July 21, 2013

Article II of an 11-part Series on Race in America - Past and Present

Emmett and Trayvon: How Racial Prejudice Has Changed 
By Elijah Anderson

Elijah Anderson

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Separated by a thousand miles, two state borders, and nearly six decades, two young African- American boys met tragic fates that seem remarkably similar today: both walked into a small market to buy some candy; both ended up dead.

The first boy is Emmett Till, who was 14 years old in the summer of 1955 when he walked into a local grocery store in Money, Miss., to buy gum. He was later roused from bed, beaten brutally, and possibly shot by a group of White men who later dumped his body in a nearby river. They claimed he had stepped out of his place by flirting with a young White woman, the wife of the store's owner. The second boy is Trayvon Martin, who was 17 years old late last winter when he walked into a 7-Eleven near a gated community in Sanford, Fla., to buy Skittles and an iced tea.

He was later shot to death at close range by a mixed-race man, who claimed Martin had behaved suspiciously and seemed out of place. The deaths of both boys galvanized the nation, drew sympathy and disbelief across racial lines, and, through the popular media, prompted a reexamination of race relations.

In the aftermath of Martin's death last February, a handful of reporters and columnists, and many members of the general public, made the obvious comparison: Trayvon Martin, it seemed, was the Emmett Till of our times. And, while that comparison has some merit-the boys' deaths are similar both in some of their details and in their tragic outcome-these killings must also be understood as the result of very different strains of racial tension in America.

The racism that led to Till's death was embedded in a virulent ideology of White racial superiority born out of slavery and the Jim Crow codes, particularly in the Deep South. That sort of racism hinges on the idea that Blacks are an inherently inferior race, a morally null group that deserves both the subjugation and poverty it gets.

The racial prejudice that led to Trayvon Martin's death is different. While it, too, was born of America's painful legacy of slavery and segregation, and informed by those old concepts of racial order-that Blacks have their "place" in  society-it in addition reflects the urban iconography of today's racial inequality, namely the Black ghetto, a uniquely urban American creation. Strikingly, this segregation of the Black community coexists with an ongoing racial incorporation process that has produced the largest Black middle class in history, and that reflects the extraordinary social progress this country has made since the 1960s. The civil rights movement paved the way for Blacks and other people of color to access public and professional opportunities and spaces that would have been unimaginable in Till's time.

While the sort of racism that led to Till's death still exists in society today, Americans in general have a much more nuanced, more textured attitude toward race than anything we've seen before, and usually that attitude does not manifest in overtly hateful, exclusionary, or violent acts. Instead, it manifests in pervasive mindsets and stereotypes that all Black people start from the inner-city ghetto and are therefore stigmatized by their association with its putative amorality, danger, crime, and poverty. Hence, in public, a Black person is burdened with a negative presumption that he or she must disprove before being able to establish mutually trusting relationships with others.

Most consequentially, Black skin when seen in public, and its association with the ghetto, translates into a deficit of credibility as Black skin is conflated with lower-class status. Such attitudes impact poor Blacks of the ghetto one way and middle-class Black people in another way.

While middle-class Blacks may be able to successfully overcome the negative presumptions of others, lower-class Blacks may not. For instance, all Blacks, particularly "ghetto-looking" young men, are at risk of enduring yet another "stop and frisk" from the police as well as discrimination from potential employers shopkeepers, and strangers on the street. Members of the Black middle class and Black professionals may ultimately pass inspection and withstand such scrutiny; many poorer blacks cannot.

And many Blacks who have never stepped foot in a ghetto must repeatedly prove themselves as non-ghetto, often operating in a provisional status (with something more to prove), in the workplace or, say, a fancy restaurant, until they can convince others-either by speaking "White" English or by demonstrating intelligence, poise, or manners-that they are to be trusted, that they are not "one of those" Blacks from the ghetto, and that they deserve respect. In other words, a middle-class Black man who is, for instance, waiting in line for an ATM at night will in many cases be treated with a level of suspicion that a middle-class White man simply does not experience.

But this pervasive cultural association-Black skin equals the ghetto-does not come out of the blue. After all, as a result of historical, political, and economic factors, Blacks have been contained in the ghetto. Today, with persistent housing discrimination and the disappearance of manufacturing jobs, America's ghettos face structural poverty. In addition, crime and homicide rates within those communities are high, young Black men are typically the ones killing one another, and ghetto culture - made iconic by artists like Tupac Shakur, 50 Cent, and the Notorious B.I.G. - is inextricably intertwined with blackness.

As a result, in America's collective imagination the ghetto is a dangerous, scary part of the city. It's where rap comes from, where drugs are sold, where hoodlums rule, and where The Wire might have been filmed. Above all, to many White Americans the ghetto is where "the Black people live," and thus, as the misguided logic follows, all Black people live in the ghetto. It's that pervasive, if accidental, fallacy that's at the root of the wider society's perceptions of Black people today. While it may be true that everyone who lives in a certain ghetto is Black, it is patently untrue that everyone who is Black lives in a ghetto. Regardless, Black people of all classes, including those born and raised far from the inner cities and those who've never been in a ghetto, are by virtue of skin color alone stigmatized by the place.

I call this idea the "iconic ghetto," and it has become a powerful source of stereotype, prejudice, and discrimination in our society, negatively defining the Black person in public. In some ways, the iconic ghetto reflects the old version of racism that led to Till's death. In Till's day, a Black person's "place" was in the field, in the maid's quarters, or in the back of the bus. If a Black man was found "out of his place," he could be punished, jailed, or lynched. In Martin's day-in our day-a Black person's "place" is in the ghetto. If he is found "out of his place," like in a fancy hotel lobby, on a golf course, or, say, in an upscale community, he may easily be mistaken, treated with suspicion, avoided, pulled over, frisked, arrested-or worse.

Trayvon Martin's death is an example of how this more current type of racial stereotyping works. While the facts of the case are still under investigation, from what is known it seems fair to say that George Zimmerman, Martin's killer, saw a young Black man wearing a hoodie and assumed he was from the ghetto and therefore "out of place" in the Retreat at Twin Lakes, Zimmerman's gated community. Until recently, Twin Lakes was a relatively safe, largely middle-class neighborhood. But as a result of collapsing housing prices, it has been witnessing an influx of renters and a rash of burglaries. Some of the burglaries have been committed by Black men. Zimmerman, who is himself of mixed race (of Latino, Black, and White descent), did not have a history of racism, and his family has claimed that he had previously volunteered handing out leaflets at Black churches protesting the assault of a homeless Black man.

The point is, it appears unlikely that Zimmerman shot and killed Martin simply because he hates Black people as a race. It seems that he put a gun in his pocket and followed Martin after making the assumption that Martin's Black skin and choice of dress meant that he was from the ghetto, and therefore up to no good; he was considered to be a threat. And that's an important distinction.

Zimmerman acted brashly and was almost certainly motivated by assumptions about young black men, but it is not clear that he acted brutally out of hatred for Martin's race. That certainly does not make Zimmerman's actions excusable, Till's murderers acted out of racial hatred.

The complex racially charged drama that led to Martin's death is indicative of both our history and our rapid and uneven racial progress as a society. While there continue to be clear demarcations separating Blacks and Whites in social strata, major racial changes have been made for the better. It's no longer uncommon to see Black people in positions of power, privilege, and prestige, in top positions in boardrooms, universities, hospitals, and judges' chambers, but we must also face the reality that poverty, unemployment, and incarceration still break down largely along racial lines.

This situation fuels the iconic ghetto, including a prevalent assumption among many White Americans, even among some progressive Whites who are not by any measure traditionally racist, that there are two types of Blacks: those residing in the ghetto, and those who appear to have played by the rules and become successful. In situations in which Black people encounter strangers, many often feel they have to prove as quickly as possible that they belong in the latter category in order to be accepted and treated with respect.

As a result of this pervasive dichotomy-that there are "ghetto" and "non-ghetto" Blacks-many middle-class Blacks actively work to separate and distance themselves from the popular association of their race with the ghetto by deliberately dressing well or by spurning hip-hop, rap, and ghetto styles of dress. Similarly, some Blacks, when interacting with Whites, may cultivate an overt, sometimes unnaturally formal way of speaking to distance themselves from "those" black people from the ghetto.

But it's also not that simple. Strikingly, many middle class Black young people, most of whom have no personal connection with the ghetto, go out of their way in the other direction, claiming the ghetto by adopting its symbols, including styles of dress, patterns of speech, or choice of music, as a means of establishing their authenticity as "still Black" in the largely White middle class they feel does not fully accept them; they want to demonstrate they have not "sold out." Thus, the iconic ghetto is, paradoxically, both a stigma and a sign of authenticity for some American Blacks-a kind of double bind that beleaguers many middle-class Black parents.

Despite the significant racial progress our society has made since Till's childhood, from the civil rights movement to the re-election of President Obama, the pervasive association of Black people with the ghetto, and therefore with a certain social station, betrays a persistent cultural lag. After all, it has only been two generations since schools were legally desegregated and five decades since Blacks and Whites in many parts of the country started drinking from the same water fountains.

If Till were alive today, he'd remember when restaurants had "White Only" entrances and when stories of lynchings peppered The New York Times. He'd also remember the Freedom Riders, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Million Man March. He'd remember when his peers became generals and justices, and when a Black man, just 20 years his junior, became president of the United States. As I am writing, he would have been 73 - had he lived.

Elijah Anderson is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Sociology at Yale University. His latest book is The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life. This article, the second of an 11-part series on race, is sponsored by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and was originally published by the Washington Monthly Magazine.

July 21, 2013

Blacks Who Stand Their Ground Often Imprisoned
Florida's Astounding Inconsistent 'Stand Your Ground' Application

By Zenitha Prince

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The recent acquittal of neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old unarmed Trayvon Martin has led to intense scrutiny of Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law, which hung over the Zimmerman trial along with similar “no retreat” self-defense laws, and their impact on people of color.

“I think the Trayvon Martin case highlighted the racial inequalities that exist in American society,” said Brendan Fischer, general counsel of the Center for Media and Democracy. “It is a symbol of how the American justice system devalues the lives of people of color. [And], ‘Stand Your Ground’ has embedded a lot of these injustices into the system. Statistics have shown its application has been anything but equitable.”Supported by the National Rifle Association, “Stand Your Ground” was passed by the Florida legislature in 2005. The measure turned age-old self-defense principle on its head by allowing persons to use deadly force to defend themselves, without first trying to retreat, if they have a reasonable belief that they face a threat.

The law’s template was then adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit organization made up of corporations, foundations and legislators that advance federalist and conservative public policies, authorities said. Since Florida passed the law, similar measures have been introduced in one form or another in about 30 states, usually those with state legislatures dominated by Republicans.

“That law gives law-and-order activists, right-wingers and vigilantes an arguable basis for defense and opens up a pathway for unjust dispositions of justice because it allows civilians to shoot first and make certain determinations later,” said Dwight Pettit, 67, a renowned Black attorney in Baltimore.

Pettit drew comparisons to police-involved shootings of African Americans when the officers make claims such as “I was in fear for my life,” or “I thought he was reaching for his gun,” and are exonerated. He said he discusses the phenomenon in his soon-to-be-released book Under Color of Law.

“Blacks don’t fare well with these laws at all,” Pettit said. “It’s another lessening of protection for African Americans.”

An analysis conducted by the Tampa Bay Times last year showed that defendants in Florida who employ the “Stand Your Ground” defense are more successful when the victim is Black. In its examination of 200 applicable cases, the Times found that 73 percent of those who killed a Black person were acquitted, compared to 59 percent of those who killed a White.

Similarly, an analysis of Supplemental Homicide Reports submitted by local law enforcement to the FBI between 2005 and 2010 demonstrates that in cases with a Black shooter and a White victim, the rate of justifiable homicide rulings is about 1 percent. However, if the shooter is White and the victim is Black, it is ruled justified in 9.5 percent of cases in non-Stand Your Ground (SYG) states.

In SYG states, the rate is even higher—almost 17 percent, according to John Roman of the Urban Institute.

The trends could partly explain Zimmerman’s verdict, some legal experts said. While his defense team did not invoke the law, Circuit Court Judge Debra Nelson introduced the principle in her instructions to the jury.

“If George Zimmerman was not engaged in an unlawful activity and was attacked in any place where he had a right to be, he had no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he reasonably believed that it was necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony,” she said in her instructions to the jury of one Hispanic and five White women.

To police officers and prosecutors in Sanford, Fla.—who had initially decided not to charge Zimmerman—and to jurors in the case, Zimmerman’s “fear” of Trayvon Martin, a hoodie-wearing Black teenager, likely appeared to be justified, Fischer said.

“If you have a case like George Zimmerman, who is part White, alleging that a young Black male is a threat to him, a lot of times law enforcement would agree that such as person did [constitute] a threat because of the biases and presumptions about Black males, in particular, which exist in society,” he said.

Conversely, Stand Your Ground laws are less accommodating of Black defendants. Such was the case of successful African-American businessman John McNeil who was found guilty of aggravated assault and felony murder in Georgia in 2006 in connection with the fatal shooting of White contractor Brian Epp. McNeil said Epp threatened him and his son during a hostile encounter after going onto McNeil’s property to confront him. He was released earlier this year on time served.

Similarly, in July 2012, Marissa Alexander, 31, the mother of three, was given a 20-year mandatory sentence for an aggravated assault conviction for firing a warning shot into the air in the garage of her home at her abusive husband. Alexander said the man was moving toward her as she attempted to retreat from him when she fired the shot. He was not injured.

Florida Sen. Gary Siplin (D) said the Alexander case was his motivation to attempt to get the Stand Your Ground law overturned. He was unsuccessful, however, because “there are more Democrats in Florida, but more Republicans [are] in charge and they don’t want to change the law,” he told the AFRO.

Working toward a repeal of the laws would be a positive outcome or response to the verdict in the George Zimmerman case, Fischer said.

He said, “People have to vote and elect legislators that would support more just laws that protect the rights of all people instead of just a few.”

In the meantime, many officials are vowing to examine the laws and work toward their repeal, if necessary.

“It’s time to question laws that senselessly expand the concept of self-defense and sow dangerous conflict in our neighborhoods,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a speech to the NAACP on July 16. “By allowing, and perhaps encouraging, violent situations to escalate in public, such laws undermine public safety.”

The Trayvon Martin case “opened up a nationwide inquiry into the appropriateness and efficacy of Stand Your Ground laws,” said Commissioner Michael Yaki, of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, who initiated the body's investigation into racial bias in the application of such laws. He said the commission is committed to investigating the laws.

Yaki said, “To honor Trayvon and his family, we will continue this inquiry with resolve and renewed purpose.”

July 22, 2013

Son of Klan Leader Renounces White Nationalism
By Mark Potok

Derek Black, 24, has renounced the racist views of his Klansman father.

Already, at the tender age of 9, Derek Black was attending racist events like this Nov. 7, 1998, gathering in Jackson, Miss., of the white nationalist Council of Conservative Citizens (CCC), a group that has described black people as a “retrograde species of humanity.” He is pictured here with then-Mississippi Gov. Kirk Fordice, one of few politicians who was then still willing to be seen at CCC events.

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Southern Poverty Law Center

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Derek Black, son of the former Alabama Klan leader who now runs the largest racist Web forum in the world, has renounced white nationalism, saying that he had been through “a gradual awakening process” and apologizing for his past activism.

In an E-mail to the blog of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch, Black, 24, wrote that he had come to see the arguments of white nationalism as “principally flawed,” adding that he had realized that American society is marked by an “overwhelming disparity between white power and that of everyone else” and that white nationalism was really about “an entrenched desire to preserve white power at the expense of others.”

“Advocating for white nationalism means that we are opposed to minority attempts to elevate themselves to a position equal to our own,” wrote Black, who recently finished his third year at the elite New College of Florida. “It is an advocacy that I cannot support, having grown past my bubble, talked to the people I affected, read more widely, and realized the necessary impact my actions had on people I never wanted to harm.”

It was a remarkable statement for Black, whose father, Don Black, once served time in prison for plotting a racist invasion of a small Caribbean nation and founded and still runs Stormfront, a white supremacist Web forum. The younger Black was raised in the racist movement, had by age 12 created a racist children’s page on his father’s website, and until recently hosted a radio show featuring racist guests.

But it was also the latest step in a fairly clear evolution.

Last November, Derek Black posted a statement on a students-only forum at his college in which he explicitly said he was not a white supremacist, a neo-Nazi or a Klansman, and revealing that he had some unexpected views, such as support for same-sex marriage, environmental regulation, and legal abortion. But he also said in the statement, which was made public on this blog in December, that he was not renouncing white nationalism and did not see it as incompatible with his other views.

In his E-mail, Black said that he was already moving away from White nationalism at the time, but that “I was not prepared to risk driving any wedge” into his relationship with his family, “whom I respect greatly, particularly my father.” But, he added, “After a great deal of thought since then, I have resolved that it is in the best interests of everyone involved, directly or indirectly, to be honest about my slow but steady disaffiliation from white nationalism.” He described himself as having spent “the past few years … disentangling myself from white nationalism,” and added that he had closed down his radio show permanently this January. He said that he had not posted at all on Stormfront this year, and only once in 2012. He said he did attend a Stormfront conference in 2012, but would not do so again this year.

Black also directly confronted some of the main arguments of white nationalism, such as the idea that Whites are being victimized by non-White immigration, mixed-race marriages and affirmative action — what amounts, in the arguments of White nationalists, to “genocide” aimed at destroying the white race. He also ridiculed many white nationalists’ “particularly bizarre” hatred of Jews.

“I now consider this belief system principally flawed,” he said. “Most arguments that racial equity programs disadvantage whites who would otherwise be hired or accepted to academic programs mask underlying anxieties about the growth of non-white social status. It is impossible to argue rationally that in our society, with its overwhelming disparity between white power and that of everyone else, racial equity programs intended to affect the deep-rooted situation represent oppression of whites.” Indeed, Black added, “The advancement of minorities in the US is not insignificant, but has not ended (let alone reversed) their circumstances.”

Black was explicitly apologetic. “I acknowledge that things I have said as well as my actions have been harmful to people of color, people of Jewish descent, activists striving for opportunity and fairness for all, and others affected.”

“I can’t support a movement that tells me I can’t be a friend to whomever I wish or that other people’s races requires me to think about them in a certain way or be suspicious of their advancements,” Black wrote toward the end of his four-page statement. “Minorities must have the ability to rise to positions of power, and many supposed ‘race’ issues are in fact issues of structural oppression, poor educational prospects, and limited opportunity. The differences I thought I observed didn’t go nearly as deeply as I imagined. I believe we can move beyond the sort of mind-boggling emphasis white nationalism puts on maintaining an oppressive, exclusive sense of identity — oppressive for others and stifling for our society.”

July 21, 2013

Prominent Black Lawyers Debate Zimmerman Verdict 
By Zenitha Prince