FLORIDA
AFRICANA STUDIES CONSORTIUM
Panel Discussion
The
Verdict: Trayvon Martin and the
Criminalization of Black and Latino Youth
Saturday July 20th
2013 from 7 to 9 pm
Multitudes Contemporary Gallery, 5570
Northeast 4th Avenue Miami Florida 33137
Description.
The panel explored the “not guilty
verdict” following the murder of sixteen years and 21 days old Trayvon Martin
by George Zimmerman within the larger context of the ongoing criminalization
and mass incarceration of Black and Latino youth. Using a multidisciplinary analysis, the panel
explored race, racism and racialization in the context of criminal justice
systems. As thinking and acting professionals and community members in the
State of Florida, we sought to raise additional questions and provide some
answers to outstanding issues.
Panelists:
Lorna Owens,
Attorney at Law, Miami (Defense & Prosecution Differences)
Jeremy I.
Levitt, Professor of International Law/Dean, FAMU(Legal, Racial, Historic
Implications)
Brad Brown, Past
President, NAACP Miami (NAACP positions on race and this case)
Jahra
McLawrence, Criminal Defense Attorney, Miami (Legal Processes in Florida)
Veronique
Helenon, University of Massachusetts, Boston (Global Racism)
RECOMMENDATIONS:
- Get more politically informed about
prosecutors in different counties, their politics and the power they hold and
how their choices can impact outcomes.
- Educate
children very early about the nature of racism and the ways that it impacts
them negatively
- Continue
to educate youth about different strategies to use when stalked.
- Be
informed as well about your own human rights and if you want to use that
option, buy a gun, get a permit and if confronted stand your ground.
- Be
politically active and support political movements and initiatives, current
youth movement such as the Dream Defenders.
- Run
for office especially judgeships and other positions and understand the
politics of those running for election as judges; when elected make sure you
represent your people’s interests.
Chair’s
Introductory Notes - Dr. Carole
Boyce Davies, Chair, FLASC)
“We who
believe in freedom cannot rest!” Ella
Baker.
The national outcry following the
travesty of the killing of an unarmed black youth and the acquittal of his
killer has created a series of responses from people around the world (social
media, marches, vigils, tweets, facebook images, blogs, newspaper articles and
essays, forums like this one). I was talking to a friend in South Africa this
morning who said that he led a forum yesterday which was organized for a
different reason but ended up discussing this case. South Africa once seen as the most extreme location
of racism with its apartheid system has since corrected a number of those
structures (cosmetically some think) and has like the U.S. had a black
leader. They too learn that having a
black leader does not, as President Obama has said, usher you directly into a
post-racial world. We still live within
institutional structures of racism which are manifested in all systems – from media, politics, and leisure to an intense
manifestation in the criminal justice
system.
A number of studies have alerted
us to the growing inequities in the criminal justice system in which mass
incarceration of Black and Latino people has reached proportions way in excess
of our numbers. The U.S. now has the
record for the most people incarcerated in the world. And the ways that injustice has been levied
at black people is documented well in Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow. Some call
it though The New Slavery i.e. that Jim Crow or racial segregation is not
strong enough a term. Instead, we see a kind of neo-slavery in operation as
sentencing of black people is extreme, the labor of black men and women is used
within the criminal justice system, the
political system disenfranchises them, affects their future possibilities for
work, housing and the like and then ensures that they get policed and then re-sentenced
in injustice ways. The New York Stop and
Frisk laws have been singled out by Khalil Gibran Muhammad in his The Condemnation of Blackness.
Florida is now ground zero for
these practices, under national and international scrutiny for obvious racial
inequity in sentencing and the distribution of punishments for black and white
people as the gross differences in the handling and discharging of the Marissa
Alexander and George Zimmerman’s cases show and the similarity of the Trayvon
Martin and Jordan Davis cases. Trayvon
Martin in a strange racist twist became the one put on trial, criminalized in
dead as “Georgie” was humanized. What a
reversal! The defense went as far as to pick up a big piece of concrete and bring
it into court to make it seem that this kid was armed with a brick when it is
clear to all that he was fighting for
his life in a state with a high proportion of predators.
Our panel engaged these issues
from multiple perspectives in a rich and informative evening. Here is one response:
“Congratulations on a successful, incisive panel
discussion… Regardless of whether Rachel
had worn pearls and a black suit, and was speaking the Queen's English,
Zimmerman would have been found not guilty. I must admit after hearing Levitt,
it hit home to me how little value we have, especially, in the judiciary
system. I came home very sad, though
more insightful.” ~ Lynnette Lashley
***
The Coalition for the Exoneration of Marcus Garvey is petitioning Senator Bill Nelson, Representative Frederica Wilson, and the Congress of the United States of America for the exoneration of Marcus Garvey:
http://www.causes.com/actions/1722148-urge-congress-to-exonerate-civil-rights-leader-marcus-garvey
We are also petitioning President Barack Obama to exonerate Marcus Garvey:
http://signon.org/sign/exonerate-marcus-garvey?source=c.url&r_by=4631897
Thank you for your support.
