Continuing
in my humble - and I hope what will prove to be relevant
- undertaking, I proceed with musings on the Trayvon Martin
matter.
Every
now and then the supernatural occurs. Supermoons fill
the horizon. Earthquakes and tsunamis roar in tandem.
Dictators fall like dominoes. And, Bill Cosby speaks.
Cosby recently weighed in on the Trayvon Martin matter.
In the cases of the moon and earthquakes, they fill us
with awe and ground us with a sense of predictability.
So is the case with Dr. Cosby: when Dr. Cosby speaks,
the Black community listens�or at least used to listen
for his voice of reason. Lately, though, in his aging
wisdom, Cosby leaves me scratching my head. His punditry
at first glance appears logical, but upon deeper analysis
and a lens of history, his voice comes from left field.
Last
week, longtime comedian, actor and corporate spokesperson,
Dr. Bill Cosby, often touted by mainstream America as a credible voice on the plight of Black
America, elected to opine on Trayvon Martin�s killing.
To recap, non-Black (Hispanic American) George Zimmerman,
the self-described neighborhood watch patroller, admitted
to fatally shooting Trayvon Martin on February 26. Zimmerman
currently awaits trial after a protracted and controversial
series of events catapulted the Black community into demanding
his arrest. The Black community viewed Zimmerman as the
armed stalker and shooter of the 17-year-old teen who
was armed with nothing more than a pack of Skittles and
a bottle of Arizona
iced tea. Zimmerman deemed Trayvon �suspicious.� He wore
a �hoodie� (It was raining.) Zimmerman�s perception effectively
created a climate ripe for confrontation.
As
has been his penchant in years past, Cosby elected to
blame the victim and absolve the perpetrator. A groundswell
of Black Americans clearly believes - myself included
- that Zimmerman�s act was racially motivated. I also
believe that coordinated efforts, even if unwitting, of
white male-led organizations and factions, created a racially
motivated cover for Zimmerman�s act. If you believe like
I do about the circumstances of the killing and the subsequent
chain of events, let�s continue to rely on the facts to
validate our claims.
In
the period following the shooting, the investigation of
law enforcement was intentionally subverted and due process
aborted. After all, Zimmerman is a white male. He was
absolved of guilt under Florida�s �Stand Your Ground� law, which grants legal gun owners de
facto permission to shoot anyone - unarmed or otherwise
- if the shooter feels threatened. Crafted by two white,
male-dominated Goliaths (National Rifle Association and
Walmart), that law has proven itself problematic: It has
proven to be fatal for Black men across the country.
Enter
Mr. Cosby.
In
a CNN interview with Piers Morgan, Cosby posited that
the shooting of Trayvon Martin �should be about guns,
not about race.� What an insulting and misleading opinion!
I find it ludicrous that Cosby would encourage the most
maligned race among America�s
citizenry to diminish the very basis of white men�s fear
- Black males (though few whites would be loathed to admit
that). Instead, he attributes racial profiling to guns,
which is simplistically the tool of choice. I challenge
you to visit and reflect on the contents at my web site,
Stop Attacking Black Men (SABM). The litany of attacks on
Black males is telling. [SABM is currently on hiatus;
please bookmark the site and visit us when we return in
July.]
Black
men are convicted and incarcerated at rates at least seven
times greater than white males, which effectively disenfranchises
Blacks from their Constitutional right of gun ownership
under the Second Amendment. This loss of rights, compounded
by the insidious campaign to pass voter ID laws, blocks
Blacks access to voting, and thus from electing representatives
who�d best represent their interests, including the reversal
of Draconian laws that have a disproportionately adverse
impact on our community. The voter ID bills have been
liken to a modern-day poll tax. Thank goodness for civil
rights organizations, including the National Action Network,
the NAACP, and many community-based groups, that vigorously
challenge this affront.
The
results of several studies support the claims of racial
bias, which remember is my premise for Zimmerman�s action.
For example, a January 2003 study published by the University
of Maryland showed that defendants
who killed a white man are more likely to receive the
death penalty than those who kill a Black man. Contrast
that study with one that shows the incidence of whites
shooting Blacks (suspected of �suspicious activity�) is
14 times higher than for Blacks shooting whites, and the
racial majority of death penalty sentences becomes clear
- bleak, Black.
I
describe the third study as quirky as best, a waste of
my tax payer dollars, at worse. This UCLA study concluded
that a person holding a gun seems taller and more muscular
in the viewer�s mind than a person holding a tool or other
object.� Perhaps, Zimmerman was aware of this study. �Who
would even fund such a study?� you might ask. The US Air
Force Office of Scientific Research (a majority white
male-run operation) led the research. Such research seems
more appropriate to the domain of psychology, than to
military science, but I don�t have a doctorate degree�but
Bill Cosby does.
What�s
Cosby got to do with these studies? Cosby misleads Americans
- Blacks and whites - into believing that guns and race
are mutually exclusive. Are we to believe that Cosby does
not believe that a racist feels empowered behind the trigger
of a gun? If all citizens in this country
could be assured of equal protection under the law, specifically
regarding the use of deadly force, guns would achieve
a remarkable feat: diminishing racism to an iota of the
power it wields today. Bill Cosby�s pitiable history of
blaming Black people for their oppression in a white patriarchal
society is wrong. No such correctness exists in Cosby�s
rationale.
What
I know is that guns coupled with race share a kinship
of legacy in America.
Anyone with any degree of honesty must recognize that.
And someone with a public platform, such as Cosby, cannot
responsibly ignore that reality. Black Americans are experiencing
systematic killing on multiple affronts (thanks to US
agencies that institute wealth inequality, criminal injustice,
and social disparity). Culturally, the playing field is
warped too: consider that Black baseball players make
up only 8.05% of the major league, down from 19% in 1995,
and 27% in 1975 when I was but a child collecting baseball
cards.
With
young Black men lured by music videos and the lucrative
lifestyles of athletes and entertainers, to copulate with
a white women seems to be one rite of passage for Black
males (of course, often resulting in offspring). Consequently,
the Black male population is dwindling. The abysmal failure
of the War on Drugs, fueled by tough-on-crime white
legislators in the 1980s, served as a successful mechanism
for decreasing that population, and hence the Black vote.
Add to that scenario, firearms in the hands of fearful
white men and you�ve produced a time-tested mechanism
to quash competition from the resilient Black males who
managed to circumvent the dragnet of institutionalized
racism - Arthur McDuffie, Sean Bell, Amadou Diallo, Oscar
Grant, Howard Morgan, Kendrec McDade, Ramarley Graham,
Kenneth Chamberlain, now Trayvon Martin and thousands
more.
For
every voter ID law or drug-test-in-order-to-get-food-stamps
law, again no such correctness exists for any voice that
would blame the victims. It really is about race.
Anything else is secondary. Has the legendary Bill Cosby
lost empathy for his base - the Black community to whom
he owes his long and stellar career? Sure, our young men
need to �pull their pants up� and Black men must �be good
fathers,� but, these imperatives apply to all men.
No such correctness lies in relegating the scourge of
racism to the proverbial back burner. So, Dr. Cosby, come
correct.
BlackCommentator.com
Columnist, Perry
Redd, is the former Executive Director of
the workers rights advocacy, Sincere Seven, and author
of the on-line commentary, �The
Other Side of the Tracks.� He is the host of the internet-based
talk radio show, Socially Speaking in
Washington,
DC.
Click
here to contact Mr.
Redd.
