For Blacks on DU, how do you feel when you hear about what happened to Trayvon Martin?

[Quixote1818]

I have to be honest when I say I had ZERO interest in the case until I listened to the audio of Trayvon crying for help just before he was murdered and I was so angered I saw red! Then I heard this idiot watching a regular boy minding his own business and judging him and convicting him based on NOTHING but because he was black. I work with kids and I can promise you if I saw a black kid in a hoodie walking the the streets near my house I wouldn't have given him a second thought even if I was a neighborhood watchman. If I saw him breaking a law, now that would change everything.

The whole thing just enraged me, but the thing I have noticed which pains me as well is seeing the sadness and pain in so many blacks on TV react to this. I was watching them interview Trayvon's best friend on CNN and the kid looked devastated and I don't think it was just because his best friend was gone but perhaps something on top of that. That people in his own country seem to judge him differently walking down the street and his best friend could be blown away for NOTHING and the ass hole get away with it. I just got tears in my eyes watching the pain on his face.

This whole things must be extremely painful! But it must also be painful when you see that so many whites don't understand and even judge you more for being upset. The amount of racism I have seen in posts around the internet on this case is so disturbing to me and I am not even black, so the emotions I feel must be 1/100 of what you are feeling.

It's clear to me that this event has been very painful for minorities and I wanted to give anyone who is black a chance to talk about the pain this has caused them. Or to talk about things you have gone through in your own lives that have made you feel like a second class citizen and caused you pain. Its totally up to you if you want to talk about such personal things and I would understand completely if you don't want to. But if you do this thread is for you to talk about the pain so I and others can understand what it's like to be black in America in 2012. Or for that matter Hispanic, or Native American or Asian. Anyone minorities who have personally experienced discrimination feel free to open up. More than anything I want you to know that many of us who are not black still understand how difficult this is for you and we are ashamed of how this case was handled.

[bigtree]

1. the audio was very disturbing

. . . sounded much like I'd imagine Trayvon would in the circumstance as it had been described -- not at all like Zimmerman as his actions have been described by his defenders.

Anger was my initial response, as well.

[mahina]

2. All of it makes me so angry I can't even express it.

I'm not black.

I don't feel angry often, almost never.

This is heartbreaking and unthinkably brutal violence, sanctioned by the govt. Institutionalized violence.

Sickening. Makes me think of Khaled Said.

[BeHereNow]

3. It is a devastating story for anyone with any humanity in their soul- Black or White, Polka-dot...

Any person who has a child that could be gunned down like this
is horrified. We just had a similar incident in California based on
a false 911 caller.
The death of any child is horrifying to any one who feels any thing at all.
NOT A B/W in my mind.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=509412

BHN

[Ecumenist]

5. I read about this latest horror. I'm in the northstate and it happens here. ie, OSCAR GRANT!

[Ecumenist]

4. Oh, Quixote, it broke my heart and angered me because that boy was doing nothing but walking home

and it's further infuriated and saddenend me to see some try to justify his murder by recounting the fact that he's been suspended for an empty marijuana baggie, etc. Is getting suspended from school so unusual? I NEVER DID but good grief, the last time I checked, it wasn't a capital offence. Wasn't "the Breakfast Club" a movie about kids who got into a bit of trouble at school and ended up in In-School detention? (also known in some circles as In School Suspension)


To hear those screams and know that that most likely were the last utterings of a young life is sad beyond belief.

[tavalon]

6. I'm not black

but having had a black boyfriend for a number of years while I lived in Texas, I know Living While Black pretty damn well and it infuriates me. I also know the corollary, Uppity N----- dating a white woman, which in Texas, can actually be deadly. Yep, a black man was dragged behind a pickup until he was dead for dating a white woman. It was sometime between 2000 and 2008, my memory has gotten hazy.

I'm furious but also grateful. Grateful?! Not for that young man's loss of his short life, but because this has gone viral. The vast majority of sane people, of many colors, are angry about this. So much of this has been happening under the radar since 1864 and this one is so not under the radar, maybe, just maybe, it will become a little safer to Live While Black (There are many synonyms to this phrase, such as driving while black, talking while black, breathing while black but it's all pretty much covered in that one statement)

I went to a comic con this weekend and some people wearing Jedi costumes had signs taped on the back that said, "Jedi's wear hoodies too!" I thanked them and told them that if Trayvon were alive, I'm sure he would appreciate it also.

[vaberella]

7. As a Black woman in her 30s...

Let's just say the talk my mother had with my cousins I plan on having with my male children.