Guilty of Adolescence and Executed Without Trial

Thinking about the Loud Music case and the 1st degree murder verdict for Michael Dunn in the Jacksonville, Fla., death of 17 year-old Jordan Davis, I remembered this guy.

At 16, he played his music loud. Hung out with his friends, was outspoken, mouthy and opinionated.

There were many words used to describe him, but scary and threatening were not among them.

Had some idiot gunned him down and claimed "the scary black man" defense, things might be different.

Michael Dunn did not shoot into a car "full of blacks." He shot into a car full of teenagers who were African-American.

These unarmed children were doing what teenagers do. Hanging out, listening to music.

The "myth of the scary black man" defense is a worn and tired throwback that refuses to die.

It is a reality that governs day to day relationships, creating an artificially aloof decorum in the work place and often slashing like a knife to legitimize some slight or reason for exclusion.

In schools, churches and even some social circles the threat of the "scary black man" is spoken in terms from whispers to roars or communicated with glances or body language exchanged silently.

There is a disconnect in the United States.

We speak of children who die violent deaths for acting like kids as victims and their suspected killers as predators, unless those left dead are black.

Then they are thugs who surely must have done something justifying deadly force.
Michael Dunn shot into a car filled with people, unarmed CHILDREN.

I know little of Jordan Davis, aside from the fact that he hung out with his friends, listened to his music loud and had an encounter with Michael Dunn in a parking lot in Jacksonville, Fla.

At 17, he does not appear to be much different from the kid depicted in the photo at the top more than 45 years ago.

Like Trayvon Martin, 17, or Michael Brown, 18, 17 year-old Michael Brown is dead. Each of these young men were taken out by gunfire at a time evidence shows they were unarmed, and doing things teenage boys have always done.

Walking from a store, talking to a girl on the telephone, or hanging out listening to loud music with friends in a parked car. None of these acts warrant a summary execution on the street.

Those who point to political change and rail against what they see as the failures of an elusive "post racial society," should ask themselves how they justify in their minds that "the blacks" must be controlled in 21st Century America.

Respect for authority does not equate to surviving encounters with armed and distrustful police or private citizens determined to dominate encounters with "angry black males."

Adults with morals and conscience should have little difficulty seeing the evil and the tragedy of young people being cut down for simply being kids.

Our system supports innocence until proven guilty, yet these young are dead in part because to some they were considered suspicious and in death they remain suspect.

The young man pictured at the top has survived for many decades. At times, an awareness that some people on the streets would distrust him, detain him, hurt him or try to kill him was an instant reality.

Knowing and understanding the meaning and the culture of the "scary black man" defense was something the elders imprinted in me before my teenage growth spurt.

It is something that mothers, fathers and grandparents teach to this day. It is also something the parents of some biracial children worry about in the night. 

That President Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, the young Derrill Holly, pictured above and hundreds of my friends understand it is based upon our individual life's experiences. That others may not get it means that as a nation, we are simply not there yet.

Think About Us

The United States is an evolving idea. If you think about it, it has always been that way.

Lately I have been thinking about the Equal Protection clause of the Constitution. Even if the people who founded this country could not bring themselves to accept the concept that all men were truly equal, Congress eventually got around to it.

Civil Rights are Human Rights

After a bloody civil war, the 14th amendment became part of the law of the land. It opened the way for many things that made a difference in America for the next 150 years.

Great men and women think about the big picture. They consider not only the value of the change they help bring to themselves, but also the way those changes will affect future generations.

My wife and I spent  Jan. 14 on the National Mall, in Washington, D.C.  It's funny, but sandwiched between the Jefferson and Lincoln Memorials are two monuments to great thinkers and visionary men of the 20th Century.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was the 32nd president of the United States. Rev. Martin Luther King was a human rights activist.  Their monuments capture their times, but they also point toward hopeful images of a world that most people in their times could not have imagined.

Words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Roosevelt was perhaps the greatest disabled person in U.S. history. He was a friend to Helen Keller and a founder of the March of Dimes. He believed this was a country that could harness the strengths of all its people.

Martin Luther King, spoke out for peace, economic justice, and universal opportunity.. Quotes on their Memorial walls speak not of "those people," but of "all people".  They point to the tragedy of empathy and the pain shared by all who suffer injustice.

Words of Martin Luther King

Some people consider the MLK Holiday, just a black holiday. When you think about it, every law enacted in response to the civil rights movement of the past century has been blind to race, ethnicity, age, gender, religion, age, disability and even sexual orientation.

The late congressman George "Mickey" Leland, D-Texas, was fond of saying that "America is a promise. It is not what the country has been or what it is now, but what we all work to make it in the future."

Over months and years, and decades, we continue to work to make it better. I wrote this week that "
Nothing makes a person change their mind about civil rights protections more quickly than reaching a point in life when theirs are violated."

It seems that when one winds up on the receiving end of institutionalized unfairness, their views on right and wrong often begin to resemble those of people who've fought the battles of the habitually or consistently oppressed.

The message I brought away from a day of walking through January's cold and looking at words from men who knew nothing of the 21st Century was that in the end, it is not about "us against them," it is really "all about us."