The event that truly awakened me was the Trayvon Martin case. I kept hearing and seeing his name, and eventually I decided to look him up. I read the Wikipedia article and right away I was unable to understand what the big deal was. It was obvious that Zimmerman was in the right. But more importantly this prompted me to type in the words “black on White crime” into Google, and I have never been the same since that day. The first website I came to was the Council of Conservative Citizens. There were pages upon pages of these brutal black on White murders. I was in disbelief. At this moment I realized that something was very wrong. How could the news be blowing up the Trayvon Martin case while hundreds of these black on White murders got ignored?
Then came Baltimore. It changed the attitude of a lot of White Americans toward their fellow Black Americans. I was shocked, appalled. Here was not one man, here was an entire city!, a majority-Black city, a near totally Black-led city and Black residents permitted by the Black city leadership, to riot--White people and White businesses targeted because they were White! I hate the city of Baltimore now; I hate the Black people from the Mayor to the City Council president who met with gang leaders, to the Black people of Baltimore who rioted, I hate them.
This is from the "manifesto" of the Charleston race murderer. It can be found here. http://newsone.com/3128742/dylan-roof-racially-awakened-by-trayvon-martin/
I hate these "manifestos," remember Ted Kaczynski's?, I hate these things because there is always some truth in them. I hate this murderer even more now.
Trayvon Martin, in my opinion, did not deserve to die, he was targeted for "walking while Black," was followed by Zimmerman, but Trayvon Martin then laid in wait for Zimmerman, hid from him and then attacked him. I might have done the same had I been Trayvon, I would have been so enraged. Trayvon got some good licks in on Zimmerman before Zimmerman shot him, there is no doubt of that. I can understand how a jury could acquit Zimmerman although I would not have and did not think the jury would acquit him.
Trayvon Martin, in my opinion, did not deserve to die, he was targeted for "walking while Black," was followed by Zimmerman, but Trayvon Martin then laid in wait for Zimmerman, hid from him and then attacked him. I might have done the same had I been Trayvon, I would have been so enraged. Trayvon got some good licks in on Zimmerman before Zimmerman shot him, there is no doubt of that. I can understand how a jury could acquit Zimmerman although I would not have and did not think the jury would acquit him.
The Ferguson Missouri killing, I forget the victim's name, was justified. "Hands up, Don't shoot" was a lie told by Black supporters of the victim.
The Trayvon Martin case did not effect a change in my, very sympathetic, feeling toward Black people in America, I noticed and was offended by the supporters' rhetoric but it did not work a change in my feelings. It was one case, one Black youth, one, to me, in the wrong, White man, and the usual suspects of supporters of Black victims. Nor was it Ferguson that effected my views so, though there the rhetoric was more intense, more untrue, and there was real violence before and after in the Black community. One Black man, one White man, there a police officer, and the Usual Suspects.
Then came Baltimore. It changed the attitude of a lot of White Americans toward their fellow Black Americans. I was shocked, appalled. Here was not one man, here was an entire city!, a majority-Black city, a near totally Black-led city and Black residents permitted by the Black city leadership, to riot--White people and White businesses targeted because they were White! I hate the city of Baltimore now; I hate the Black people from the Mayor to the City Council president who met with gang leaders, to the Black people of Baltimore who rioted, I hate them.
I do not generalize my feelings toward Black Baltimore to Black America, however, I could not ignore the actions of an entire city in my attitudes toward Black America. So how did Baltimore effect my attitude generally? I paid more attention to Black on White crime. I recalled the O.J. Simpson case, how there was cheering among the Black employees in the prosecutor's office where I then worked at the verdict of acquittal. That shocked me, hurt me, angered me. I could not ignore so many Black people in the office who racially cheered a racial injustice. It made me conscious of race, that is how I would put it, it made me conscious of race as a divider in my life in America, it divided me from some, a lot, of Black people in America. Like the race rioting in Baltimore, I had not seen the cheering for the acquittal coming, never anticipated it, didn't think anybody in a prosecutor's office would cheer it. I felt that I did not know the Black people who cheered the acquittal but it was one case and until writing this I had not given it a moment's thought in years. It did not change my attitude of...identification really, that is what it is, I identified with my co-workers, I did not think of them as Black co-workers until that day, they were my co-workers and I identified with them as underdogs against the office hierarchy.
It has always made me cynical that, as I wrote after Baltimore, when the suspect in crime is Black, the media sometimes does not report race in the description they provide the public. Imagine that! It does seem to me that a hateful Black on White crime of violence goes under-reported by the media. There was recently the murder of a wealthy White family in Washington D.C. The father was tortured and among the murdered was his young son and an Hispanic housekeeper. I forget now if the
wife/mother was murdered also. The house was torched. The suspect, since arrested, was a Black
man, formerly an employee of the father! Others have been arrested as accomplices, I do not know their race. The suspect was just a violent man, had previously threatened his own father. I wrote a post on that but then didn't publish it. I hate that man, the murderer, whatever his name is, I have forgotten.
wife/mother was murdered also. The house was torched. The suspect, since arrested, was a Black
man, formerly an employee of the father! Others have been arrested as accomplices, I do not know their race. The suspect was just a violent man, had previously threatened his own father. I wrote a post on that but then didn't publish it. I hate that man, the murderer, whatever his name is, I have forgotten.
So Baltimore effected my attitude toward Black people in the same way but on a wider scale now, as did the O.J. Simpson case. It made more conscious of race as a divider. Most of the time I do not even think of Barack Obama as a Black man, not even a Black president, he is the president, he's my president and I would have felt him my president even if I had not twice voted for him, I think of him as "the president" in the same way I thought of my co-workers as co-workers not as Black co-workers. After Baltimore, I remembered Obama personalizing Trayvon Martin, I did not like that then, I do not like it now. I felt race as a divider even from my president.
So I would say Baltimore temporarily made me more race conscious again, race became a divider again, Baltimore made me more cynical again, and I hate that, it will pass, but I hate it. Now this murderer of nine Black people who were totally unconnected to what enraged the murderer goes into a Black church...I hate him, I hate hating. I hate the people who have made me hate.
