That sickening, sinking feeling has crawled into our guts yet again.
We in the Black community wonder when it will ever stop.
We thought we were beyond this when 15-year-old teenage Latasha Harlins was murdered over a bottle of orange juice by a Korean merchant in 1991.
The case of Trayvon Martin is eerily too familiar to that of Harlins,’ and universal calls for peace and calm are certainly in proper order here.
Trayvon Martin was 17 years old and went to the store and bought a pack of Skittles and a soft drink before he encountered the over zealous volunteer neighborhood watch captain who gunned him dead.
He met the same fate as Harlins, a Westchester High School student when she went into a Korean store in her community and was accused of stealing a bottle of orange juice.
The two culprets of these senseless murders were George Zimmerman and Soon Ja Du. One a 29-year old and the other 51-year old, on full flight from reality when it comes to a person of color.
There was no denying what they did, but the parents of the slain teens are left with memories and nightmares. These two cases are forever linked in infamy.
In the quiet of our nights we ask ourselves over and over why. And, if your are steadfast about advocating for change like our publisher Danny J. Bakewell Sr. you invest your heart into changing it.
Like Zimmerman, Du was charged with a crime for which she served no time, and she pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter!
Harlins’ death was 13 days after the video taped beating of Rodney G. King. While 21 cops watched, four others beat Rodney King 56 times with their solid aluminum batons.
Before King, It was 39- year old Eula Love, a distraught 39-year-old South-Central housewife, was shot and killed by LAPD officers after she brandishes a bone-knife on her front lawn during a dispute over an unpaid gas bill in 1979.
After all we thought we had come a long way since Eula Love and LaTasha Harlins’, Rodney G. King and even O.J. Simpson.
We thought it would have to be different; we have the first Black President in our lifetime in Barack Obama living in the White House. Progress appears to have some promise.
Or so we thought! Just when it seemed that our rigged racial divide was closing, six female jurors in a Sanford, Florida courtroom wielded a sharpened arrow straight through our collective hearts.
Having already taken the life of a promising Black child, the verdict sours our spirits again.
We are hurting because we feel the laws are designed to only work for them.
If they are not incarcerating our bodies they are poisoning our minds, they are killing us unjustified both young and old.
Only in America, can a child go into a Korean market in her very own neighborhood and never make it home!
Only in America can police gun down Eula Love because she had a harmless kitchen knife.
Only in America, can a young teenager distinguished by the color of his skin and wearing a gray hoodie sweat jacket become a victim of an over zealous volunteer neighborhood watchman.
There seems to be a FLAGERANT –DISRESPECT-DISREGARD FOR BLACK LIFE and this MUST STOP!
We have voiced our outrage and anger, some in a manner that we do not approve or condone, but the time has come that EVERYONE MUST be held ACCOUNTABLE! This means the lawless individuals who wreak havoc on our communities and the law enforcement officers who are sworn to protect us.
We are not going to relax, we are not going to rest until there can be peace!
A young teenager is dead. His killer is free.
Trayvon Martin is crying out from his grave today.
His tears are flowing in our river of remorse.
He is having a conversation with Emmitt Till.
They are both watching us. They want JUSTICE!
Are you LISTENING! THIS MUST STOP!!!
