The Atlantic: On the Killing of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn

[Scuba]

http://m.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/02/on-the-killing-of-jordan-davis-by-michael-dunn/283870/

Jordan Davis had a mother and a father. It did not save him. Trayvon Martin had a mother and a father. They could not save him. My son has a father and mother. We cannot protect him from our country, which is our aegis and our assailant. We cannot protect our children because racism in America is not merely a belief system but a heritage, and the inability of black parents to protect their children is an ancient tradition.

Henry "Box" Brown, whose family was destroyed and whose children were trafficked, knew:

I stationed myself by the side of the road, along which the slaves, amounting to three hundred and fifty, were to pass. The purchaser of my wife was a Methodist minister, who was about starting for North Carolina. Pretty soon five wagon-loads of little children passed, and looking at the foremost one, what should I see but a little child, pointing its tiny hand towards me, exclaiming, "There's my father; I knew he would come and bid me good-bye...”

Spare us the invocations of "black on black crime." I will not respect the lie. I would rather be thought insane. The most mendacious phrase in the American language is "black on black crime," which is uttered as though the same hands that drew red lines around the ghettoes of Chicago are not the same hands that drew red lines around the life of Jordan Davis, as though black people authored North Lawndale and policy does not exist. That which mandates the murder of our Hadiya Pendletons necessarily mandates the murder of Jordan Davis. I will not respect any difference. I will not respect the lie. I would rather be thought crazy.

I insist that the irrelevance of black life has been drilled into this country since its infancy, and shall not be extricated through the latest innovations in Negro Finishing School. I insist that racism is our heritage, that Thomas Jefferson's genius is no more important than his plundering of the body of Sally Hemmings, that George Washington's abdication is no more significant than his wild pursuit of Oney Judge, that the G.I Bill's accolades are somehow inseparable from its racist heritage. I will not respect the lie. I insist that racism must be properly understood as an Intelligence, as a sentience, as a default setting to which, likely until the end of our days, we unerringly return.

[Hoyt]

1. I agree with the article. In fact, I am convinced the majority of gun fanciers accumulate and carry

gunz because of their fear of minorities. And, in cases like Zimmerman, they get away with murder because the jury feared that "scary," unarmed, skinny teenage kid that the defense had no problem demonizing.

In Dunn's case, he was convicted (despite the jury not being able to decide whether it was Murder 1, 2 or manslaughter). But, I bet Dunn would have had a reasonable chance of walking if he had not left the scene and hadn't blasted away while they fled. Even Zman's bigoted jury would have had a hard time rationalizing that.

In any event, it's just sad we have to accept bigoted gun nuts toting and accumulating lethal weapons in our society. If Australians could bite the bullet and restrict gunz in 1996, we ought to do the same.