Monday, March 26, 2012

Trayvon Martin, Barack Obama, and the Birther Movement

We are all familiar with the Trayvon Martin story.  The story has gained national attention.  President Barack Obama said something that was very interesting to me.  He said:

"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon."  Of course, the Right-Wingers had a grand-mal hissy fit about it.  But this isn't about them.  This is to delve deeper into just how pervasive racism is these days.

I am going to take the President's statement one step further.  At the risk of hyperbole, I would say that the President COULD BE Trayvon Martin.  Ever since President Obama was inaugurated, the racists have been working themselves up into a frenzy about Obama's "right" to become the leader of the free world.  Right on cue, they began to rabidly fume about the fate of this country, uniting in a Tea-Potty-inspired chorus of "This is not the America I grew up in!"  From that time until now, the President has faced challenge after ridiculous challenge about his legitimacy as President.

Birther Queen Orly Taitz continues in her Don Quixote-meets-Bride of Frankenstein quest to take the President down.
If the gates of Hell had a greeter, it would look like this.

Thankfully, just about every common-sense judge has laughed her and her ridiculousness out of their courtroom.

Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio is also in on these shenanigans.  The crime rate in Maricopa County must be in single digits, because the sheriff must have nothing else to do but waste Maricopa County taxpayers' money on something that's been settled a long time ago.

The pinnacle of this birther nonsense was media buffoon Donald Trump.  Here is an alleged billionaire who took pride in getting the President to show his (Obama's) birth certificate.  What Trump basically did was brag about getting a sitting President of the United States to show his papers.  Trump bragged about getting to do to a Black man what hasn't been done in decades... show documentation that shows that you are who you say you are.

Let's not forget about the outright disrespect shown to President Obama during the State of the Union address by Joe Wilson.  Even in the hyper-partisan world of politics, a Congressman yelling "You lie!" during the State of the Union address was just flat-out disrespectful.

No, sir.  YOU lie when you claim to respect the office of the President.

Even though she may not be a birther, Arizona Governer Jan Brewer couldn't hide her utter disdain at the President when she disrespected him by putting her finger in his face.

  Nothing says "I respect the office of the President" quite like a gnarled twig of a finger in the face of the office-holder.

Brewer actually said that she felt "threatened" by the President.

Threatened.  By a sitting President of the United States.  By a man who Brewer's political allies dismissed as a mere "community organizer."  By a law professor.  By an Ivy-League graduate.  By a former United States  Senator.

It goes to show that no matter who you are, and no matter how far you go, as a Black man, there will always be some racist who will feel "intimidated" by your presence, and claim that you "don't belong" where you are.

Which brings me full circle back to Trayvon Martin.  Despite the George Zimmerman Defense Blitz that has been launched (the kit comes complete with scary images of a black guy with gold teeth, Facebook posts, and news leaks speculating about Travyon Martin's school suspension), it is crystal clear to anyone -- even Jeb Bush, for goodness' sakes -- that Trayvon was doing absolutely nothing wrong when Zimmerman encountered him.  Despite what the racists would have you believe, Trayvon didn't have to "report" to Zimmerman about his whereabouts, or why he was there.  As mentioned on another website, even if Zimmerman actually WAS a cop, Trayvon was well within his rights to not tell Zimmerman anything but where to put that gun.

No matter who you are, whether you are a high-school teenager or the President of the United States, someone will always feel threatened by your presence as a Black man, especially when they feel that you "look suspicious", or that you "don't belong."  We live in a time where people went from an absolute defense of the President to carrying guns to a protest rally for people who disagree with the President.  And we live in a time where a man with an arrest record and a gun gets the "squeaky clean" benefit of the doubt over the young man he just murdered.

You know, just in case anyone believed for a second that we're living in a post-racial America.