Florida Republican Introduces Unjust Anti-Trans Bill

For those of you who thought that Moni was selling you woof tickets when she and others warned you that the Teapublicans and the conservafool movement were going to shift their money and anti-LGBT industry apparatus into attacking us and we'd better be ready for it, here's your wake up call coming from Florida.

Rep. Frank Artiles from the Miami area has introduced a draconian bill (HB 583) that attempts to pimp the long discredited bathroom predator myth and would require all transpeople, pre, non and post op to use only facilities that match their assigned sex at birth, not the ones that match their gender presentation.

What ALEC asshole came up with this this anti-trans caca?   

Artiles’ HB 583 bill would hold trans people who use facilities that match their gender expression liable for civil penalties and provides an avenue for civil action against operators of public accommodations who follow trans-inclusive policies.

Even more ominous is the legislation would override non-discrimination ordinances in Florida cities that have extended public accommodations protections to transgender people.

In other words, the unjust Artiles bill would if made law, legalize anti-trans discrimination in Florida.

Okay Florida trans peeps of all flavors, damned sure time to become agents of your own liberation.   This is a straight up attack on our human rights.

Time to start fighting back by signing your John and Jane Hancocks to this petition condemning HB 583.

And it's probably time to unleash pee-in protests in cities across Florida, Tallahassee and Rep Artiles' offices.

What have I been saying for a while?  The most dangerous transphobic bigot is the one with the power to write legislation. 

Well, here's Exhibit A of that. And it's dehumanizing crap like this  that feeds into the anti-trans animus that disproportionately results in dead Latina and Black trans women.

The unjust HB 583 bill must die.

Arrest Made In Shancez Murder Case

An arrest has been made in the Yaz'min Shancez case!

After a month long investigation, 45 year old Terry Lynn Brady of Fort Myers was arrested and charged with the June 19 murder of Shancez.  

Police detectives are not sure of the connection between the two, but Shancez's stepmother said the two knew and did not like each other. 

“Thank God. It gives us a little closure,” said Shannon Adams, Owens’ stepmother.

Brady is facing second degree murder charges, and I'll also be following this case until justice is served for Yaz'min.

200 People Attend Yaz'min Shancez Vigil

Was glad to hear that yesterday's vigil for Yaz'min Shancez in Fort Myers was successful

The march was organized by the Southwest Florida Equality Coalition and the Center of Southwest Florida to remember 'Ms. Tee' as friends and loved ones called our fallen 31 year old sister who was found murdered on Thursday.. 

200 people began a nearly one mile march through Downtown Fort Myers and past the courthouse before arriving at Centennial Park

Her sister Laquesha Loggins remembers how Shancez loved to dance, how she was always happy, saying she "always woke up with a smile."

And she remembers the last words Shancez ever said to her: "Sis, I love you."

"It's just bad that people hate that much," Yazmin's aunt said in a FOX 4 interview. "Who has a heart like that? Who can go to sleep doing something like that? Hating something so bad."

Fort Myers police are still looking for Yazmin's killer, and once again as a reminder, i you have information to help solve this crime and bring to justice the perps or perps who did this, you are asked to please call the Fort Myers Police Department at 239-321-7700, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS or text message C-R-I-M-E-S (274637) Keyword FMPD.

And I will be keeping an eye on this story until justice is served in this case.

RIP Yaz'min Shancez

Some sad news to report coming out of Florida in terms of another one of our sisters being brutally murdered.  

The burned body of 31 year old Yaz'min Shancez was found behind a dumpster off Fowler Street Thursday morning in Fort Myers, FL.  

She had been shot prior to the burning of her body.  The death has been ruled a homicide, but Fort Myers police as of yet aren't investigating it as a hate crime.

And tragically, Yaz'min died two years to the day  her 16 year old sister Cha'Riah Owens was shot and killed..

"Nobody deserves that," said Beatrice Loggins, Shancez's aunt in an interview. "Straight, gay, purple, pink, white, black. Nobody...There will never be another T, you couldn't clone her, couldn't mold her."

A vigil will be held later today starting at 7:30 PM EDT to honor the memory of Yaz'min Shancez at Centennial Park, 2000 W First St, Fort Myers, FL.       

In addition the Facebook group, there is also a fundraising page that has been set up to help the family pay for Yaz'min's burial expenses.

If you have information to help solve this crime and bring the waste or wastes of DNA who did this to justice, please call the Fort Myers Police Department at 239-321-7700, Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS or text message C-R-I-M-E-S (274637) Keyword FMPD.

Rest in Power, Yaz'min.   You are another one of our sisters who was taken away from us way too soon.

Happy 19th Birthday, Jordan Davis

Today would have been the 19th birthday of Jordan Davis.  

He wanted to become a Marine with his best friend after he graduated from high school.   He was a kid who dealt with the typical stuff you deal with growing up in your teen years.   He had a girlfriend who stayed on him to pull his pants up, Don Lemon.

He had both a mother and a father in his life.   He was into sports   He wanted to be successful and someday own a Dodge Challenger.   

But because of a November 2012 encounter with a white male who had a problem with the volume of the music he and his friends were listening to in the parking lot of a Jacksonville area convenience store, he will never get to accomplish that dream or any other dreams he might have had. 

Jordan is now dead, his friends are haunted by the memory of having 10 bullets fired at them by an angry white male, and yesterday they witnessed the justice system in Florida fail once again to recognize their humanity.

Once again white supremacy reinforced what Chief Justice Roger B. Taney said over 150 years ago in the Dred Scott v. Sandford Case.  

Oh you're not familiar with what Taney wrote?   Let me refresh your memory as to what the then Chief Justice of the US Supreme court said in his March 6, 1857 opinion in that case.

"...beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Any doubts that John Roberts, the current US Supreme Court Chief Justice, the Teapublicans, the conservative movement or other people who share his gender and ethnic background don't harbor the same racist beliefs?  

We know from his jailhouse letters that Michael Dunn sure did and felt comfortable enough to express it.
In one of the letters addressed to his “baby,” Dunn wrote:

The fear is that we may get a predominately black jury and therefore, unlikely to get a favorable verdict. Sad, but that’s where this country is still at. The good news is that the surrounding counties are predominately white and Republican and supporters of gun rights.”

In a letter addressed to his grandmother, Dunn claimed that all Blacks in jail acted like thugs:

“The jail is full of blacks and they all act like thugs. This may sound a bit radical but if more people would arm themselves and kill these (expletive) idiots, when they’re threatening you, eventually they may take the hint and change their behavior.”

In other letters he spoke about the Duval County district attorney trying to deny him the right to a “speedy trial” and all the boys in the SUV with Davis being “thugs.”

Naw Michael Dunn, we know who the 'thug' was in this case.  Just look in the mirror.  You are the thug who has for now gotten away with the murder of a then 17 year old kid who will have no more birthdays because you felt threatened by Jordan Davis' existence in this world.
       
You are the thug who causes nightmares for every Black parent who lies awake at night fearful their son or daughter will be similarly killed by white males who 'feel threatened' with or without a police badge. 

You, Michael Dunn are the thug who stokes the fears of African-American parents they may experience the pain Jordan Davis' parents are feeling today about the loss of their child and that Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton experienced February 5.

Dunn is the thug who has caused fear in our African-American children's ranks that they will be shot to death and unjust Stand Your Ground laws and predominately white juries filled with vanillacentric privileged people will allow the perpetrators to get away with it.    

Happy birthday, Jordan and rest in power.  We will not rest until those odious ALEC inspired Stand Your Ground Kill A Black Child With Impunity laws die and our kids are free to live.

 

What Else Is New? White Male Gets Away With Murdering Black Child In Florida

The reason you haven't seen much in the way of coverage of the Michael Dunn trial in Jacksonville on this blog is because I had the same sickening feeling it was basically going to be a replay of what happened in the Zimmerman case a few months ago. 

Same prosecutor in Angela Corey, same BS Stand Your Ground Kill a Black Kid With Impunity Law, and same cluelessness of the vanillacentric privilege White Americans walk in that considers the bigoted adult with the gun the sympathetic party and the unarmed African American teens as the scary aggressors.

The same white privileged cluelessness that allows the eight whites on the twelve person jury (the other jurors were two Black women, one Asian woman and one Latino) to believe that a racist butthole who fired ten shots at African-American teens listening to loud music in their SUV was 'a threat' to his life and his life was more valuable than the African-American kids he was emptying his gun clip at .

But Monica, some of you are probably saying, he was convicted of four of five felony counts.  Three of the convictions were for attempted second-degree murder of the other teens in the vehicle.  

Yeah true, but he wasn't convicted of the first degree murder charge that he should have gotten for killing Jordan Davis. 

And once again, prosecutor Angela Corey can throw Marissa Alexander under the jail for firing a warning shot through the roof of her home to defend herself and her children, but can't get convictions on two white men who killed Black children. 

As I said in the wake of the unjust Zimmerman verdict and will repeat once again, you want to get justice for Trayvon and Jordan?  Here's what must happen starting November 4. 

Vote the GOP bastards out in your state or area who support or voted for Stand Your Ground and voter suppression laws.  Vote out unjust Teapublican judges, DA's and prosecutors. Vote out Republifool congressmembers and senators in the 2014 midterms and beyond. 

Vote for candidates who will stand up for human rights and justice for all people. If you don't see those candidates, run for office your damned self.

Get control of your state legislatures and Congress back and fix what dictatorial Republican control, their Gilded Age 2.0 billionaire funders and a conservative Supreme Court broke.  

It's already galling enough to me this verdict happened the day before what would have been Jordan Davis' 19th birthday tomorrow.  We'll see what sentences gets handed down in this Dunn case before I decide how angry I really need to get over this verdict. 

Happy 19th Birthday, Trayvon!

Today would have been the 19th birthday of Trayvon Benjamin Martin if not for a fateful encounter with bigoted neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in Trayvon's father's Sanford, FL. condominium complex.

And sadly, on Trayvon's 19th birthday we have more African-American parents who are awaiting the starts of trials of white males who felt they had the right to 'stand their ground' and kill Black children for the 'crime' of Existing While Black   

A jury is being selected in the case of Michael Dunn, who shot and killed Jordan Davis because he was in a vehicle with two friends at a Jacksonville convenience store, their music was too loud for his tastes and he 'felt threatened'

Theodore Wafer, another white man who 'felt threatened' has been chaged with second degree murder and is awaiting trail for November 2 shooting death of Renisha McBride.   She simply knocked on the door of a Dearborn Heights, MI house to get help after a traffic accident and paid for it with her life. 

The third white male, Randall Kerrick was wearing a CMPD police uniform when he shot and killed in September 2013 an unarmed Jonathan Ferrell ten times.  He has been indicted and charged with involuntary manslaughter.

So yes Trayvon, we have a lot of work to do to kill the ALEC-inspired Stand Your Ground laws that took you and Renisha's lives.  

And we will never forget what happened to you on the night of February 26, 2012 and how whiteness and white supremacy rallied to the defense (and still does) of George Zimmerman. 

We will commemorate the second anniversary of your murder with nationwide events, and we also won't rest until justice is served in not only your case, but Renisha and Jonathan's as well. 

We also won't rest until Kill A Black Child With Impunity Stand Your Ground laws are eviscerated. 

Happy 19th birthday, Trayvon. 
. 

Oneal Morris Goes To Jail

Oneal Morris, who was convicted in Miami-Dade County for practicing medicine without a license in pursuit of her lucrative silicone pumping efforts, turned herself in on January 7 to begin serving the 336 day jail term she was sentenced to back in October via a plea deal.

The initial plea deal was denied because Judge Ellen Sue Venzera thought it was too light considering what Morris was being charged with 

She'll be incarcerated with the cisgender boys because Miami-Dade Corrections doesn't place you in their facilities based on your gender presentation.  With time off for good behavior Morris is scheduled to be released in October.

But the 32 year old Morris is not out of the legal woods yet.   She is facing more serious manslaughter charges in Broward County because of the March 2012 death of Shatarka Nuby, one of her longtime cisfeminine clients from what coroners labeled as "massive systemic silicone migration.".

So stay tuned to this TransGriot channel for further updates on the Morris case and what transpires in the upcoming one in Broward County.   

Tavares Spencer Sentenced In Tampa

Justice has been served in Tampa, FL.

Tavares Spencer, the 16 year old teen who robbed and shot trans woman Coko McDonald back on April 9 and gleefully bragged about on social media will be spending time in the Florida penal system.

Spencer was tried as an adult and found guilty back in October of attempted first degree murder, robbery with a firearm, attempted second degree murder, aggravated assault and aggravated battery.

The trial featured testimony from Coko Williams and a failed attempt by Spencer's defense attorney to deploy the odious 'trans panic' defense. 

Our transsister Coko is not only thankfully alive to tell her story, she got the early Christmas present of seeing justice being served  

The judge in this case noted his pattern of recent criminal behavior and the testimony from Tampa PD detectives about his lack of remorse in the shooting.  He sentenced Spencer to spend the next 25 years of his young life in jail for letting his transphobia get the best of him.

Ashley Sinclair's Alleged Killer Arrested

The New Year will hopefully see justice for Ashley Sinclair. 

News out of Orlando, FL is that after an eight month investigation, someone has finally been arrested and charged for her April 4 murder.

22 year old Kentz V. Louis has been arrested by Orange County deputies and charged with first degree murder in this case.

Louis and Sinclair were acquaintances according to deputies, but they haven't released at this time a motive for the shooting that happened in a wooded area of Orange County off Nimrod Lane in the early morning hours of April 4.

Let's hope and pray the Orange County detectives got their man.   Let's also hope and pray that for the sake of Ashley, her family and all who loved her that Louis is expeditiously tried, found guilty and be spending a long time locked up in Florida's penal system for this heinous crime.

Will definitely be keeping an eye on this case until justice is served for our departed trans sister. 

Rep. Alan Grayson Told The Truth (Again) And The Conservafools Can't Handle It

I've been amused by the conservafool freak out happening because Rep Alan Grayson (D-FL) called out the Tea Klux Klan in a fundraising flyer that substitutes a burning cross for the 'T' in Tea Party. 

I've called them the Tea Klux Klan for years and approve of Rep Grayson's message and love the fact he isn't backing down from what he said or apologizing for it. 

“I’m calling them out for their hate,” Grayson said. “That’s not wrong. That needs to be done. It’s the only way to end it.” 

He also went a step further by calling out the Tea Party Tea Klux Klan for being engaged in hate speech, prejudice, discrimination, racism and even warned that they could resort to violence.




Now comes the predictable play of the butthurt Tea Klux Klan - sending out their knee-grow auxiliary sellouts as human shields to defend them and their off the charts racism.

Jesse Lee Peterson shuffled out from whatever SoCal rock he was holed up under to laughably demand that Rep Grayson 'apologize to conservative Black and independents', then threw out in his press release statement attacking liberal progressive Black as 'being on the Democrat plantation.'.

That house knee-grow needs to have an Oreo cookie and a nice tall glass of STFU.   

Rep Grayson was correct when he said, "I stand by the unfortunate truth that the Tea Party has been all too willing to open itself and be a home to bigots, and prejudice now, for years. That’s the unfortunate truth we all have to live with. I stand by that.”

And it's a truth they can't and don't want to come to grips with.  The Tea Party is a cesspool of racism. That fact was true in 2010, it was true in 2011, it was true in 2012 and it's true right now. 

If you conservatives don't want to be called racists and bigots, stop acting in ways that leave non-whites and our allies no choice but to call you out and correctly describe you as racists and bigots. 

. 

Tampa Area Media, Read Your AP Stylebook

White I was happy about how the Tavares Spencer trial turned out in terms of being tried as an adult for his hate crime perpetrated upon Ms. McDonald, and convicted of all five charges yesterday in his attempted murder trial, one thing I was NOT happy about was the repeated misgendering in the Tampa media of Coko McDonald

Tampa Bay Times , Bradenton Herald and other area media, Coko McDonald is not a 'transgender man', 'a crossdresser', 'really a man' or a 'man dressed as a woman', she is a transgender woman and as such, feminine pronouns should have been used to describe Ms. McDonald in any story you wrote or broadcast about her.

Several Tampa area television stations weren't much better in reporting this story either and I am more than beyond sick and tired of being sick and tired of African-American trans women being disrespected in the media in life and death.  

Coko was the one who was shot and robbed by Spencer, remember Tampa media?    
 
Sigh.  Let's do this once again and review what the AP Stylebook has said since 2001 about the coverage of transgender people in the media.

transgender-Use the pronoun preferred by the individuals who have acquired the physical characteristics of the opposite sex or present themselves in a way that does not correspond with their sex at birth.

If that preference is not expressed, use the pronoun consistent with the individuals live publicly.

Translation: transgender woman=use female pronouns in story. Transgender male=use male pronouns in story.   GLAAD has a media guide you can peruse in addition to the NLGJA in case you are confused about something so simple even the GEICO caveman gets it. 

So did WPTV-TV, the NBC affiliate.  They got it.  

So let's see Tampa media if you get it right when i comes time to sentence Tavares Spencer and beyond when it comes to reporting on trans people, because this won't be the first or the last time you'll encounter a transperson as you do your jobs..

Tavares Spencer Trial-Guilty!

Looks like the attempted use of the 'trans panic' defense by his defense team failed.

Tavares Spencer was found guilty in a Tampa courtroom today of all charges including attempted 1st-degree murder, robbery with a firearm, attempted 2nd-degree murder, aggravated assault and aggravated battery in the shooting of Coko McDonald.

As soon as I find out when Spencer will be sentenced and what that sentence is, I'll definitely post it to the blog.

Tavares Spencer Trial-Coko Takes The Stand

The question was asked by the Tampa media if Coko McDonald would testify against her attacker or even be there in the audience as the Tavares Spencer trial started yesterday. 

Well, she did.  Sis was looking good as she described the events of that horrific April 9 day. 




And yeah, not a surprise to me that Spencer's defense attorneys are already trying to deploy the 'trans panic' defense.   They actually claimed that since McDonald made sexual advances toward their client, the now 17 year old teen felt scared for his life and shot her.

WTF?   Just another sterling example of why the 'trans panic' defense needs to be banned and consigned to the legal ash heap. 

Gee, I hope the jury didn't buy those woof tickets the defense attorney was selling, but then again, we have previous experience with Florida juries buying bull feces laden defense cases up the road in Sanford, FL. .  

The Spencer trial is expected to wrap up by the end of the week.

Tavares Spencer Attempted Murder Trial Starts In Tampa

22 year old Coko McDonald almost ended up being another one of the sadly too long list of Black trans women whose names we'll read on November 20.

But because of quick thinking on her part she's not, and the waste of DNA who allegedly tried to kill her is on trial.

16 year old Tavares Spencer is facing attempted murder and hate crime charges after luring McDonald to a home on April 9 in the 5000 block of Winnie Street N.in the east Tampa area and shooting her. 

Spencer wanted to date Coko and after discovering she was a trans woman, became enraged about that revelation and allegedly plotted to kill her.

Just because you get pissed about finding out you are attracted to a trans woman doesn't give you or anyone else the authority to kill us.  

Off soapbox, returning to story.  

A week after the two met, Spencer lured Coko to the home on Winnie Street, pulled out a gun, and told her to get on the ground.  Police say he stole her cell phone and her purse and then shot her. Coko says the bullets hit her in the hip.


“I lost my breath with the first shot.  The second one kind of put my body in a shock,” said Coko.

McDonald played dead until Spencer walked away.  She then got up and took off running as Spencer fired another shot at her that fortunately missed.

Tampa Police Department investigators said that within an hour of the shooting, the teenager was bragging about it on text messages and using "defamatory statements" about McDonald's sexual orientation.

Spencer was in jail on an unrelated charge when he was arrested and charged as an adult for the attempted murder of McDonald along with robbery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.  The enhanced hate crime charge was the result of a warrant authorized search of Spencer's phone that revealed the transphobic text messages. 

Jury selection started this morning with prosecutors and Spencer's defense attorney interviewing potential jury members for this attempted murder trial.   It's also not known at this time whether Coko will appear in the courthouse to either testify during the trial against Spencer or just be there in the courtroom to watch the proceedings.

At any rate, I'll be keeping an eye on it along with the Tampa area trans community to see if justice is served in this case.

Silicone Pumper Oneal Morris To Do Year In Jail

Been keeping up with three high profile silicone pumping cases involving trans pumpers as they wind their way through the court system. 

One of them is the case of now 32 year old Oneal R. Morris, the Miami, FL based pumper whose pumping concoction of Fix-a-Flat, mineral oil and cement left several women cis and trans disfigured and one cis woman dead.

When I last checked in on this case Miami-Dade District Judge Ellen Sue Venzera rejected a June 25 plea deal that would have sent Morris to jail for 180 days, required her to pay restitution to her victims and placed her on five years probation because Judge Venzera felt the deal was too light for the seriousness of the charges.

Morris accepted a plea deal yesterday in which she will serve 366 days in jail for one count of practicing medicine without a license and surrender on January 7 to begin serving that sentence.   

Rajee Narinesingh, one of her pumping victims who is now an activist focusing on the dangers of silicone pumping, told the local Miami media a year in jail wasn't long enough. 

Morris is still facing charges in Broward County that include manslaughter in the death of 31 year old Shatarka Nuby. 

Dunn Trial Moved to Early 2014

I was wondering why the news cycle was so quiet about the other Florida 'Stand Your Ground' case hauntingly similar to and up the road from the Trayvon Martin one in which another Black teenage male died. 

Michael Dunn, the man accused of killing 17 year old Jordan Dunn in the parking lot of a Jacksonville, FL convenience store in a dispute over loud music was supposed to go on trial starting September 23.   The trial has been postponed until January or early February 2014.

The other similarity in this trial and the Zimmerman one is State Attorney Angela Corey is handling it, which in the wake of the jacked up Zimmerman one and the the Marissa Alexander ones has sparked calls by a citizen's group for her removal from prosecuting the Dunn case.

So stay tuned, we'll see if justice prevails or as some people fear is going to happen, Dunn walks.

Michael Dunn Case Going To Trial September 23

Don't look now people, but it's time to get prepared for another 'Kill A Black Kid With Impunity' trial in Florida.  

Michael Dunn will go on trial starting September 23 in the death of 17 year old Jordan Russell Davis.

The 46 year old Dunn has pleaded not guilty and is facing first degree murder charges in the killing of Davis and three charges of attempted murder in the Black Friday incident that happened at a Jacksonville gas station mere months after Trayvon Martin was killed in Sanford, FL.

Prosecutors are not seeking the death penalty in this case (gee, I wonder why).    

On that fateful day Davis and his friends went to a Jacksonville gas station to fill up after finishing a shopping trip to a local mall. They encountered Dunn, a gun collector with a permit to carry a concealed weapon. A confrontation took place over the volume of the music playing in the car Davis and his friends were in.

Dunn, later saying he felt “threatened”, thought the teens were “gang members” and claiming he saw a shotgun took out his gun and fired several shots into the SUV, that struck and killed Davis.


You can bet the conservative movement and the defense team in their zeal to defend Dunn will use their time tested tactics to demonize Jordan Russell Davis and all the boys in the SUV,  turn them into 'marauding thugs' and make Dunn look like the second coming of Jesus Christ to rally the conservasheeple around.

This trial will also have a nearly or completely melanin free jury with the overwhelming stench of vanillacentric privilege filling the Duval county courthouse or wherever they have this trial.

We'll see how this one plays out, but y'all know what kind of track record I have when it comes to predicting these types of cases .

And based on what just happened in Seminole County, I won't be too surprised o see Michael Dunn walking when this case is over. 

Trayvon Was:

An honor student with a 3.7 GPA
Accepted into college on a full ride scholarship
A volunteer with over 600 service hours
A devoted member of his church
A loyal friend and loving son
An innocent teenage boy

But Black skin, skittle, iced tea, a hoodie and an armed  bigoted vigilante neighborhood watchman deemed him a 'threat to the community'

And his mother is now mourning his death

Told Y'all

Told y'all this was how the trial in Sanford, FL was going to go down.  And to be honest, if it hadn't been for the protests last year, Zimmerman wouldn't have been arrested, much less even gone to trial in the first place.

Told y'all that The Seminole County, Florida jury with no Black people on it would find George Zimmerman not guilty.   I predicted that on Thursday even before I heard the closing argument of Mark O'Meara Friday.  

After the defense delivers their closing argument tomorrow and the case goes to the jury, what Black America fears is the visual when that jury comes out of deliberation and delivers the verdict in front of the unblinking eye of the media's television cameras, a 'not guilty' verdict will be read.

We will then in Black America have to painfully watch as George Zimmerman exhales, cheers and he, his family and friends plaster cheesy grins all over their faces in victory while Tracy Martin, Sybrina Fulton, Trayvon's brother Jahvaris Fulton and their family, friends and supporters have stunned or disconsolate looks on their faces as the sickening realization sinks in that Zimmerman just got away with murdering their loved one.

Can you say 'nullification' people?   Thought you could.

If you thought I was kidding or being overly partisan about saying the GOP and conservatism is the political arm of white supremacy and FOX Noise is its megaphone, congratulations, last night was your wake up call

And yep folks, now that Georgie boy got off for killing Trayvon Martin, next task for white supremacy AKA the conservafool movement and their FOX Noise megaphone is coming to the rescue of Michael Dunn. 

Last Thanksgiving weekend he shot and killed 17 year old Jordan Davis in Jacksonville for the crime of being in an SUV in a gas station parking lot in which music was played that was too loud to this white man's tastes.  Expect the conservative demonizing of Davis to start as soon as the trial date gets closer.

Anyone want to lay early odds that Dunn gets acquitted in that case? 

As Marissa Alexander painfully found out, 'Stand Your Ground' wasn't designed by ALEC for Black people with guns, only white ones.  

I wanted to be proven wrong on this Zimmerman case.  I wanted to tell myself that my cynical reaction based on a lifetime of not too pleasant interactions with whiteness and white supremacy in America wasn't warranted.  I wanted to believe that it's the justice system and not the 'Just-us' system.  I wanted to believe that a Black life is just as valuable in the United States as a white one.
 
The courtroom in Sanford, FL and that verdict just pretty much verified and summed up what I've been saying for seven years on this blog in various ways when I talk about race, race relations, whiteness and white supremacy. 

Whiteness and white supremacy trumps Black lives.   It also made me ponder once again if elements of white people really believe what Chief Justice Roger B. Taney wrote in the Dred Scott v Sandford case back on March 6, 1857 and that's what you really think of us.



"...beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations, and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect."

Do I or any other African-American have no rights you as a white person are bound to respect?  That's the message the Zimmerman jury verdict sent last night.
 
So no, I don't want to hear the bull feces about this case 'wasn't a race issue', this wasn't a Black-White issue or 'I'm tired of these Black-white issues' or 'I'm tired of identity politics'.   Not today, tomorrow, the rest of this week, the rest of this month or the rest of this year. 

This case was most certainly was about race.  White supremacy has been fracking with African descended people for over 400 years and isn't showing any signs of slacking off or getting tired of coming up with new ways of accomplishing the task.


And for those of you Black people who irrationally hate on me and other Black transpeople, y'all better chill with that shyt right now.   It's nation time and we Black people of all varieties have work to do
.
As I've told your clueless behinds more than a few times Black trans issues are Black community issues and now more than ever we need to close ranks and unite.

They see my Black skin first before the trans issue even comes up.  Exhibit A of that is CeCe McDonald, who is in a Minnesota prison on a 41 month sentence for the crime of being a Black Trans Person Walking and defending herself against a white supremacist.  The white female who instigated the attack only received 180 days in jail.

That unjust Zimmerman case verdict basically said that Black kids, and especially Black male kids like Trayvon Martin can be shot and killed with impunity by white people.   But don't you Black people dare do it to our precious white kids or else. 

Don't even try coming on here in the comment threads and pointing out Zimmerman is half Latino.  You will get clowned, called out and embarrassed.  He wasn't claiming that half Latino heritage the night he got out of his car and hunted down and killed Trayvon. 

Neither was he claiming that heritage as he basked in the vanillacentric privileged glow of his father Robert Zimmerman, Sr., white folks gleefully rushed to his defense and showered him with defense fund cash in six figure amounts during this entire sorry episode.

Even now you vanillacentric privilege wielding peeps are all over the Net either gloating about this verdict, spewing racist comments or trying to whitesplain and justify a grown ass white man man killing an unarmed 17 year old Black child.   So George Zimmerman is all yours. Can't throw him under the bus now because he's a concrete example of and a window into what whiteness and white supremacist thinking does to you peeps and deep down what you really think about us.

But the people I really feel for at this moment are Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton.  Keep them and their family in your prayers. 

But while Zimmerman won this legal battle, the legal war will continue.   The feds haven't weighed in on this case yet, and you can bet there will be a civil lawsuit he'll have to deal with.  

After you finish venting, do what I will do.  Wake up, get organized, and prepare for the legal, political and civic engagement battle we must now wage to total victory over the forces of whiteness and white supremacy which are ensconced in their political arm, AKA the Republican Party. 

You want to get justice for Trayvon?  Vote the GOP bastards out in your state or area who support or voted for Stand Your Ground and voter suppression laws.  Vote out unjust Teapublican judges, DA's and prosecutors. Vote out Republifool congressmembers and senators in the 2014 midterms and beyond.  Vote for candidates who will stand up for human rights and justice for all people. If you don't see those candidates, run for office your damned self.

Get control of your state legislatures and Congress back and fix what dictatorial Republican control and a conservative Supreme Court broke.  

The struggle continues. So we have to be just as tough minded about taking on whiteness and white supremacy.  And we as African descended people in America have to deal with the reality that just about everything in America sociopolitically is a Black-White issue, has been for over 400 years and must be analyzed first from that context.  

Until we (and White people too) deal with the reality that America is still dealing with (or refusing to deal with) the poisonous post-traumatic aftereffects of slavery, with one of the prime ones being the devaluing of Black life, we are not going to even begin to make progress on permanently changing the negative paradigm.