America's Permanent State of War: Abroad and At Home, In Our Hospitals and In Our Streets

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/americas-permanent-state-war-abroad-and-home-our-hospitals-and-our-streets

***SNIP

What about those fatally wounded in undeclared wars? These are the stories that often stay untold or only get revealed after protests, rallies and outrage. They emerge from neighborhoods transformed into battlefields when black and brown bodies of men and women find themselves in what for them becomes enemy territory. Routine becomes deadly: a call for help turns into a bullet in the face, burying the dreams of a 19-year-old black teenage girl. That girl now lies in a grave marked justifiable homicide, put there by a fellow American citizen.

On Wednesday, November 13, a bond hearing for Marissa Alexander took place. The hearing determined that Alexander will remain in jail. Another hearing is scheduled to take place before the March 31 re-trial of the case that landed the Florida mother with a 20-year jail sentence. Though her initial sentence was overturned, Marissa Alexander, whose warning shot hit no one and hurt no one, remains incarcerated. Meanwhile, Theodore Paul Wafer, who shot Renisha McBride in the face and killed her, walked free for 13 days. Today the killer of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin also walks free.

Due process is its own battle for black and brown bodies because America has a relationship with violence that is at once intimate and contradictory. The nation sanctions violence against such bodies, especially because of the reasons given—it is committed out of fear or in the interest of "neighborhood safety."

Trayvon Martin's jurors were white women for whom the facts of a strange man following a teenaged boy should have rung alarm bells, should have created connection, should have elicited empathy. For any woman being followed by a strange man is cause for fear; for any mother a strange man following a child elicits empathy for that child and fear about that man. That the body being followed was a black male meant that race trumped any empathy or connection the circumstances might have elicited. America's relationship with violence means that black and brown bodies are constantly expected to feed on diets of injustice and to absorb courtroom verdicts that result from white fears masquerading as facts. Fear is a fact of these undeclared wars. This is how our politics of emotionality operates—a nation legitimizes and institutionalizes emotionality around race, fear and black bodies.

[KG]

1. I regret I have but one rec to give....

[PETRUS]

2. K&R

[seveneyes]

3. white fears masquerading as facts

Fear does not just materialize out of the ether. Sometimes, the lack of it will get you killed or maimed.

http://blogs.ajc.com/news-to-me/2013/11/18/at-least-three-dead-in-knockout-fad/
At least three dead in ‘Knockout’ fad
A Pittsburgh-area teacher survived a surprise punch and said he doesn’t remember the incident. The 15-year-old who knocked him unconscious is charged with simple assault. He has not been identified because he is a juvenile.

Two Syracuse teens that punched and killed a man were sentenced to 18 months confinement in a “family court ” case.

Laughing teens interviewed by CBS, whose faces are blurred because they are minors, said ‘Knockout’ is not about “anger,” it’s about fun.