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Watching The Cops Title: After Trayvon Martin shooting, black parents teach sons realities of racism "Everybody is not in your corner. Even though you're a good boy, they may not like you because of the color of your skin." The words don't easily fall from a mom's lips. But what West Palm Beach mother Janet Jackson is thinking is even worse: They might confront you. They might kill you even if you do nothing wrong. Her son, Rick, is only 8, but he knows who Trayvon Martin is. And that young man's death worries the warm little boy who shares Martin's skin color. "He saw it on the news. He thought it was very sad. He said, 'All he did was go to the store,' " Jackson said. There is undoubtedly more to the February confrontation that culminated in a self-appointed neighborhood watchman shooting Martin to death. Who said what? Who hit whom first? Why? All of that is still being sorted out. But from most accounts there is little doubt it began when George Zimmerman spotted Martin and decided he didn't belong in Zimmerman's Sanford neighborhood - he looked suspicious. For that reason, Jackson and her son have begun the lifelong conversation many black families say they must have in hopes of parenting their boys safely into men. snip So when they talk about Zimmerman and Martin, Jackson concentrates on telling Rick that Zimmerman should have done what the authorities - in this case, police dispatchers - told him to do: Don't pursue. "That's the message to take home - the police tell you don't do something, don't do it," Jackson said. Another important tool in Jackson's kit: "For me to make sure he doesn't look the part is important." Jackson, a former detective with the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office, knows this isn't a fail-safe tactic and it's not really fair that any boy would be judged a thug on his appearance. But she also knows that it happens. Carol Gordon's conversation has gotten more detailed as her sons - Kareem, 16, and Omari, 18 - have aged. To her son in college: "Wherever you're going, be sure you're with someone else. At least you have a witness. At least someone is there to corroborate (should something happen). "No one can corroborate Trayvon's story. No one," said Gordon, who lives in Wellington. "As black parents, we have to be fearful for our children," she said. "You have to tell them this world is not fair. It's not an equal playing field for everybody." snip "We want all of our young people to act with a certain level of respect and do those things that would be positive in any community. But for African-American males, we have to tell them, be careful where you go." Jones said, for example, she instructs her teenage nephew not to go to the mall with four or five friends. "You and one friend can go to the mall. But four or five of you simply shines a light that you need to look at those little black boys and what are they doing," she said, adding that she would not give her nephew the same advice if he were white. snip Though he hasn't had to have a conversation with a son about profiling, his parents had one with him. Thus, it is not by coincidence that Nunn's driver license shows him in a suit and tie. "If you're stopped and you're out in gym clothes, you want some way to signal you're a middle-class professional. But it's problematic. If you think about it, that's me trying to access a privilege," Nunn said. It's a privilege a white man is less likely to need. snip "So for a long time, we didn't have that talk about race," said Anderson, who is vice president of programs at the Urban League of Palm Beach County. "But it's so real, and it's in our face now. With what happened in Sanford, you have to have that talk." Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
#5. To: lucysmom (#0)
Not according to the evidence on the back of Zimmerman's head.
There are no replies to Comment # 5. End Trace Mode for Comment # 5.
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