On Michael Dunn, and raising black sons: Jordan Davis’ mother talks to Salon

[DonViejo]

"I used to say to him...you’re just going to have to turn the other cheek...Because people nowadays will shoot you"

JOSH EIDELSON

On Nov. 23, 2012, Michael Dunn, 47 and white, shot and killed Jordan Davis, 17 and black, after a verbal dispute over the music coming from the SUV Davis and his friends had parked outside a gas station. On Feb. 15, 2014, a Florida jury convicted Dunn on three counts of second-degree attempted murder, for shots Dunn fired at the SUV as it was driving away, but couldn’t reach a verdict on the charge that Dunn murdered Davis. Dunn claimed in court that he was defending himself and that Davis pointed a shotgun at him from the window of the SUV; prosecutors noted no gun was found, and Dunn’s fiancée testified that he didn’t mention a weapon to her that night.

“I used to say to him: Jordan, you know, you’re just going to have to turn the other cheek, or what have you,” Davis’ mother Lucia McBath told Salon. “Because people nowadays will shoot you.” Davis called Florida’s lightning rod “Stand Your Ground” law “the culprit” in her son’s death, and said additional testimony in Dunn’s retrial for murder would help to “really pinpoint who Michael Dunn is.” A condensed version of our conversation follows.

What was your reaction when the verdict came down?

Extremely disturbed. I was very, very disturbed by the verdict. But I can’t really say that I was surprised…

Every time the jurors had a question about the charges, and about how they were to deliberate on those specific charges in the law, incorporating the jury instructions, (our team) were beginning to get a sense that it was our son’s charge alone…(that) probably was going to be, you know, hung…

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http://www.salon.com/2014/02/24/on_michael_dunn_justice_and_raising_black_children_jordan_daviss_mother_speaks_to_salon/

[giftedgirl77]

1. Unfortunately we have to have this talk regularly

with our boys. It is sad in this day & age but it is a reality. My oldest gets it, my youngest I am very fearful for because he has a very strong willed mentality & doesn't quite get it yet. My parents keep trying to get us to move back to FL, that will be a cold day in hell & we live in SC.

[freshwest]

2. It is a terrible burden to put this national schizophrenia on a developing child. An older black

woman I knew when my child was a toddler, said that white parents who pushed for not spanking, were going to get their black children killed.

I didn't have to ask why, she explained right away that if they didn't they'd be killed by the police later. I've been told many times by black mothers that they have to rear their kids differently to survive.

A Canadian comedian from India did a video on it, but it might offend some here so I won't post it. What he was describing though, was the leeway given to white kids to act up at home, school, work or anywhere and know that nothing was going to happen.

All young people have their wild moments when they are trying to learn the rules, be they just or not, to survive. IMO black kids have too many rules applied to them, harshly enforced, that no free spirit needs to have to follow. They hold a child back from learning.

[Cali_Democrat]

3. Jordan Davis' mom is a real hero

I saw her on TV after the verdict. She's a very impressive woman.