If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
If you have something to say...
Say it on the Huffington Post
Whether it was draconian voter ID laws, the shooting death of young Travyon Martin, or the attacks on women and the workers of America, I went into each challenge concerned that they had outmaneuvered us financially. But in the end, I left convinced that money could not buy genuine commitment.
Rather than taking common sense efforts to make sure that the kinds of guns that no one needs for protection or for sport are taken off the marketplace, Missouri Sen. Dan Brown, R-Rolla, has a different, more gun-friendly solution.
No one likes kids blasting their crappy music. No one likes babies crying on airplanes either. But you don't get to kill them.
Remember Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old African American gunned down in February by neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman, with a semiautomatic handgun that the State of Florida had licensed Zimmerman to carry, loaded and concealed?
Dunn claims he acted in self-defense, and that he felt "threatened" before opening fire on the vehicle. His attorney argues that Dunn "acted responsibly." He is now calling on a legal hook for his view that his actions were warranted: Florida's deeply misguided "stand your ground" law.
Across America, lax concealed carry laws arm and embolden too many shooters who react to slight provocations with deadly force. The result is an untold number of innocent lives lost, families decimated and communities shaken.
The goal of equal rights, equal justice, and equal opportunity for every child in America may not have been realized yet, but it's still the goal we have to meet in order for America to finally live up to its promise. Let's all make sure that happens in Trayvon's case.
S. Epatha Merkerson uses her success to empower others, to gift others with knowledge and freedom. The kind of power one implants in their children to be better human being; to be a positive contributor to society.
By: Robyn Gee Attorneys for George Zimmerman, the man charged with the second-degree murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin in Feburary of this year, a...
A week before Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by George Zimmerman, a strange thing happened to me, a thirty-one-year-old white man. Without provocation or any interaction at all, a man punched me right in the face while I was out jogging.
Racism is embedded in most of the institutional structures of our society. It is difficult to see patterns that have always been before our eyes, especially if they are eyes that have enjoyed the benefits of white privilege.
Maybe the Sikh Shooting and the Trayvon Martin shooting aren't so different after all. Maybe all the lives that were lost were victims of misdirected American aggression against those who choose not to conform.
These murders are not isolated incidents. This is what racism looks like. This is what unresolved anger looks like. This is what an irresponsible use of freedom looks like. We must not dismiss this tragedy as yet another isolated incident
From Aurora, Colorado to Sanford, Florida we need to remember that these people were first and foremost human beings and secondly victims of violence. We have to decide now if we are going to define our country in terms of black and white or as people of action.
The failed responses, at a rhetorical and a policy level in the aftermath of Katrina and post-Trayvon highlights a persistent failure to account for American racism.
The Watch is obviously fiction, but sadly, when unstable people can buy such powerful weapons, we need to do more than just hope that they'll only be aimed at bad guys and aliens.
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