In the Trayvon Martin case, the plea for justice has cut across racial lines with the discovery of very dangerous laws named, "Stand Your Ground" and "The Castle Doctrine." Trayvon is a black young man who was interrupted in his life by a man with a gun who believed he had the right to kill him after stalking him while police specifically ordered him not to do so.
What has also come to the forefront of the discussion is a social paradigm called, "The Black Male Code." What has come out of that sincere understanding by black men, is an underlying bias within our society against black men of all ages based on hatred and 'genetic violence.' No person is exposed to a violent nature because they are genetically predisposed by skin color. Yet, Black Parents of both gender state their are strategies to prevent false arrest and false identity such as carrying ID at all times in preparation of those very moments. That is a serious infraction of an American social underpinning known as personal safety and security. How can a black person of any age ever be received in the best light possible if there is an underlying bias robbing of that dignity. For an entire populous of the USA to have strategies to protect their youth against authoritarian bias (racial profiling) is a serious paradigm within that society to address. I am grateful this discussion is going forward.
In my opinion, racial profiling happens due to bias instilled by media. There is also the question, and it cannot be ignored considering the profound high number of jailed black people, has racial profiling imposed a quality of life that PRODUCES criminals.
There is no race baiting in the Trayvon Martin case, there is however an intolerance to let loose guns and loose bias to continue.
Last night the Human Rights Campaign released a slew of previously sealed internal documents from the National Organization for Marriage (NOM), the nation's largest, most visible, and most insidious group of marriage discrimination proponents. The documents, marked "confidential," were unsealed yesterday afternoon in Maine as part of that state's ongoing ethics investigation into NOM's campaign finances. NOM, notoriously dogged in its efforts to fight internal disclosures of any kind, had sued in state court to block the investigation, and now we know why: the documents disclosed yesterday reveal the group's vile and repugnant strategy of setting minority groups against each other through the shameful exploitation of race.
Here's how NOM plans to set the Latino and LGBT communities against each other, from page 17 of a "confidential" 2009 strategic report entitled National Strategy for Winning the Marriage Battle:
[B]y searching for these leaders across national boundaries we will assemble a community of next generation Latino leaders that Hispanics and other next generation elites in this country can aspire to be like. (As "ethnic rebels" such spokespeople will also have an appeal across racial lines, especially to young urbans in America). ... [W]e will develop Spanish language radio and TV ads, as well as pamphlets, YouTube videos, and church handouts and popular songs.Our ultimate goal is to make opposition to gay marriage an identity marker, a badge of youth rebellion to conformist association to the bad side of "Anglo" culture.
And from a 2009 report to its board of directors, also marked "confidential":
The Latino vote in America is a key swing vote, and will be so even more so in the future, both because of demographic growth and inherent uncertainty: Will the process of assimilation to the dominant Anglo culture lead Hispanics to abandon traditional family values? We must interrupt this process of assimilation by making support for marriage a key badge of Latino identity -- a symbol of resistance to inappropriate assimilation.
In that board update, NOM is just as candid about its attempts to divide LGBT and African Americans:
The strategic goal of this project is to drive a wedge between gays and blacks -- two key Democratic constituencies. Find, equip, energize and connect African American spokespeople for marriage; develop a media campaign around their objections to gay marriage as a civil right; provoke the gay marriage base into responding by denouncing these spokesmen and women as bigots. No politician wants to take up and push an issue that splits the base of his party. Fanning the hostility raised in the wake of Prop 8 is key to raising the costs of pushing gay marriage to its advocates ... find attractive young black Democrats to challenge white gay marriage advocates electorally.
The name of the "strategic project" to which the above passage refers? NOM's "Not a Civil Right Project." Just last week I wrote a column for The Huffington Post in which I said that the movement for LGBT rights and the movement for African-American rights are both part of the same civil rights movement, and that it is crucially important for us to continue asserting so....
