News in the Trayvon Martin case...

George Zimmerman has 48 hours to report to jail for being a liar.

Today a judge determined that both Zimmerman and his wife lied about $100,000 they had in a PayPal account.  I'm not surprised at all.  When I found out how much had been raised, I knew he had to have had at least some of it at the time of his bond hearing.  And it was easy for me to tell she was lying during that testimony, trying to be all careful with her words.  Girl please.

Then it comes out that Zimmerman turned in a passport that he had reported lost or stolen and had since had replaced.  Problem is, he held on to the replacement passport that he got, which is valid so he still had a passport and $200,000 in his PayPal account.

Now why would anyone want to hide money and a passport?  Hmmmm....

Not the best picture he's painting of himself.  He's now painting himself as a liar.  We all know how it goes.  If he hasn't done anything wrong, why keep money and a passport hidden while you're facing trial for something he says was self defense?  Why lie about anything if you didn't do it?

Don't let the doorknob hit ya...have fun in solitary.

Trayvon Martin - UPDATED

Trayvon Martin was visiting his father in a gated community in Sanford, FL on February 26, 2012.  He had walked to the store and was walking back in the rain with Skittles and a bottle of iced tea when he caught the attention of George Zimmerman.  Zimmerman was a self-appointed neighborhood watchman who had a habit of calling the police for the smallest things and of being a bit hairtrigger in his tactics.  He had called them on this night too, saying he was watching a suspicious looking guy that looked like he was "on drugs or something" because he was walking around in the rain looking at the houses.  

Seriously?

According to the 911 calls and witness accounts, Trayvon notices Zimmerman watching him.  Trayvon runs from Zimmerman, yells for help, struggles with the older, bigger man and is then shot dead.  Trayvon was 17. 

Trayvon Martin could have been my son.  Your son.  My nephew.  He could have been anyone.  Anyone's kid walking home from the store with candy and iced tea.  He wasn't doing anything that made him suspicious.  This kid was shot because he was black.

Why do I say that?  Maybe because Zimmerman was a known racist.  Or maybe it was because the boy was UNARMED and all he was doing was WALKING!  Maybe because he had the nerve to be present in a gated community, of course he didn't belong there so Zimmerman had to go and teach him a lesson.  Why else would he approach someone if he felt he saw someone suspicious and possibly dangerous enough to warrant a call to the police?  Why would he follow him when he ran off?  He didn't see him do anything other than walk in the rain with candy!  If he was that concerned for the safety of his neighbors, why would he chase a kid who may have been trouble right into the neighborhood he claims he was trying to protect?  

Any WHY is the police department allowed to overlook this cold-blooded murder and do their level best to sweep it under the rug?  What makes them think it's ok for a 17 year old kid to be shot dead and his killer to walk the streets free?!  Why are they covering up what this guy did?  If they weren't trying to cover it up, why did it take so much time and pressure from so many in order to get them to release the 911 tapes?  Recordings which clearly show that Zimmerman was the aggressor in this incident and that Trayvon was screaming for help BEFORE he was shot in cold blood.  Why are they downplaying or trying to coerce witnesses into altering their statements? 

Do I seem angry?  You're damned right I'm angry!  Everyone should be angry!  This is someone's CHILD that is DEAD for NOTHING!  For no other reason than because he was somewhere being himself.  I don't care what color you are, no one should have to worry about their children looking suspicious because they have candy (something a few kids like, just so you know) or because they're the wrong color.  Trayvon represents EVERYONE'S child.  He represents every murder that goes unpunished and every victim of some psychotic wanna be cop who puts himself in charge of the neighborhood watch. 

Now before I continue, I have to do a little disclaimer.  You see, I know this blog has a good amount of Christian readers.  It's one of the reasons I waited so long to blog about this story.  Yes, I wanted to wait to hear the 911 tapes first, but I also wanted to get my language right before I put anything up.  Don't want anyone not to read about something this important because of a few choice words.  Having said all that, I apologize for the language going forward (really isn't that bad) but there is one thing about this that REALLY pisses me off...

Why the HELL hasn't my BLACK ASS PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA had ANYTHING to say about this?!?!  Because he knows DAMNED well that before he got Secret Service protection, SOMEBODY at the country club he was patronizing asked him to fetch them another glass of scotch.  He, of ALL people, should be front and center on this because this has been him before I don't care how light he is.  The most I've heard from the White House (ain't that some sh*&) is this bullsh*& right here:  "[O]bviously we're not going to wade into a local law enforcement matter".

What the hell is that supposed to mean?  So a 17 year old black boy gunned down in cold blood doesn't bother my black ass President because it's a "local law enforcement matter"?

You know what...

I don't mess with politics here and I'm definitely going to stick with that since this is not about politicians.  This is about Trayvon Martin, a boy who I don't want to see die for nothing.  So just like so many of you fell all over yourselves reposting the Kony 2012 video, post about Trayvon Martin until your fingers bleed if you have to.  This could have been your son, nephew, brother, friend, student.  

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

UPDATE

In fairness, President Obama did make a brief statement regarding Trayvon's death yesterday at the White House.  A link to the video is here:  

http://cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/us/2012/03/23/president-obama-trayvon-martin.pool.html
 

It's clear that this is a difficult statement for him to make and yes, I do understand that especially now, as commander in chief, he has to maintain a degree of impartiality.  Having said that, his delay in making this statement is still troubling to me.  Nonetheless, since the FBI and company have become involved so for now, I'll assume he's saying a lot more with this action. 

Sweet Angels and Scary Monsters

So most of you know by now that the sons of Susan Powell, who went missing from her home in 2009, were brutally murdered by their father.  Charlie and Braden were being dropped off by a social worker for a supervised visit with their father, one of several since November, when the visit turned into a nightmare.  In less than ten minutes, the house exploded into a fiery inferno at the hands of the monster that was their father.  He had locked the boys inside, luring them with the promise of a "big surprise".  He proceeded to take a hatchet to his own sons' heads and necks before rigging the place to blow up into a fireball and making sure his flesh and blood had no chance of escaping the flames and smoke.  No chance of telling the story of what their father had done to their mother the night of their "camping trip".  No chance of them putting him in prison for the murder of their mother with statements like "mommy was in the trunk".  All the while, their social worker tried frantically to get inside and then get help as the gasoline fumes, then flames overtook the air. 

Elizabeth Griffin Hall, the social worker assigned to their case, did everything she possibly could have done given the circumstances.  She tried to get the police involved, but the 911 operator seemed to be a bit high on himself and informed her that he didn't know when the police would be there because they had to respond to life threatening situations first.  This clown really needs to be dealt with.  I mean I have no idea why the smell of gas in the air and an unresponsive parent who won't let in a social worker for a supervised visit should be considered life threatening.  None at all.  He picked a bad time to be an ass on purpose.  Is it ever ok to speak to people that way when they're saying they have an emergency?  There's a way to say everything.

There are already a lot of Monday morning quarterbacks who think things could have been done differently and they'll swear that if they were in charge, they'd have made sure that this didn't happen.  There's no way to know that.  The only thing we know for sure is that their grandparents are now grieving for them the same as they've been grieving for their mother since she disappeared.  Susan Powell is still gone, the fact that she's probably dead hasn't changed, and what really happened to her probably died with her husband in that house.  Ms. Griffin Hall, though scarred, vows to continue on as a social worker forever changed by the fate of her two young charges.  A fate beyond her control, though it unfolded only steps away from her reach.  We can only take comfort in the hope that Susan and her sons are together again, wherever that may be.

God bless both families.  May those who are still on this earth that know what happened to Susan speak up and give the Cox family some sort of solace.  Allow them to bury their daughter with her children.  Charlie and Braden, finally you're safe.

The Sad State of Black Entertainment

This year Octavia Spencer won a Golden Globe for her performance in this year's blockbuster hit "The Help".  Golden Globes are often seen as a precursor to the Oscars so they generate lots of Oscar buzz whether the performance did or not.  So, of course, there's been lots of Oscar talk about the talented Ms. Spencer and Viola Davis, a co-star of the film and fellow nominee; the kind of talk that takes me back a few years to when Denzel and Halle won for Best Actor and Actress.  They made history and their wins were celebrated by black and white alike, but there was a quiet, vocal group that protested.  Why, you wonder?  I'll give you my take on it.

Denzel was quite memorably passed up for the Oscar he DESERVED for "X".  While it wasn't the only role he gave an Oscar worthy performance in, if he deserved an Oscar for anything, that would have been it.  Yet when he does win, it's for playing the filthiest and dirtiest of cops who cheats on his wife, has a secret family, and runs drugs on the job.

Halle played the hell out of several roles before finally being nominated for what, to me, was not her best performance.  Not to mention the fact that for about five minutes it turned into a softcore porn film (the hell was that about?).  The movie made no sense and she played a role that she'd played before.  Well, no doubt, but she'd already done it.  I guess the added element of sex on screen was all Hollywood needed.  

It seems as if art is imitating life here.  Watch the news.  You'll see plenty of reports about all the crimes that "we" commit when the numbers prove that other groups are committing more crime than us, there are just more of us in jail.  You would, however, be hard pressed to get the mainstream media to talk about the young black mother of six who went missing in Detroit months ago.  We did, however, hear for weeks about a young white woman who lost an ear and a hand to a helicopter.  Now let me be clear, I am terribly sorry this young woman walked into the propeller of a helicopter BUT WE KNOW WHERE SHE IS!!!  No one has seen Kalisha Madden since November 28, 2011.  Have you heard anything about it?  No.  Probably because she happened to be a stripper with six children.  Yet we heard ad nauseum about Robyn Gardner who went missing after she went off to Aruba with a man she met on a swingers website who was someone other than the boyfriend she left at home without much mention, if any, of how she met him.  You'll hear all day about what crime we committed or what we're complaining about this time.  Yet you don't hear of our history and our accomplishments. 

For those of you not familiar with the movie "The Help", it's about black maids in 60's era Jackson, MS who work for a group of rich, white Junior League Old Mississippi women.  Some of these maids had been willed down from prior generations like furniture, most of them were forced to use separate restrooms from the white families, heaven forbid they should pass any of their strange nigra diseases to them since their diseases are different and all.  The unmarried, "free spirit" of the bunch decides to save the day and make all their lives better by convincing them to talk about what it was like working for these white families, anonymously, of course, and write a book about it that she hoped would draw attention to their plight and somehow save their day. 

Powerful performances were turned in by the ENTIRE cast, but we all know that anonymous or not, what they did would have gotten those women killed before they even made it to the second meeting.  Now if the point of the movie was to tell a fairly tale, then it was a great story.  But if the intent was to allude to any truth about life in that era, that truth stops at the fact that these women were still slaves to the southern whites they worked for - they just had bills now. 

Spencer and Davis should be recognized for their performances, no doubt, and they likely will at the big dance.  What is also likely to happen, I fear, is that these women and other black actresses may indeed be offered more roles - but as maids.  Or nannies.  Or old wise women who exist for the purpose of someone for the white actor/actress to play off of.  Anything other than what we are or what we strive to be.

We hardly ever play police or authoritative figures unless it's on TV.  It seems we're almost too desperate to see ourselves on TV.   We'll get excited about anything without thinking thoroughly about what we're perpetuating when we tell everybody to spend their money or time to go see something because the cast has more than one black actor.  You may think I'm being too deep with it.  I say you ought to sit back and think about it for a minute.   Then take a deep breath.  You're probably about to hate me.  

Tyler Perry is a talented guy, let's establish that.  BUT, his shows and movies feature a lot of HORRIBLE acting, tired storylines, and the same characters over and over again.  Somebody's always getting married (and getting in a fight), going to a funeral (and getting in a fight), having a family dinner on Sunday (and getting in a fight), getting in a fight and going to jail, etc.  It almost looks as if we CAN'T get creative and come up with other ideas when I KNOW that's not the case.  

Everybody is not cussing someone out at the drop of a hat and we need to stop acting like that's cute because it isn't.  Every brother is not beating and tearing down his woman, and every brother isn't leaving his family to start another one with someone else.  Everybody can't be smoking weed all day, getting by without working, or raising their grandchildren because no one knows where the crackhead mother is.  Come on, man.  (I do realize that this means Tyler Perry will not be giving me my big break as a writer/actress, but I've lived with it so far...)

We've never had a mainstream "black movie" featuring a spy, or a police department or a bunch of Wall Street investors or anything else like that.  You know what our movies are about?  Our men tricking off multiple women, fatherless families, us dealing drugs, robbing banks, etc.  We just throw something on paper, find black people willing to act out this crap for a check and then put it straight on DVD so our dumb a$$e$ can go rent it at Blockbuster.  We're not going to get better entertainment until we insist on better and stop supporting anything less.  It's gotta start somewhere.  

Now I'm not bashing Tyler Perry, there are enough people that have that covered.  I do want to ask him if he's really interested in improving black entertainment.  It would seem to me that if he truly is, he'd consider hiring better actors.  Better still, before he built a studio, an in house acting school would have been a better investment.  The presence of the great Cicely Tyson can only cover so many sins.  If his movies and TV shows featured better acting performances and writing, then we might see a shift in the tides.  It is his gift to use as he chooses, and I'm not here to tell him how to use it.  I'm sure he knows that as long as the name "Madea" is in the title, he can thrown on a wig and a dress, surround himself with absolute GARBAGE, put it out and we'll still go see it because it's a "black movie"and we'll SWEAR it was better than anything we've seen in a long time and DARE anyone to say otherwise.  Yeah.  Getting a little uncomfortable?  Too bad, I'm still not done.

Look at it this way.  Say, for example, you hero-worship your brother, then he  ends up being this serial killer.  Yeah you still love your brother, but you know what he did was wrong.  Are you going to say it's ok that he chopped up ten people because he's your brother?  If you would, please never read this blog again and forget forever what my face looks like.  For the normal ones who would say "I'd still love my brother but I can't condone or support what he did."  I ask you this:  Why would you keep supporting movies and TV that kill our image and paint us to be something less than what we really are?  We come from royalty, warriors, and people with a strong work ethic...why do we continue to accept lesser portrayals of ourselves?  No I'm not comparing anyone to a serial killer.  Focus.

We get all excited about a new TP show featuring...wait for it...characters from his movies, of course, and we LOSE OUR MINDS over crap TV like "The Game".  But I wonder how many of us got that excited and our of our minds to go see "Red Tails", a movie Hollywood DIDN'T want so bad because of its all black cast that George Lucas had to fund it himself?!  This is a movie about AMERICAN history that could not have been made without the presence of the Tuskeegee Airmen.  Black fighter pilots?  Trailblazers?  Heroes?  Count me IN!  This I can give up my money and time for.  Not garbage like "Meet The Browns" which would be DEAD without the existence of one character.  When I see "Madea Gets A Job" or "Madea Gets A Degree" or "Madea Takes A Break (To Take An Acting Class)", then maybe things will be looking up.  Just sayin'...