “his kind” that the emerging thought process can be summed up as any time a black child is killed society should rejoice. One good white Christian said that they prayed for Martin Anderson’s soul to be redeemed from his evil ways so that he can get into heaven, but they still considered his death a good start for something positive for our national community.

It’s no longer enough for white mindsets that our black youth are given a separate and less than equal sorry form of American public education. It is no longer enough that our black children have a greater chance to be impoverished and grow up in single family homes. It is no longer enough that black children receive less than adequate medical care. White people in America now party when black children are wrongfully killed by a system that refuses to have compassion for the black community.

In the early morning hours of Sunday, October 28th, seven college students were killed in a massive house fire in Ocean Isle Beach, North Carolina. Six of the students went to the University of South Carolina while the seventh is said to be a student form Clemson University. According to the news reports one of the students who lost their life was related to the owner of the home. Six other students were treated for burn injuries. Reportedly, the students were affiliated with the Delta Delta Delta sorority or the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity. Ocean Isle Beach is a popular resort area along the Atlantic coast. The daily population of the island town is only four hundred, but it will swell to twenty five thousand at the peak of the tourist and vacation season. The area sounds very affluent and disassociated from the black community. In fact I’m willing to bet that this community is the type with people who are more likely to overlook people in the black community and to celebrate the death of our children.

What if people in the black community actually celebrated the death of these young white people? After all, these kids sound like the type of people who would graduate from college and go on to be managers and executives in corporate America. Chances are these students would have been the type of people that would have been more comfortable around their white mindset peers and would have little incentive for helping people in the black community. Sure it might be true that some of their best friends are black. But would they or their so called black friends lift their fingers to help the black community? If these students made it to their management positions would they compound the problems of the black community by excluding black people?

Or maybe these students would have gone into politics and helped pass the laws that would make the observance of racial conditions in a school or place of employment some form of hate crime. The law could be designed to say anybody who would dare mention the disparity in racial communities would be a criminal. Or these students would become the judges and law enforcement personnel that would work diligently to keep low life black people in their place. Or maybe they’ll just become boot camp guards and nurses and work to alleviate the social problems of America by activating black people’s latent sickle cell trait by suffocation.

With so much racist potential from these students and “their kind” the black community should be in fear just like white people were in fear from Martin Anderson and “his kind”. And just like white people whooped it up when Martin Anderson was killed and his murderers were exonerated maybe black people can celebrate the death of these white young adults. After all, we don’t know what kind of damage these people were going to do to the black community. There’s just too much at risk here. But if it is any consolation to the white community black people could pray for their potentially racist souls to be redeemed so they can go to heaven. And just like so many white people called for more boot camps and more guards so that more black kids can have their sickle cell activated with the business end of a baton maybe the black community can call for more fires in affluent houses full of rich drunk white kids.

There is little doubt that people would find the celebration of the loss of life in the Ocean Isle Beach house fire reprehensible. A lot of people can identify with the loss of a white American life. People will have compassion for the grieving families. There is no doubt somebody is going to be offended over my fictional suggestion even with my disclaimer. But day in and day out people in the black community have to deal with white mindset insensitivity from people who hate black people so much that they call for our murder and our exclusion from mainstream America and there is nothing fictitious about them. If someone is offended by just the suggestion of black people having a party at the expense of seven white young adults who lost their lives then hopefully this will give pause the next time someone feels the need to voice their gratification over the loss of another young black person.

No One Should Celebrate Racial Cruelty

There was a Leave It To Beaver episode where Beaver’s friend, Larry Mondelo took some money from his mother’s purse and threw it out on his front lawn. Larry talked Beaver into helping him find all the money and they used it to go to the movies and to buy whatever candy and treats they wanted and whatever else young white kids on Leave It To Beaver do. Larry’s mother discovered that she has been burglarized and called the Cleavers. Neither Larry Mondelo nor the Beaver went to boot camp for their less than ethical behavior.

There was an episode in the Brady Bunch where Greg Brady took the family car without permission. The mother, Carol Brady and Alice the maid discovered the car missing and called the police. The police found Greg and the car and brought the two home. Greg was never taken to a boot camp. His only reprimand was that he had to do more chores around the house.

On Happy Days, Richie Cunningham took the family’s Studebaker to the race track. Fonzie had pulled the engine and replaced it with a more powerful motor in order to make sure Richie won his race. He didn’t exactly get permission for this endeavor. Later that day, when the father Howard Cunningham went to pull the family’s wagon into the garage, he wasn’t prepared for the extra performance and crashed the car through the back of the garage. The show ended with a loud crashing sound and Richie sneaking upstairs with a guilty look on his face. But instead of going off to boot camp Richie was back the following week for the next episode.

There was an episode on Valerie where one of the twins, it was either Willie Hogan or Mark Hogan took the car without permission and without a driver’s license. Not only did the boy take the car without permission he had an accident and tried to set up his older brother David to take the fall. There was a lot of anger but no one went off to camp.

It’s true that comedic, episodic television is no foundation for reality. But it is interesting to gauge people’s reaction to the differences between a black fourteen year old stealing his grandmother’s car and the reaction the public has to the bad behavior of one of the Seventh Heaven kids. The same people who laughed at the less than ethical antics of a Kirk Cameron during one of the episodes of Growing Pains tremble in fear when they see the same behavior from black teenagers. Suddenly the behavior that all of America is quick to condone with a laugh from young whites is utterly unacceptable from the young blacks.

People respond to the post No Justice for Martin Lee Anderson with glee over the fact that a black young man has died at the hands of seven guards and a nurse and an all white jury has found this posse of the white people innocent of any crime. A couple of the comments received were so vile that they could not possibly be considered helpful to any conversation. White people are quick to accept the original coroner’s autopsy results that claim the young man didn’t die from being asphyxiated by the guards but the young man in fact had died from complications associated with a latent sickle cell trait. But regardless of how much white people may wish black people are just walking down the street and collapsing dead from latest sickle cells, the video shows without any reservation that Mr. Anderson died at the hands of the personnel at the Panama City, Florida boot camp where he stayed for all of two hours.

Too many good white people are actually celebrating the death of Mr. Anderson. Too many white people are actually saying that the fact that Mr. Anderson was denied justice is somehow karma from the fact that O.J. Simpson was found not guilty. Other people pray and give thanks for the death of Mr. Anderson and for the further execution of “his kind” and then want to assert that they are praying that his soul rest in heaven. White mindset people are asking rhetorical questions like, If this young black man didn’t deserve boot camp why was he there? Why are these boot camps so full of black people?

Martin Lee Anderson and “his kind” are victims of the same mentality that made all the field hands of the southern white plantation black during America’s institution of slavery. The same hatred that justified the enslavement of black people and saw our ancestors as a lesser kind is the same mentality that today sees young blacks as “animals” and totally unruly. The behavior that young black urbanites display is sinister and malevolent with the very fabric of descent white society in jeopardy while the same behavior from white youths is understandable. White people are more likely to be taken home for their escapades. Black people are likely to be taken to be incarcerated.

Black people have to face this prejudging mentality every time we get arrested or rejected for employment or an education. Too many white minded people, people with black skin as well as the white skinned, see our black children and make the assumption that they are fatherless, without morals or ethics, without any redeeming values, without talent other than buck dancing and gangsta rapping, without dreams, without hope, and without any future. So when anything happens to a child of the black community white people celebrate the loss as just another thug getting his or her just desserts. Until we are able to prove that we are not the typical black stereotype so ingrained into America’s psyche it is no wonder black people do not receive equal treatment. Besides, it is hard to for the black person to disprove anything once he or she fall victim to the white people’s posse.

Mr. Anderson suffered nothing less than a twenty first century version of a hanging. The guards thought Mr. Anderson was faking his collapse and wanted to gain his compliance with the dangerous application of force. Lethal asphyxiation is the same whether it comes from the end of a noose or through a combination of ammonia tablets blocking the nose and hands clinching the mouth shut. The result is the same, death.

People need to realize America isn’t safe for black people. White people are praying for the death of our children. White people are hanging nooses in complete contempt for any racial acceptance. All kinds of people are using their position of authority and privilege to circumvent any chance for racial tolerance. Any time a black person says they need some kind of assistance for help we are ridiculed as some kind of welfare royalty. We apply for jobs and are judged less competent because of little more than skin color. Black girls are attacked by police for breaking curfews and we watch in horror as they are punched in the face and sprayed with mace at point blank range. Our young boys receive death sentences for school fights with white kids. A white man can pull a gun on a black man and the black man will be charged with theft for defending himself and taking the gun away. Our elders are assaulted by police for asking questions and the police cover the crime by filing false arrest reports to justify the ass whooping. And this is just the tip of the iceberg that represents trouble for black people from white people.

Some of these events have been caught on tape and a jury of white peers will say that it is beyond a shadow of a doubt that the black victim deserved what was coming. A black man walking down the street can be blasted with fifty bullets for reaching for his wallet to identify himself or for driving away from a club on his wedding day. And people will see this as nothing more than standard procedure.

This is just the beginning. With each and every passing day we hear more about the contempt white people have for black people. And instead of learning the lessons from the past and keeping note of the history black people share with our white cousins, black people are simply waiting for white people to drop the next shoe that represents their cruelty. In the twenty first century the relationship between black and white people is beginning to digress into a reincarnation of the conditions we suffered at the height of America’s institutionalized slavery.

No Justice for Martin Lee Anderson

The jury has rendered its verdict and the seven guards (Henry Dickens, Charles Enfinger, Patrick Garrett, Raymond Hauck, Charles Helms Jr., Henry McFadden Jr., and Joseph Walsh) and the single nurse (Kristin Schmidt) responsible for the death of Martin Lee Anderson, the fourteen year juvenile convicted of taking his grandmother’s car without permission and enrolled in a Panama City, Florida boot camp where he died within the first two hours of attendance on January 6th of 2006.  Each of the defendants was facing thirty years of prison if convicted.  The verdict was unanimous from the all white jury.  No one was guilty.  Never mind the fact that the video that captured the beating shows the seven guards surrounding Mr. Anderson beating him with batons and kicking him with their feet and hitting him with their fist.  The guards confessed that when Mr. Anderson’s body went limp and dropped to the ground someone stuffed ammonia tablets up the boy’s nose and held their hands over the boy’s mouth.  The nurse was right there watching what was happening and approving everything that was going on.  It was a medically sanctioned lynching.

Mr. Anderson’s parents never had a chance of gaining justice for their son.  When Martin Lee Anderson was sentenced to attend the boot camp he was as good as dead.  The original autopsy conducted by Bay County Medical Examiner Charles F. Siebert to determine the exact reason of death listed the cause as a latent sickle cell trait.  However, a subsequent autopsy conducted on Mr. Anderson’s exhumed body determined that “death was caused by suffocation by manual occlusion of the mouth in concert with forced inhalation of ammonia fumes that caused spasm of the vocal cords resulting in internal blockage of the upper airway.”  Mr. Siebert was cleared of any wrong doing.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Guy Tunnell came under fire for not removing himself for his suspicious conflict of interest.  Mr. Tunnell, the former Bay County sheriff, opened the boot camp where Mr. Anderson died.  Mr. Tunnell sent messages to then current Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen in order to suppress the video tape of the incident caught on boot camp cameras.  Mr. Tunnell resigned from his post but was later rehired by the Florida State Attorney to work on other cases.

Defense attorney Walter Smith said, “This is a death that would have resulted whether or not the defendants used ammonia or struck him.  They did not cause the death of Martin Lee Anderson.  The death of Martin Lee Anderson resulted from natural causes.”  Mr. Smith claims that the guards were merely following the racist policies of the Florida Department of Juvenile Justice.  In defense of the murderers, Mr. Smith blamed Mr. Anderson’s death on his latent sickle cell trait.

Now it may be true that people with this condition are nearly forty times more likely to be the victim of sudden death when being forced to exercise in a boot camp type environment.  But the video of the incident shows for a fact that Mr. Anderson’s body goes limp while being held up by one of the guards while other guards are hitting and beating him and the nurse is standing nearby looking on as nothing is happening and guards are still trying to get the boy to exercise.  No one, not even the nurse who is supposed to use her professional judgment to protect the health of the young man, was willing to give him the benefit of doubt and protect him from further harm.  Ammonia goes up his nose and his jaw is held close and he dies from asphyxiation from sickle cell.  That’s like saying a man from a family with a history of frail bones died from a genetic condition when he was in a car accident from a drunk driver.

And how in the hell do these cases of obvious racial insensitivity against black people keep getting brought to trial with all white juries?  It was the racially insensitive personnel of the boot camp with their white mindset that killed Mr. Anderson in the first place.  But Florida will compound the problem of the racism on trial with a racist judicial system to try the racist.  And then the black community reacts with incredulity when the people who murder and abuse our children escape prosecution because the defense attorney is able to convince the jurors that the racial lynching was somehow justified.  The eight boot camp employees were acting accordingly when they killed Martin Lee Anderson for not being able to continue his running.  These people see a young black man who is unable to continue running and they want to come down on him like the people who came down on Rodney King, Robert Davis, Danny Brumfield, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Abner Louima, Johnny Gammage, and the like.

There was a time we could actually count on video tape of an incident or a photo of the result as proof that someone in the black community is the victim of racial discrimination.  But now, jurors and judges can watch the video and think it’s perfectly natural to see seven guards beating a defenseless fourteen year old to death and not recognize anything wrong.  Michael Vick can be convicted for strangling dogs.  There isn’t even a video tape of him doing it and he is convicted.  But boot camp employees are strangling a black juvenile in front of the camera and all the jury sees is somebody doing their job according to Florida rules.  Something is seriously wrong.