My Last On Trayvon

[Jim Wahl]

Grab yourself a cup of coffee and settle in. This is going to be one long rant. Sorry for the length but I hope you will be glad you read it.

Last night I attended a meeting of the Seminole Multicultural Committee. The topic for the evening was a discussion on “the Trayvon Martin case.” Since the committee is made up of a fairly equal mix of Whites, Blacks, Hispanics and Other (check box), Councilwoman Kramer felt this would be the perfect venue to openly discuss racial issues in a friendly room.

As I’ve stated in this forum a number of times, I have no opinion on the innocence or guilt of the admitted shooter, George Zimmerman. I was not a witness and I was not there. I do, however, have a major issue with the way the media has handled the reporting of this case, including but not limited to the known fact that NBC edited the 911 call from Mr. Zimmerman to the police in such a way to make him seem like a racist. As PJTV reported:

“NBC News has apologized for its selective editing of the 911 call placed by George Zimmerman on the night he shot and killed Trayvon Martin. Zimmerman claims the shooting was an act of self-defense, but many have accused him — with the aid of NBC’s doctored video — of perpetrating a racially motivated hate crime.”

The most basic premise of the United States justice system is that a suspect, once arrested, is presumed innocent until found guilty by a jury of his peers. Not by a jury of reporters. So-called “leaders of the black community,” such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, have also jumped on the Fry Zimmerman bandwagon for the sole purpose of being the news, and the media has accommodated their grandstanding to the point that you cannot open a newspaper or turn on the television without it being All Trayvon All the Time. Sharpton, Jackson & Co. have turned this tragic incident into The Racist Crime of the Century, and neither they nor the media are even remotely interested in the actual facts of the case, as long as they can extend their fifteen minutes before the news cameras. And it’s not even Sweeps Month yet!

The discussion at the Multicultural Committee meeting was interesting in that I had a rare, up close and personal glimpse into what a majority of black people think of this whole circus and, even more revealing, what they think of white people in general. What I walked away with was the impression that blacks believe that whites can’t possibly have a clue what it’s like to be black and live through the whole “black experience.”

One black woman at the meeting was so adamant that Mr. Zimmerman shot Mr. Martin in cold blood because he was black that she would never believe in a million years that there was any other version than the one our illustrious congresswoman Frederica Wilson, a/k/a Hat Lady (and, in my opinion, Ms. Drama Queen), painted in several interviews, including The Miami Herald. She stated that:

“Oh, definitely Mr. Zimmerman murdered Trayvon Martin …you can tell from the 911 tapes [NBC's?], and from the girlfriend’s conversation. You can tell from Mr. Zimmerman’s past.”

“He murdered Trayvon,” Wilson repeated. “He hunted him down like you hunt a rabbit.”

Oh, and Ms. Drama Queen DEFINITELY knows EXACTLY what happened because SHE WAS THERE! Oh, wait! That’s right. She wasn’t there and she knows absolutely nothing of the sort! But the black community bought it hook, line and sinker. With that kind of “leadership,” no wonder the “black community” so easily plays the race card, whether or not race has anything to do with anything. That’s REALLY messed up.

Yet another comment that I heard from a black woman at the meeting was that the reason this case has caused such outrage in the black community was because Trayvon was “somebody’s child.” I’m guessing she thinks George Zimmerman was hatched from an egg or fell off a turnip truck, but apparently he’s “nobody’s child.” I’m sure his parents would take issue with that. This is the same woman who, when I asked her if she doesn’t see the fact that a black man is the President of the United States of America … you know, The Most Powerful Position in the World … is proof positive that blacks can achieve greatness, she responded with, “No, we will never be satisfied.” Really? REALLY? To me, this was an admission that it was their own “victimhood” keeping them in chains, not “the white man.”

Based on the discussions in that room last night, I got the distinct impression that as a whole blacks resent whites for not understanding “the black experience,” yet they have absolutely no desire to figure out, or even inquire about, what makes white people tick. They seem to have us all pegged as wanna be slave owners and racists, and those who suffer from white guilt buy into it without question. They try to bend over backwards to appease the black community for the horrible collective suffering they’ve all endured at the collective hand of white people, and they want to punish all of us for the shameful history of slavery. Which, by the way, ended over a hundred and fifty years ago. Oh, and, by the way, I never owned a slave. I don’t know anyone who has.

Fortunately, not all blacks are of the opinion that white people are evil. One of my favorite columnists, a black man by the name of Dr. Walter E. Williams, whose bio reads: “Dr. Williams serves on the faculty of George Mason University as John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics and is the author of ‘Race and Economics: How Much Can Be Blamed on Discrimination?’ and ‘Up from the Projects: An Autobiography", published a column just today called Media Dishonesty and Race Hustlers.
He cites several instances lately of the media distorting the news and deliberately downplaying or bypassing altogether other stories of black on black and black on white crimes. He wrote:

“Let’s look at some non-news cases. On March 14 in Tulsa, Okla., a white couple suffered a home invasion by Tyrone Woodfork, a 20-year-old black man. Ninety-year-old Bob Strait suffered a broken jaw and broken ribs in the attack. His 85-year-old wife, Nancy, was sexually assaulted and battered to death, ending their 65-year marriage. On March 4, two black Kansas City, Mo., youths doused a 13-year-old boy in gasoline and set him on fire, telling him, “You get what you deserve, white boy.” Last summer, Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel ordered an emergency shutdown of the beaches in Chicago because mobs of blacks were terrorizing white families. Several years ago, in Knoxville, Tenn., a young white couple was kidnapped by four blacks. The girl was forced to witness her boyfriend’s rape, torture and subsequent murder before she was raped, tortured and murdered. Before disposing of her body, the three men and one woman poured bleach or some other cleaning agent down her throat in an effort to destroy DNA evidence. A jury found the four guilty, and they were sentenced, but because of the judge’s drug use, a retrial is being considered. None of those black-on-white atrocities made anywhere near the news that the Trayvon Martin case made, and it’s deliberate.”

When I left that Multicultural Committee meeting, I was mad as hell. But when I came across Dr. Williams’ column, my sanity was restored. I will not judge the entire black community for the intolerance of a few, but I would like to give some insight how white people feel about all this rampant “racism” going on.

Let me first say for the record that there will always be racists. No matter how enlightened and educated people become, there will always be that small segment of society who will hate someone because of the color of his skin. You will not change that person, no matter how much “diversity training” you force him to attend. He is who he is. BUT, the racist is not representative of all whites or all blacks or all anything. The Racist is but a single human being devoid of the ability to look beyond the color of anyone else. You will never wipe out all racism from the face of the earth, but you can call out The Racist for the evil in his heart. We will stop trying to pretend racism doesn’t exist if you stop thinking that ALL people different from you are racists.

That being said, there can be absolutely no denying the fact that as a whole, racism in our society has been greatly diminished over the years. A perfect example is that in the 1950s, at least 90% of all Americans opposed interracial marriage. Today, practically no one blinks when they see an interracial couple. If you blinked, shame on you!

The fact is that blacks are no longer held back from anything that whites can achieve, after all there is a black man in the White House! There are 400% more black CEO'S and business owners today than 10 years ago. They are actually only held back by their own inability to believe they can achieve. If you doubt that, shame on you! Jim