Comic-Con was THE PLACE to premiere this trailer! Arriving on “Black Friday” Thanksgiving weekend 2013 is the 2nd installment of Suzanne Collins’ trilogy; The Hunger Games: Catching Fire. The cast returns from the original led by new Academy Award winner Jennifer Lawrence and adds fellow award winner Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jeffrey Wright, and Amanda Plummer to the mix.
Help wanted sign (Photo credit: andjohan)
By Artgur Delaney
Tatia Pritchett’s 2002 Hyundai Sonata blew a tire early on a Friday morning in June when she was on her way to work.
“I was driving and all of a sudden, KAPOW,” she said.
She pulled over and started trying to change the tire, but after removing the first lug nut she couldn’t budge the rest. Her mobile phone getting no reception, morning dissolved into afternoon as she waited for help and wondered.
“I had to really think, is this worth it?” Pritchett said. “I’m spending $150 a week in gas because it takes half a tank of gas to get to work and home every day. I’m paying $85 a month in parking.”
Pritchett’s job is in Baltimore, more than 60 miles from her house, and the trip can take two hours in the D.C. area’s awful rush hour traffic. The job pays $14.44 an hour. Subtract the cost of commuting, she’s left with near-poverty wages. But she never seriously considered quitting because unemployment would be worse.
“I did that already,” she said.
Wonder turned to worry that her unplanned absence could get her suspended or fired. A blown tire away from financial disaster, Pritchett is nevertheless among the luckier ones: At least she has a job.
Blacks bear a disproportionate share of the unemployment burden. The national jobless rate is 7.6 percent; for African Americans, it’s 13.7 percent. Since 1979, the unemployment rate for blacks has tracked the same ups and downs as the overall rate, but it’s usually been at least twice as high. At the same time, it gets half the attention.
In the fall of 2009, the U.S. unemployment rate topped 10 percent for the first time in a quarter century, causing policymakers and analysts to lament the catastrophe that had befallen the American public. Yet throughout that entire prior period the average rate of African American unemployment had been 12.2 percent, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank. And while the gap between poverty for blacks and whites has narrowed over decades, at 27.6 percent the black poverty rate is nearly double the overall rate of 15 percent.
Read More Black Unemployment Drives ‘Perpetual, Slow-Moving Recession’.
By Annie-Rose Strasser
On Friday, President Obama gave a personal, emotional speech about the killing on Trayvon Martin, in which he spoke extensively on the broader issue of race in the United States.
Obama addressed the experiences of racial profiling that are all to common for Black men. “There are very few African-American men in this country who haven’t had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store,” Obama said. “That includes me. And there are very few African-American men who haven’t had the experience of walking across the street and hearing the locks click on the doors of cars. That happens to me, at least before I was a senator.”
“The African-American community is also knowledgeable that there is a history of racial disparities in the application of our criminal laws,” Obama said, “everything from the death penalty to enforcement of our drug laws. And that ends up having an impact in terms of how people interpret the case.
There’s no need to examine, anecdote by anecdote, whether Obama is right about this. It doesn’t take a single case, like the case of 17-year-old Martin, to make the President’s point; there is a lot of data already on the books to substantiate his claims. Here are just a few charts that make Obama’s point:
1. Justified killings of Black people under ‘Stand Your Ground.’ PBS’s Frontline made this instructive chart on the way that defendants who invoke ‘Stand Your Ground’ — the policy that allowed George Zimmerman to walk free on the night that he killed Trayvon Martin — fare. PBS explains, “The figures represent the percentage likelihood that the deaths will be found justifiable compared to white-on-white killings.” The result? A huge racial disparity of when the defense works — and when it doesn’t:
Read More Four Charts That Prove Obama’s Right About Being Black In America | ThinkProgress.
By Roz Edward
Trayvon Martin Protest – Sanford (Photo credit: werthmedia)
The history of America is still being written and the acquittal of George Zimmerman of second degree murder by a Florida jury of five White women and one Hispanic female in the mindless shooting death of 17-year-old African American teenager Trayvon Martin is now an important chapter in that history that gave birth to centuries of slavery and Jim Crow.
Like so many, I was shocked by the verdict and could not comprehend how in 2013, a jury purporting to be part of balancing the scales of justice would let go a martial arts trained man with a gun who got out of his car, soaked in his prejudice and tired of seeing Black youths in the neighborhood, followd an innocent teenager and killed him. The prejudiced jury, as evidenced by the interview juror B-37 gave to CNN Monday night, revealed the dark character of a system of justice that has long been failing young Black boys. How long will this continue before those who administer justice finally right the wrongs of the criminal justice system?
Even though juror B-37 admitted that Zimmerman went too far and should not have gotten out of his car with his gun and followed Trayvon, she still believed “George,” as she referred to Zimmerman repeatedly, was on the right side of the law. Then she said both Trayvon and Zimmerman were responsible for what happened, but she assigned no culpability to Zimmerman. More troubling for the juror was when she described Trayvon’s female friend, Rachel Jeantel, as not “credible” because of her “communication skills,” and that she was “using phrases I never heard before,” showing the deep-seated prejudice of a jury whose life experiences do not equate to Trayvon, his female friend or any other Black person.
Apparently, by referring to a Black witness as not credible and using phrases she claimed she does not understand, juror B-37 confirmed to us that the jury members have had limited or no dealings whatsoever with the Black experience.
They have no inkling of the life of a Black teenager and sought to compare the behavior of 17-year-old Trayvon to that of a grown man like Zimmerman.
Makes us wonder why the prosecutors would, in the first place, if they were really interested in winning this case and given the national attention it received, allow a jury that is not diverse in thought, belief systems and life experiences to examine one of the most important racial justice cases in history.
Did the prosecutors conclude that Trayvon’s life was not worth vigorously fighting to convict his killer by throwing the entire book, including racial animus, at Zimmerman? Did the prosecutors decide because of national attention they would just charge Zimmernan for the sake of charging but not put up a strategic and strong fight since their own Sanford Police Department showed no value in a dead Black boy’s life by letting his killer talk his way out of an arrest and go home to sleep on the night he killed Trayvon Martin?
Read More Jim Crow Justice: Trayvon Martin and the generational burden of Black boys.
Rally in response to the George Zimmerman verdict (Photo credit: Fibonacci Blue)
By Julianne Hing
Just about the only people interested in standing by George Zimmerman right now are avowed white supremacists, his family and Juror B37. But for Latinos, people of color and progressives he’s more than a problem. He’s a pariah. His acquittal highlights the reality that in a society built on white supremacy, non-black people of color can reap the benefits of anti-black racism, too.
Think about how Zimmerman, who is white and Peruvian, exploited confusion about his racial identity. Depending on who you ask, he’s white, he’s Hispanic or he’s “white Hispanic.” His family used that fluidity to sway public opinion.
Zimmerman’s Peruvian mother insisted on downplaying his Hispanic roots, his brother Robert told Fox News Latino recently. “Our family very deliberately left the injection of another racial element off the table,” he said, adding that they wanted to “redirect the public’s understanding that there was no crime in self-defense, no matter the participants’ color.”
At other times, the family traded on his Peruvian heritage. In an interview with Michel Martin on NPR’s Tell Me More, Robert claimed that the public was trying to turn his brother into “some kind of mythological racist monster, [so] they lighten his picture, they call him white, they call him a racist” when he “is actually a Hispanic non-racist person who acted in self-defense.”
Zimmerman’s father took a similar tact writing in the Orlando Sentinel that “George is a Spanish-speaking minority with many black family members and friends.” A few sentences later he added, “[A] black neighbor said that George was the only one, black or white, who came and welcomed her to the community, offering any assistance he could provide.” In other words, George Zimmerman was a “minority” one minute and in the next he was the only white person kind enough to help out a black neighbor.
For their part, conservatives have insisted that Latino groups claim Zimmerman as their own, a strategy designed to put advocates on the defensive.
Read More The Curious Case of George Zimmerman’s Race – COLORLINES.
Trayvon Martin shooting (Photo credit: ChrisWaldeck)
By Zenitha Prince
The recent acquittal of neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman in the shooting death of 17-year-old unarmed Trayvon Martin has led to intense scrutiny of Florida’s ‘Stand Your Ground’ law, which hung over the Zimmerman trial along with similar “no retreat” self-defense laws, and their impact on people of color.
“I think the Trayvon Martin case highlighted the racial inequalities that exist in American society,” said Brendan Fischer, general counsel of the Center for Media and Democracy. “It is a symbol of how the American justice system devalues the lives of people of color. [And], ‘Stand Your Ground’ has embedded a lot of these injustices into the system. Statistics have shown its application has been anything but equitable.”
Supported by the National Rifle Association, “Stand Your Ground” was passed by the Florida legislature in 2005. The measure turned age-old self-defense principle on its head by allowing persons to use deadly force to defend themselves, without first trying to retreat, if they have a reasonable belief that they face a threat.
The law’s template was then adopted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a nonprofit organization made up of corporations, foundations and legislators that advance federalist and conservative public policies, authorities said. Since Florida passed the law, similar measures have been introduced in one form or another in about 30 states, usually those with state legislatures dominated by Republicans.
“That law gives law-and-order activists, right-wingers and vigilantes an arguable basis for defense and opens up a pathway for unjust dispositions of justice because it allows civilians to shoot first and make certain determinations later,” said Dwight Pettit, 67, a renowned Black attorney in Baltimore.
Read More Blacks Who “Stand Their Ground” Are Often Imprisoned | Alternet.
Trayvon Martin Protest – Sanford (Photo credit: werthmedia)
By Christopher A. Darden and Michele Noble
When Juror B37 detailed to CNN’s Anderson Cooper how she and her fellow jurors came to their verdict, we, as a nation, had a myriad of reactions—some judicial, some moral, and some just plain emotional. It became transparent as she defined her thoughts and understanding of the case that she related most to Zimmerman, the adult armed with a loaded gun, not to Trayvon, the unarmed child on his way home. It was also tragically clear she saw Trayvon only as a color—black—which meant to her and the others a thing, a possible threat, not a person. Were they not mothers? How could they not see and relate to the frightened teenage child who was being followed? We know people see race. But when one person is an adult with a loaded gun and one person is an unarmed teenage boy on his way home in his own neighborhood, one wonders why there wasn’t overwhelming empathy for the child.
On July 16th at the NAACP, Attorney General Eric Holder spoke about “the conversation” he must now have with his 15-year-old son in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict. He pondered “the conversation” he had with his father about the imposed rules of conduct with police when being black, and was saddened this chain of “the conversation” from father to son has not been broken in our racial profiling America. His words were raw, personal and sadly familiar to me and many other parents of color. Last night, I took the opportunity to spend time with my son watching the animated foolery on Fox. Watching him laugh at the Family Guy’s toilet humor comforted me. I don’t know what I would do if that goofy laughter was somehow lost.
But “the conversation” used to be only limited to the police; now we must include every vigilante citizen with gun. Holder questioned and cautioned the expansion of the self-defense laws known as “stand your ground” laws, which are now in place in over 20 states. Holder declared we didn’t have to add or expand self-defense laws; they were already sufficient. New York mayor Michael Bloomberg has also warned against “stand your ground” laws, but continues to support “stop and frisk” which embraces not only racial profiling but recovers proportionally very few weapons and reaps higher rates of police brutality towards people of color. Eighty-seven percent of New Yorkers stopped are black or Latino. Only 1.3 percent of last year’s stops resulted in the discovery of a weapon of any kind. Six percent of the stops resulted in arrest.
via In America, You’re Still Your Skin Color – The Daily Beast.
soulbrotherspeaks.com 
It Is Time to Come Out of the Closet About Racism in America
Community March Against Racism (Photo credit: Caelie_Frampton)
By Michele Hunt
The Trayvon Martin tragic injustice has sparked a long overdue conversation in America. What is at the heart of racism in our country? Why is the fear so intense between the black and white communities? Why can’t we find the courage to authentically talk about it?
I am so proud of our president for calling on us to engage in thoughtful conversations in our homes, churches and communities across the nation. He is asking us to talk about why an innocent young black male has to fear for his life walking home, why he becomes a suspect when he enters a store, or feared when he steps into an elevator — normal activates most of us take for granted. He is also asking us to go deeper, to get to the heart of the matter. I was very happy to hear the president talk about the need to understand the “context”; the background and circumstances that got us to this horrible place. Context matters, it gives us the framework to begin to understand. We cannot begin to heal and grow without first understanding the problem. We cannot understand one another until we share our stories.
I don’t believe in the saying “Familiarity Breeds Contempt”; I believe familiarity breeds understanding. Remember Aesop’s fable The Fox and the Lion:
People started to understand same-sex love when their son, their daughter, a family member or a friend, came out of the closet and told their story. Many people’s first reaction was fear, which translated into hate, prejudice and sometimes abuse. The more people came out and shared their stories, the less people feared and judged; that put us on a path to collective understanding. That understanding grew to a critical mass resulting in the transformation of our social acceptance of people who love someone of the same sex. Laws across our country (and the world) are beginning to bring justice to people who are a part of the LBGT community and their families.
Most of us can relate to women’s rights because we were all birthed by women and many of us have sisters, grandmothers, nieces and female friends. Even with this intimate familiarity, our society did not progress on women rights until women came out of the closet of what Betty Friedan called The Feminine Mystique. When women found the courage to tell the truth about their lives and share their hopes and dreams, society began to liberate women and girls.
Read More It Is Time to Come Out of the Closet About Racism in America | Michele Hunt.