Sanford police chief temporarily steps down

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57402661/sanford-police-chief-temporarily-steps-down/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:41 - Agree.

No one has mentioned how odd Zimmerman sounds?!?! No emotion, flat affect, as if he knew what he was going to do all along. If he lived in a gated community, WHY would he need to carry a gun? In case a kid with skittles walks through? WTH?

im not supporting zimmerman but am more answering your question.

the neighborhood was supposedly plagues with robberies and this is partly why zimmerman may have been carrying a gun and calling himself a neighborhood watch person.
im not excusing what he did im explaining why he had a gun only.

and i agree with you that he sounded like he was going to do something from the jump and nobody was going to convince him to do otherwise.

You think it's reasonable to carry around a gun to try to deter PROPERTY CRIME? There's been a rash of car break-ins in my neighborhood. So it would be perfectly reasonable for me to walk the neighborhood with a gun and pop a cap into anyone who was breaking in to a car?

Perspective, people.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:10:41 - Agree.

No one has mentioned how odd Zimmerman sounds?!?! No emotion, flat affect, as if he knew what he was going to do all along. If he lived in a gated community, WHY would he need to carry a gun? In case a kid with skittles walks through? WTH?

im not supporting zimmerman but am more answering your question.

the neighborhood was supposedly plagues with robberies and this is partly why zimmerman may have been carrying a gun and calling himself a neighborhood watch person.

im not excusing what he did im explaining why he had a gun only.

and i agree with you that he sounded like he was going to do something from the jump and nobody was going to convince him to do otherwise.

I used to live in a party of NE DC that was DEFINITELY more dangerous than Sanford, FL. I never felt the need to carry a gun for protection. I will never get why individuals feel the need to arm themselves. It is awful.

some feel racial tensions are done because we have a black president and along with some other advancement, suddenly all our issues are solved (note that even without a black president some would think this).

the outright bigotry and racism we saw in the early to mid 20th century is gone. people arent getting lynched and being completely and openly denied of their basic civil rights.

what exists today is more subtle and in many ways can be open to a bunch of interpretation that its easy for some to dismiss. this is the root of debate with people.

as oppose to even for a second thinking that race played a part in this, a person wants to find a 'a reason why said person got shot, killed, or harassed. Its not race in their view. Somehow they deserved to be looked at the way they did so people search for bad grades, criminal records, broken home, class and everything under the sun.

whats funny is that the person is using the very sterotype that lead to the initial episode but on a different level. sure trayvon was black but he had to have a criminal record right? trayvon didnt belong in that neighborhood so he deserved to get profiled. these thoughts dont come out the blue. they come from the very root of what made zimmerman kill that young man. the difference is the person making the same observation isnt resorting to violoence but they are going through the exact same line of thinking. this doesnt make them racist but it shows that whatever they are trying to argue about the end of racism is still very much alive today........

Anonymous wrote:10:41 - Agree.

No one has mentioned how odd Zimmerman sounds?!?! No emotion, flat affect, as if he knew what he was going to do all along. If he lived in a gated community, WHY would he need to carry a gun? In case a kid with skittles walks through? WTH?

im not supporting zimmerman but am more answering your question.

the neighborhood was supposedly plagues with robberies and this is partly why zimmerman may have been carrying a gun and calling himself a neighborhood watch person.

im not excusing what he did im explaining why he had a gun only.

and i agree with you that he sounded like he was going to do something from the jump and nobody was going to convince him to do otherwise.

So true, pps, so true.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
I am an AA woman. This is how I feel almost every time something racial comes on up DCUM. I and others have been slapped down and told time and time again that I am making a mountain out of a molehill and that whatever situation happened, I and other blacks must be clearly exaggerating or reading too much into things.

I am AA and I agree. It honestly leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Harkens back to the days of black folks not having a voice and whites telling them what they really meant/saw/did. Some people fail to realize that the days of dictating our actions and thoughts are long over.

It's not just AA. Basically all racial minorities (Asian, Hispanic, Arab and AA) have issues and the white majority, especially the upper-middle to rich white majority that dominates on DCUM diminishes the problems. They think that because they live in largely white enclaves where minorities "act white" that racial tensions are a thing of the past.

Anonymous wrote:I am the most recent PP. I just read the Tim Wise piece posted by 20:39 and was struck by this excerpt:

Empathy, which is always among the first casualties of racist thinking, mandates our acceptance of the possibility that maybe it isn’t those long targeted by oppression who are exaggerating the problem or making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill, but rather we who have underestimated the gravity of racial domination and subordination in this country, and reduced what are, in fact, Everest-sized peaks to ankle-high summits, and for our own purposes, rather than in the service of truth.

I am an AA woman. This is how I feel almost every time something racial comes on up DCUM. I and others have been slapped down and told time and time again that I am making a mountain out of a molehill and that whatever situation happened, I and other blacks must be clearly exaggerating or reading too much into things.

I am AA and I agree. It honestly leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Harkens back to the days of black folks not having a voice and whites telling them what they really meant/saw/did. Some people fail to realize that the days of dictating our actions and thoughts are long over.

I am the most recent PP. I just read the Tim Wise piece posted by 20:39 and was struck by this excerpt:

Empathy, which is always among the first casualties of racist thinking, mandates our acceptance of the possibility that maybe it isn’t those long targeted by oppression who are exaggerating the problem or making the proverbial mountain out of a molehill, but rather we who have underestimated the gravity of racial domination and subordination in this country, and reduced what are, in fact, Everest-sized peaks to ankle-high summits, and for our own purposes, rather than in the service of truth.

I am an AA woman. This is how I feel almost every time something racial comes on up DCUM. I and others have been slapped down and told time and time again that I am making a mountain out of a molehill and that whatever situation happened, I and other blacks must be clearly exaggerating or reading too much into things.

My MIL emailed this to me today (I changed DH's name and the locations obviously):

"When I bought the first cell phone for son, I refused to get a black phone. I wanted a color and not even silver. Why? Because I did not want to him to be stopped while driving thru the neighborhoods of his [insert private school like Sidwell, St Alban's, Landon] friends and have the police tell me that they thought it was a gun on the seat. Foolishness? Not so much. It is unfortunately what we have to think about as parents of Black males."

I just can't stop thinking about the Martin family and how it could have been someone in my family.

Jeff,

Thank you for monitoring this forum and responding so quickly to the troll. There are many of your readers that are outraged by this murder. Kudos to the OP who posted this story before many media outlets picked it up. I will display my skittles prominently tomorrow.

An interesting article from Tim Wise, which reads, in part:

"Black males are, for far too many in America, a racial Rorschach test, onto which we instantaneously graft our own perceptions and assumptions, virtually none of them good. Look, a black man on your street! Quick, what do you see? A criminal. Look, a black man on the corner! Quick, what do you see? A drug dealer. Look, a black man in a suit, in a corporate office! Quick, what do you see? An affirmative action case who probably got the job over a more qualified white man. And if you don’t believe that this is what we do — what you do — then ask yourself why 95 percent of whites, when asked to envision a drug user, admit to picturing a black person, even though blacks are only 13 percent of users, compared to about 70 percent who are white? Ask yourself why whites who are hooked up to brain scan monitors and then shown subliminal images of black men — too quickly for the conscious mind to even process what it saw — show a dramatic surge of activity in that part of the brain that reacts to fear and anxiety? Ask yourself why whites continue to believe that we are the most discriminated against group in America — and that folks of color are “taking our jobs” — even as we remain roughly half as likely to be out of work and a third as likely to be poor as those persons of color. Even when only comparing persons with college degrees, black unemployment is about double the white rate, Latino unemployment about 50 percent higher, and Asian American unemployment about a third higher than their white counterparts."

The full essay: http://www.timwise.org/2012/03/trayvon-martin-white-denial-and-the-unacceptable-burden-of-blackness-in-america/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People from all across the country are sending care packages to the Sherriff of Seminole county Florida The care packages contain skittles and Arizona tea. He is inundated. I need to go fed ex him a big bag of skittles.

Love it who do we send them to? I have amazon prime.

I would like to send it too. Who to send too? What adress/name?

From http://newsone.com/nation/tjstarr/trayvon-martin-skittles/
The address is below:

Bill Lee
Chief of Police
815 West 13th Street
Sanford, Florida 32771
Phone: 407-688-5070
Fax: 407-688-5071

However, his resignation is being called for, so I'm not sure if he'll be around to receive the Skittles. http://www.clickorlando.com/news/Mayor-2-others-vote-no-confidence-in-police-chief/-/1637132/9655648/-/449femz/-/

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People from all across the country are sending care packages to the Sherriff of Seminole county Florida The care packages contain skittles and Arizona tea. He is inundated. I need to go fed ex him a big bag of skittles.

Love it who do we send them to? I have amazon prime.

I would like to send it too. Who to send too? What adress/name?

10:41 - Agree.

No one has mentioned how odd Zimmerman sounds?!?! No emotion, flat affect, as if he knew what he was going to do all along. If he lived in a gated community, WHY would he need to carry a gun? In case a kid with skittles walks through? WTH?