The only thing worse than a tragedy is someone or some group of people attempting to score political points from it. That being said the tragedy that is the shooting of a young black male Trayvon Martin has proceeded to become if possible an even larger tragedy.
Seemingly out of no where it those who profit by stoking the flames of racial divide have materialized and proceeded to do what they do best, promote hatred and distrust.
In so much as the death of this young man is a horror and racial profiling contributes to injustice, attempts to score political points from Trayvon's death are a horror in and of themselves.
Consider one example of this, Newsbusters reports that "MSNBC analyst and Democratic strategist Karen Finney disgustingly
smeared Rush Limbaugh and several Republican presidential candidates on
Thursday, charging that the racist hate of these conservatives had
"lethal consequences" in the case of Trayvon Martin, an African American
teen shot in Florida."
The story goes on to say "After decrying "bigotry and stereotypes tak[ing] over our better judgment," Finney sneeringly insisted that when
"Rush
Limbaugh calls a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama, a magic
negro...In the case of Trayvon, those festering stereotypes had lethal
consequences.""
As Newsbuster's points out, Rush Limbaugh did not originate the "magic negro" term - it originated in a story in the Los Angeles Times. Even that however is relatively immaterial as it is a grand canyon like leap to go from the term "magic negro" to the death of Trayvon Martin. That does not deter Karen Finney however as she continues in her effort to insure that no Conservative escapes unscathed in her reporting by including Republican Presidential candidates Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum on her list of people who contributed to the horror of Trayvon Martin's murder.
Am I the only one who finds this line of thinking just a little unreasonable? When Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton descend on Florida to participate in marches and demonstrations am I the only one who wonders why they didn't show the African Americans killed in Chicago recently the same respect? What about 6 year old Aliyah Shell? This poor child was killed while playing on her front porch, but apparently no one is marching for her. Is it because the crimes in Chicago were attributed to gang violence and 'black on black' crime? Or was it sadly due to the fact that Florida offered move TV cameras and more outrage that could be exploited?
We should all mourn the death of Tayvon Martin, it was a senseless act and should be vilified, but we should all do more than bemoan the deaths of Tayvon Martin and Aliyah Shell and the scores of African American young men and women who die daily in the streets of our cities, we should collectively do something.
How much have the many public figures who flock to Florida done to erase gang violence? What has our government done to reduce the specter of unemployment that has devastated our inner cities? Is anything really being done to make a difference, or is Tayvon's death being used as a vehicle to promote division and hatred while the deaths of so many others are being ignored
PMA
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