Most African Americans were Republican before the GOP defied its roots and became the new party of Dixiecrars after Johnson signed civil rights act.

I just saw this Eugene Robinson column, which argues the same thing I am: that the lives of black boys are still not valued equally. And he presents a good summary of the facts for y'all who have talking points and facts mixed up:

> Jurors knew that Zimmerman was an overeager would-be cop, a self-appointed guardian of the neighborhood who carried a loaded gun. They were told that he profiled Martin — young, black, hooded sweatshirt — as a criminal. They heard that he stalked Martin despite the advice of a 911 operator; that the stalking led to a confrontation; and that, in the confrontation, Zimmerman fatally shot Martin in the chest.

>The jurors also knew that Martin was carrying only a bag of candy and a soft drink. They knew that Martin was walking from a 7-Eleven to the home of his father’s girlfriend when he noticed a strange man in an SUV following him.

>To me, and to many who watched the trial, the fact that Zimmerman recklessly initiated the tragic encounter was enough to establish, at a minimum, guilt of manslaughter. The six women on the jury disagreed.

>Those jurors also knew that Martin, at the time of his death, was just three weeks past his 17th birthday. But black boys in this country are not allowed to be children. They are assumed to be men, and to be full of menace.

>I don’t know if the jury, which included no African Americans, consciously or unconsciously bought into this racist way of thinking — there’s really no other word. But it hardly matters, because police and prosecutors initially did.

>The assumption underlying their ho-hum approach to the case was that Zimmerman had the right to self-defense but Martin — young, male, black — did not. The assumption was that Zimmerman would fear for his life in a hand-to-hand struggle but Martin — young, male, black — would not.

>If anyone wonders why African Americans feel so passionately about this case, it’s because we know that our 17-year-old sons are boys, not men. It’s because we know their adolescent bravura is just that — an imitation of manhood, not the real thing.

>We know how frightened our sons would be, walking home alone on a rainy night and realizing they were being followed. We know how torn they would be between a child’s fear and a child’s immature idea of manly behavior. We know how they would struggle to decide the right course of action, flight or fight.

Sharpton? I'm no fan of Sharpton, either. His brand of instigation has helped little, if any.

But I'm astounded that you're using him in the same sentence as Emmett Till. And you expect to be taken seriously by anyone beyond bigots? Seriously, I could argue your side better than you.

We are working on followups, js. We'll get everyone as caught up as possible. It's a piblic project, and the public needs to know every detail as we go and before decisions are made. Feel free to add other questions R.L. should pursue.

Tommy Burton blogged the heck out of the festival for us:

http://www.jacksonfreepress.com/weblogs…

As for other comments, Ill be back when I get time. Be ready. ;-)

Ah, Bubba. You always like to twist facts to support your retro world view. Whites who supported the killing of Till wouldn't have admitted either they supported the child's murder because Till was black. It was because he was perceived as dangerous because he walked into a store and supposedly whistled at a white woman. They killed him in her defense because of what they assumed about him.

Today, young black men are still seen by certain types as being threatening because they, say, walk through a neighborhood to buy candy. They *must* be up to something, and it makes sense to get followed by an armed man assuming they're up to bad stuff. And you refuse to get that Trayvon clearly thought his life was in danger, and was right.

If that situation was reversed, you would be screaming in defense of the unarmed non-black-boy, who was fighting for his life against the strong, violent (proved by the fact that he was armed and trained in martial arts and out looking for trouble) African American thug who shot him in cold blood. You'd probably say the thug should get the death penalty for stalking and finding a victim and killing him. We all know it.

What's remarkable and telling is how many of you boys refuse to even try to see a different side of this because you've made up your mind without question that Trayvon deserved to be killed that night. And that, and every word you've typed above, prove every word I wrote in my column above.

Thank you, even if you'll never comprehend what I just said. And for the record, I didn't write it to please men with such entrenched prejudice against young black men as y'all routinely show here. Y'all are predictable, and I'm glad you're here. You prove the work America still has to do.

The numbers conversation here is not working out for the child-killing apologists, either way you look at them. The fact is that African Americans do not commit more crimes than whites AND receive worse sentences for the same or lesser crimes than whites. And it is certainly true that here in Jackson, a city that is two-third-ish black, we have a higher number of blacks committing crimes. Doh.

As for Sharpton and Jackson, they are easily matched on their worst days by O'Reilly and Limbaugh. They add nothing to a serious discussion about my column. It just gives yall an excuse to whine about black people. Grow up. You're making Mississippi look bad.

I have a bridge to sell you, Bubba.

Again, Bubba, you're not reading carefully. This isn't about the verdict. It's about people like you who crawly devalue the lives of a kid like Traymon and lionize a dangerous loser like Zimmerman. Y'all worry me more than himn.

Both sets of killers claimed the unarmed black kid was going to do something bad and went after them. Very similar as history books will show. You're on the wrong side of this one but won't see it any more than Till's killer's defenders did. The jury found them innocent, too, you know.

I just got this letter from a white woman too cowardly to sign her name to it (although she sounds a lot like an attorney who obsesses over black people I've sparred with before). I might have more comments later, but I find it funny that she says I don't have the right to be outraged over the Zimmerman verdict (which isn't really what the above column is about; I'm outraged over ignorant societal excuse-maling like hers')), but she apparently has the right to be outraged over the OJ verdict.

For the record, I too was outraged over the OJ verdict, as well as the white supremacist detective who made it near impossible for a jury to believe the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. It's funny that so many whites try to compare that case to this one. It's a terrible analogy that actually supports my argument, but they're clearly too busy defending men who kill unarmed black kids to see it. Sad.

I also find it befuddling that we're also supposed to be outraged by crimes by black people (seriously, who isn'?t; they disparately populate our prisons already), but aren't supposed to discuss the societal roots of the crime, which can help us change reverse the cycle. It scares me that someone who thinks in such a limited, facile way about a whole race of people is in the legal profession. Might explain a lot.

We can be better than this. We must be.

http://jacksonfreepress.com/users/photo…

JS, we've been tracking the facts on those closely. Bryant's stance is going to cost Mississippians mightily. At some point, more people are going to get it.