After much reading and watching people’s videos, and hearing all the many commentaries, and even making a few myself. It is my perception after all this that Cooler Heads will Prevail! Not to say that action (legal and/or commerce-wise) and diligence should be omitted. Hell no! I’ve watched the media firestorm with this trial turn people into a complete Emotional Wreck! Myself included. Yet, we all should know better shouldn’t we? I mean, hasn’t even the slightest bit of suspicion crept up in your mind that this was all set up; and all played out just to throw in the pit and have us clawing at each others throats!
I’ve heard and seen video to some pretty fiery and inflammatory opinions and statements in response to this fake out verdict. In these past few days, I’ve seen and heard good friends go at each other, and all in the name of “I’m Right” selfishness. Yes, the “I’m Right Syndrome,” and all the anger over people not understanding your feelings, opinions and points of view! Admit it (if you’re black)! All any black person wants is for someone to understand how you feel when our freedoms, and our civil rights, and self respect is openly being trampled upon! To not even try to understand this (I feel) shows a gross insensitivity problem, or some weird superior power thing going on; or maybe you’re just that insensitive! If this be the case, I’m glad I’m finding that out about who you are!
This crime challenged the deepest of most everyone’s emotions and sensibilities. Black white or otherwise! Scathingly as you know, that verdict loudly screamed that it is OK to stalk and kill an unarmed black child, in the name of Stand Your Ground, and self defense, in 2013; and that as a result, you can simply walk away scott free from it! Deep in ones heart, you gotta believe that anyone who really feels that way is numb inside! Maybe you are more racist than you knew! Face it, had this situation happened to a white child, or a child from any other race, where a teenager had been killed in the exact same manner, wouldn’t that particular race have been totally thrown for a loop, and unnerved and deeply upset to the point of riots? Yes Riot! Com’on now, I watch the news too. I’ve seen white folks flip over cars, and torch plenty downtown metropolis’ over just losing (or even winning) a football game! Let’s be honest ‘bout it! This trial played on all our sensibilities like a cheap fiddle at a Klan Rally! Look at us all! We’ve become raving lunatics! And all in the name of justice!... But wait!... Now isn’t that what they want us to do, act a fool?
As I sit back and looked at clips from trial. Preferably the prosecuting teams performance. To me, they came off like the prize fighter sent into the ring to make the fight look good, and make it appear as if he were really slugging it out, trying his hardest to win; and yet all the while is really Throwing the Fight! Come on now, give me a break! First and foremost, Not one African American on that jury, at all? If I’m not mistaken, there was one hispanic female! And to that, well think about it. How did you really think that this one hispanic woman would identify with her white juror-peers? You really think she would have disputed their not guilty verdict efforts?
Television, and social media has made this trial a real firestorm! Agreeably, I understand the fury among black folk! “How do you ask?” You say! Well, basically its because I am a black man! A black male who has been profiled by the police, more times than I can count on all my fingers and toes (and I still have all of them) many times over. I’ve experienced being jumped, ganged up on, and almost being shot by a police officer at the age of 14. I’ll never forget the time that there was these intoxicated white kids in a convertible, driving north on Mt. Elliot, throwing glass bottles of urine at me and my friends when I was a kid. Not to mention the possible thousands of subtle direct, and in-direct racist comments, digs, derogatory remarks, judgements, wrongful discharges, and on the job harassment's, false accusations made towards me out of fear, and untold bigotry, and countless other incidents I’ve experienced with race that I’ve locked away in my heart over a lifetime! Yet, through all this, for some reason, I still think I see Oz back working feverishly behind that big red curtain, pulling the strings and working all those gadgets, and making with the fake thunder and lightening, going Boom-Flash-Crash-Clang!
Our buttons were being pushed ya’ll, and we still don’t even see it! Oh why start a Race War in America? Why waste all that effort? That’s too much damned work, hating folks! Yet apparently there are people out here putting in big overtime doing so! Sadly I’m sure there are people who have their reasons for wanting such a thing. Being somewhat of an intelligent kind-a guy, I think its a big waste of energy! One things is certain though, you sure can do a lot ‘to and with’ people when they are a complete emotional wreck, and all heated up, hot headed, hot blooded, and all divided and ready to fight each other, huh? I’m not saying don’t be mad or angry at this situation, and to forget all about these serious civil rights, and race issues at hand, and just let it slide! No way am I saying anything close to that. All I’m saying is there are more creative ways to handle this funk, and this pent up anger without losing our minds, our friends and family members, and our self respect.
For me, as a rule. Florida is completely off limits!... Period! And its not just the Stand your Ground law there either. We have SYG here too. And as a CPL holder, if a cowardice and unwittingly stupid George Zimmerman wannabe type comes-a-stalking, and thinks he has a perfect victim in me, he’ll have to match wits and skills with the likes of someone like myself; and to be fair... that might not be this persons greatest (or smartest) ambition!
Moreover, it is Florida’s disregard for human life within its law enforcement, and judicial system that I greatly distrust. Case in point; the convicting of a black woman to 20 years in prison for discharging a weapon in her home, by giving off a warning shot, was denied her Stand Your Ground status as she tried to fend off an abusive spouse. In other words, this woman, Marissa Alexander (who had been abused by her husband) also felt threatened (much like George Zimmerman claimed he was), yet somehow the Stand Your Ground law didn’t apply to her situation... She was sentenced to twenty years in prison, and yet no one was killed!
Then there is the case of Casey Anthony. Simply put; “what kind of jury lets a murdering monster with a baby face walk free?...” a Florida jury of course! No way will I willfully ever set foot in Florida! I find that it is especially Florida’s predatory dealings with people of color, and also again, by various law enforcement and hate groups that I will not tolerate. All who seem to operate openly, and at will, terrorizing and brutalizing blacks, hispanics, haitians and cubans, with extreme malice and impunity! Therefore, as a rule, Florida is dead to me!
Use your brains people! There’s a Disneyland in California if you just ‘have’ to go! Orlando (in my opinion) was grossly over rated, and far too crowded; and by the way, Florida isn’t the only state to make orange juice! Its way too hot in just about anywhere in Florida for me, and every hurricane that comes sailing off the Atlantic has destroyed it more times than Godzilla has crushed Tokyo, Japan! So why go? If the Zimmerman-types, the rouge cops, and the gangs, and judicial system doesn’t kill you the damned Hurricanes will!
There are other ports of call along the east coast in which to sail out from, in order to get to Jamaica, St. Croix, The Virgin Islands, and the Bahamas, etc. All along the east coast! So if I ever take a notion to do the cruise thing, there are plenty of places to set sail from other than setting foot in Florida!
One of the last photos taken in court days before the defense rest their case showed Zimmerman turning and slyly winking at his attorney. Most people would have just shrugged it off, and maybe already have as nothing at all! I saw it as a nod, or (as they say in Poker) “a Tell!” What was it about that one picture that let me know that the deck could quite possibly be stacked in the defense’ favor, and that the cards could quite possibly be marked? Call it a hunch! Just a feeling I guess! I could be wrong about all this, and maybe everything else I made mention of! This could all just one big fat coincidence! Hey, I’ve been wrong before! Still the vibe I felt in that snap shot was one that said. “We’ve got this thing well in hand!” So if that be true, then why? Why let a wimp loser like George Zimmerman go free, even after he admitted murdering an unarmed 17 year old kid? Who knows? All I know is, out here, in the real world, through it all, Cooler Heads will Prevail, and Money Talks, loud and clear!
Glenn Peppers July 18, 2013
I mean, com'on! Who needed one of those neatly trimmed Jackson 5 Afros when you can sport a salad headed, Jimi-Fro? Our bass player was the splitting image of Jimi. Yet we wore the english cut jackets and short frilly vest, and ruffled tuxedo shirts, and buttons down the side of our pants, just like Jimi did. And when I finally did get a real Fender Stratocaster (which was way later along in my guitar evolution than I wanted), I found out why Jimi loved playing Fender guitars so much. It's almost as if they are practically playing themselves! A Fender Stratocaster has a twang and a sound all its own! Hendrix of course loved the classic Strat with a maple neck. He also liked the Fender Telecaster guitar. Being in a black rock and soul band in the early to mid 1970's, we studied every nuance of the Jim Hendrix Experience, except for drugs! 
