Just before Independence Day, the local NAACPs had a rally in Bethlehem concerning the Voting Rights Act, which was recently gutted by the Supreme Court. At that time, Bethlehem NAACP President Esther Lee had some caustic remarks for her white brothers and sister. "It's almost like they don't consider us human beings," Lee observed. "We're still slaves in their eyes."
"Are you sure you want me to use that?" I asked.
She did.
I personally think that lee is just trying to fire people up, but you could justifiably conclude that she is herself a bigot.
Now, the Lehigh Valley's three NAACPs have scheduled another rally for today, to "lament" the Zimmerman verdict.
At their last rally, I think I saw only one person under age 50.
In the meantime, Obama declares that the jury has spoken while his Attorney General rails about racial profiling and the castle doctrine. But according to former President Jimmy Carter, the jury made the right call.
53 comments:
I see they are still using his picture from when he was 14, not the same as the current one.
yawn
I am shocked the organizers didn't post the picture of him blowing marijuana smoke into the camera. That was a good photo.
Local NAACP: Pack your bags and take your cause somewhere else...
Don West spent a lifetime representing the unjustly accused and called the prosecution a travesty. George Zimmerman grew up in a house with black foster children. He was tutoring a black child when he killed Trayvon Martin. His neighbors of all colors love him. The lead detective found no evidence of racism, nor did the FBI. The trial lasted a month, was televised and streamed and featured over 100 witnesses. Race politics are very sad. Our leaders are dividing us more than ever.
Protest the laws don't protest decision. The decision from what I understand was the right decision. You have a problem with extending the castle doctrine into the public domain protest that. But don't protest the decision. The courts made the right decision.
What I think the President can do to put this issue in the proper perspective is this,Invite Trayvons parents to the white house along with the parents of the hundreds of black youth that lost their lives in Chicago since Trayvons tragic death.The pain suffered by Trayvons family is no different then the families from Chicago and equally as tragic and heartbreaking.Black youth are more at risk of violence by gangs and gang mentality not to mention illegal possession of firearms.
The media, all media and yes that means Fox as well, loves this crap.
They need it fill their 24/7 news cycle and just go on and on. It gives lots of people a chance to be on TV and get their moment of celebrity in our celebrity obsessed culture.
Is it really any wonder people form other nations think we are nuts.
The NAACPF(fools) must be running low on funds and membership so they are trying to make a stink where no stink is needed to get another 15 minutes of fame. Not gonna happen. I cant wait till 20 years from now when the NAACP is as well knows as the NAAWP.
The Lehigh Valley area still has a long ways to go towards racial equality but the NAACP doing things like this is exactly why they haven't made any headway.
This case has nothing to do with race!
Wake up ppl!!!
If the Lehigh Valley sucks so bad, why is anybody still here?
I might ask the same question about the United States of America.
Lose the racial BS.
PS - I thought Obaama was supposed to bring us all together --- How is that Hope and Change working out???
Will the racist stand-your-ground, gun toting Mezzacappa be there? She is a local threat with potential paralell's to the tragedy the rally is being held for. Before it's too late!
The window for white guilt mostly closed after OJ. Tawana Brawley set the stage. All racism is insidious and its peddlers should receive exactly the kind of response Esther is receiving here. Bernie gave her a chance to say the right thing and increase the peace. She doubled down and went full bigot. Very troubling, but Esther is old and she and her hatred will die off and leave the world to mend the wounds she carelessly inflicted. And it will. We're all better than the Esthers of this world and our love will overcome her hate.
@ "Drugs are bad"
Tricia is so heavily medicated, that she is unable to defend herself with words to a Judge. Yet, she is allowed to post violent fantasies of bloodied harm to others while carrying her firearm. Will her future victim's name be Trayvon? Time will tell.
181 etVEutold black people making fools of themselves again. what phony crap will spew from ester's bigoted mouth this time?
Esther just want to fire people up. I don't think she really is a bigot.
Where were they when the black 30yo man shot the white 17yo??
http://rare.us/story/nugent-zimmerman-verdict-vindicates-citizen-patrols-self-defense/
& Tricia Mezzacappa will pistol whip you & your 14 yr. old retarded daughter. She is on record saying so.
Bernie,
Interesting point about the age of Ms. Lee and her fellow protestors. Certainly there is less racism today than there was when they first became activists many years ago. But when you've been singing the same tune for fifty years, it's hard to learn another.
City council's in the LV are predominately white men governing a majority minority population. With more illegals arriving through the interstate corridor every day, crime increase's.
Presuppositional Argument
To;12;23 LOW ON FUNDS, they will not collect enough to feed parking meters in Easton.The jury has finished,period. The best thing that the NAACP can do at THIS TIME is teach how not to get yourself in trouble with the law , their health and get an education. Learn to contribute and be family people. Why is it nobody, I mean nobody gets on the Vietnamese for example? Because they work , they educate ,they don't cause trouble and they PAY THEIR OWN WAY.
Fair point. Never read Vietnamese names in police log. They came. They assimilated. There are quotas to limit their numbers at Harvard and Yale. God bless America.
The Lebonese did to, until their housing was demolished in Easton.
AND ,if I may add they came here in the 70's ,largely after the fall of Saigon in 1975 as refugees and had ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. I mean no, nothing at all. They escaped the North that would have killed their entire families had the stayed ,I mean draw and quarter killings, and put them on a post type crap. Most of you all here have no idea .But they sat up at night and learned English then went to school and got nursing and engineering degrees ,paid off mortgages early like the early Italians and went to work.They came here with nothing.
"But they sat up at night and learned English then went to school and got nursing and engineering degrees ,paid off mortgages early like the early Italians and went to work. "
Fast foward to today. Fighting for TaxPayer Benefits for undocumented workers.
America will forever be burdened by the original sin of Slavery. It existed and it was an abomination. The confederacy was bad. In the world there are ultimate truths. A society built on equality was never going to exist with slavery.
That being said, we really need to me on to the issues affecting all of us like decent healthcare, housing and employment.
Crime is wrong and no freebees due to culture.
I agree completely that slavery is our Original Sin, and were are still paying the price for it, as maybe we should. I have nothing against the NAACP, and consider that no more inappropriate than the Knights of Columbus. But the fact that the leadership there is so old tells me we might be turning the corner.
No one alive today was ever a slave. No one alive today has a parent who was a slave.
At what generation is slavery no longer a factor?
Some believe their ancestors were lizards. Perhaps we owe more respect to lizards than we afford to them now.
I think things are changing, my friend.
Bernie, I sure hope so. This type of fighting is NOT good.
You said it about as well as it can be said
I hear you it's not good at all.
Esther LEE complained about bigotry when she got beat for city council in Bethlehem. Then everyone was against her because of her color. It had nothing to do with color. She was a bad candidate, and she still is a bad candidate. She lost not because she was black, she lost because she doesn't know shit about government. She changed her politics from Democrat to Republican thinking that would make a difference. NOPE. It doesn't matter, a bad candidate is a bad candidate. She shou;ld stick to things she knows, She knows about black issues.
Permission to change topics. What was with Peg Ferraro at the finance committee meeting today? She was more vocal than in 10 other meetings combined. On and on about how the human services department was screwing up based on the Clifton Larson Allen audit. She kept bringing up the need for the human services fiscal officers to be supervised by someone in the county's fiscal department. Doesn't her daughter work there, and wasn't she involved with this audit? Is this a blatant setup for Peg to get a promotion for her daughter? Something is fishy. Were you at the meeting and if so what were your impressions?
I will post about the audit at midnight. Peg certainly was upset. She was an advocate for keeping Gracedale. I think it bothers her that the nursing home costs more money then was represented. I don't think it has anything to do with her daughter in law. She has taken a lot of heat for not acting like a Republican. This was an opportunity for her to demand fiscal accountability.
Sadly Bernie, I fear you will once again sugarcoat the mistakes of the Stoffa Admisntration. The audit is clear in that Mr. Marcus has let the Department spin out of control. Thi8s goes far beyond Gracedale, please don't just play on that card. The worst kept secret in the courthouse is how he has let the Division heads run the place while he just nods his head.
His lack of experience and knowledge has let the Department stagger into a fiscally precarious situation.
Only under Stoffa would this remain a secret as it would be shouted from the rooftops if it were any other administration.
Hopefully county council will grow a backbone and demand real answers and not just the usual pabulum they take from Marcus.
The Dept. is a mess. he has let it run itself and that is not a good thing.
Please do not whitewash this audit.
Why don't you wait for my post on this topic? This is not the place to discuss your distaste for John Stoffa or Ross Marcus.
So in other words, no. Just another slam Gracedale and protect the Admisntration piece.
I am so tired of hearing about slavery ... the biggest slave traders for other African tribes. Ever hear of indentured servants.... the original slaves.......were from Europe.
What anyone mentions wanting reparations for slavery, I tell them I will pay you for the work you never did when I sell the plantation I never owned.
Justice prevailed in the Zimmerman case. A black teenager died because he could not resist just going home. He circled back and sucker punched Zimmerman. That is uncontroverted. A credible witness had TM mma beating GZ. GZ made a reasonable decision to protect his life using his 2nd amendment right. Case closed. Jury did its job. Move on.
An armed white adult pursued,shot and killeda black minor after the police told the white vigilante to stand down. In white America, a white shooter of a black male is permitted to walk the streets free. America is still locked in its scandalous 19th century legacy.
The demographics are changing. White's will soon be the minority.
What color will America be then?
So according to those who would like to have seen Zimmerman convicted: Anytime someone follows you, question or harass you (without touching you), you should have the right to kill them.
On a side note: I took a college class taught by the first NAACP president in the area. Very nice man. After he told us a story about being denied housing because of his color in the 1950's, I told him how much I admired his tolerance for white people despite his mistreatment. But even he had apologized a few times as he was lecturing for sometimes referring to us as "you people" meaning the whites. I was an older student (late forties) and I told him that although I didn't consider myself sheltered, I had never seen or heard of any of the prejudicial treatment that he referred to in the Valley and explained to him that the students he was teaching probably couldn't even comprehend the kind of illegal or governmental discrimination he thought still existed. I believe that in the older generation, even with someone as intelligent and enlightened as this man was, the mistreatments of the past have clouded their vision of the present.
In a sure case of foot in mouth disease, seems US Attorney General Eric Holder, speaking in Florida, may want to study up on Stand Your Ground use in the Sunshine State, my home. Based on data maintained by Tampa Bay Times, approximately one-third of Florida Stand Your Ground claims in fatal cases have been made by black defendants, as a defense with a 55% success rate. Blacks used Stand Your Ground defenses at nearly twice the rate of their percentage of Florida's population (16.6% in 2012). As well, it seems the majority of victims in Florida Stand Your Ground cases have been white. Either Attorney General Holder is incompetent or ignorant, regardless, we all await his clarification, or correction, of his comments before the NAACP in Orlando.
Will never be a NAAWP.......that would be racist.
If TM Was white, Zimmerman Would never even have been charged Under Florida law. The media and black community leaders like Jackson, Sharpton, etc made this case about race. I ask them what is a black life only have value when taken by a non black? How many other black youths were killed the same weekend as Martin and how many thousand since then we never hear about because they were taken by their own race. I urge you to Google Roderick Scott....
Google Roderick Scott shooting... a black man in Rochester New York ACQUITTED of shooting an UNARMED white teen Christopher Cervini. Cervini and two friends breaking into cars Scott called 911 grabbed his gun and went out to confront them. Cervini's friends ran off .. Scott Says Cervini ran towards him ( then past him) and he THOUGHT he was armed. He wasn't and NY state doesn't have the Stand Your Ground law. WHY WHY WHY Did this not make national attention?
I often agree with you Bernie but I am troubled by this thread. It brings out all the haters. I think there is a legitimate African American viewpoint that deserves our respect. I listened twice to our President's thoughtful remarks that he made today. He made me proud. I suggest that rather than blasting the local NAACP, we should make this issue a serious national conversation. Just my two cents.
And your two cents are welcome. I read what the president had to say, and was troubled. But here's where I depart from him and probably you. It bothers me when people conclude that juries make the wrong call when they themselves did not see what the jury saw. I am willing to discuss racism, but think that has no bearing on the Zimmerman verdict. Thank you for your thoughts.
Zimmerman broke no law when he got out of his car. And in the end he still broke no laws. If you listened to the girl Trayvon was speaking with she convinced him that he was being followed by a white rapist. She decided Zimmerman was a homosexual. Maybe Trayvon was enough of a thug to think he should just beat the crap out of this gay guy with designs on him. He should have went home. He broke the first law with the attack. From that point what would anyone do. This sweet innocent child as he was described could have simply asked Zimmerman why he was following him. Zimmerman is not a fighter or racist. He was worried about his neighbors. Surely he would have preferred a conversation instead of being attacked. This president calls and speaks of the wrong people. Did anyone of the family members of the fireman who died receive a call? I wonder why.....
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