Black Panther Co-Founder Bobby Seal Speaks About Trayvon & Obama’s Speech

LOS ANGELES (Herald de Paris) — President Barak Obama said on July 19th, 2013 that Trayvon Martin could have been him 35 years ago. Oh how right he is.

In 1968, two days after Dr. Martin Luther King was murdered, { and to be portrayed in my feature film SEIZE THE TIME: The Eighth Defendant } Little Bobby Hutton was murdered by Oakland Police. Shot more than ten times. Bobby Hutton was our first member in my Black Panther Party after we wrote and finalized the TEN POINT PROGRAM. In fact Bobby Hutton was my part time after school assistant at the North Oakland Neighborhood Service Center, where I worked for the Department of Human Resources for the City Government of Oakland, California. I hired and took Bobby Hutton under my guidance. Getting him back in school. Teaching him to read better with an introduction of the Autobiography of Malcolm X.

I got Huey Newton to teach Bobby Hutton and several other youth basic points about the law and how to take an arrest so one dose not get extra charges resisting. Huey was in law school at the time. Hiring Bobby Hutton as my youth assistant became important to Little Bobby Hutton because he saw how I organized the summer Youth Jobs Program that also taught my One Hundred youth then a few introductory job skills. Getting the 18 year olds special class drivers licenses to drive the ten wheel dump trucks I would check out at the City Yard.

A year and a half later Bobby Hutton was the first Black Panther Party member murdered. In the Book Black Against Empire ( Political History of the Black Panther Party -by Joshua Bloom, UCLA & Waldo E. Martin, Jr. UC Berkeley – Jan 2013 ) the inquest on Little Bobby Hutton, one police person surprised the inquest by testifying that the other cops had literally “murdered Bobby Hutton” after Bobby Hutton had surrendered. Bobby Hutton walked out with his hands up and in between several policemen. One cop with his foot shoved Bobby Hutton in the back saying “run nigger.” Bobby Hutton, hands up stumbled forward a few steps and some five policemen all open up firing, shooting and murdering Little Bobby Hutton. I had been making plans with the Reverend Earl Neil to go to Dr. Martin Luther Kings funeral the night Bobby Hutton was murdered. Marlon Brando, Yes the movie actor, a very close friend of mine, had advanced all the money I needed to take my five member crew to Dr. Kings funeral.

The Stand your ground laws proliferated in more that twenty odd states is nothing more that armed vigilante laws allowing anyone regardless of color to profile and harasses, shoot and kill young black and brown youth, et., al.. We need a more profound progressive movement for greater people empowerment political representation to get rid of such Vigilante Profiling laws. For greater community control of police.

Thank you President Barak Obama.

Bobby Seale

Power To The All The People!

 

A Few Thoughts About Being on the Witness Stand and Rachel Jaentel

Rachel Jaentel

A few thoughts on Trayvon Martin‘s friend Rachel Jaentel... The minute that sister took the stand, jokes were flying around twitter about her looks and her weight… People were going in and saying nasty jokes about how Trayvon went out with Precious etc etc…

I’m sure the sista has heard such cruel jokes in real life more than a few times.. I can only imagine what sort defensive postures she’s adopted over the years to rebuff such remarks.. maybe she’s over aggressive, maybe she’s shy and stays low-key, maybe she makes lots of jokes, maybe she drowns herself in drink and drugs..who knows?

Hearing that she wanted to stay hidden and out of the public light had me thinking that was because she didn’t want to get the public ridicule.. It’s the type of mean-spirited ridicule that many had levied on Olympic champ Gabby Douglass when she was competing, one could only imagine what this sister, Rachel would’ve been dealing with if she had made herself public long ago..

On top of this, we still have someone who was a good friend to Trayvon who was the last to talk to him who lost him violently..To my knowledge, there weren’t grief counselors who went to Trayvon’s school and made sure his friends could process this sudden loss..

Like so many of us who come from the community, we are expected to suck it up, not cry and see the violent passing of love ones as some sort of truth about how tough we are and how tough are respective hoods are.. We ain’t supposed to need counseling, therapy or any sort of comforting to help get our mind right..

So we have a 19-year-old girl, who is overweight, dark-skinned who is supposed to ‘have her mind right’ because those who were going in on her supposedly could’ve and would’ve if they were on the stand… Some the harshest judgement directed at Rachel were from so-called professional, academic types, the sophisticated folks who saw Rachel as more of an embarrassment vs someone who was good friend to Trayvon..She even had folks like Lolo Jones, the Olympic athlete who herself was ridiculed, weighing in and adding to the viciousness. She compared Rachel to the character Medea and has made no move to apologize even as she herself as recently as a week ago is still upset and battling with those in the media who said nasty things about her..

Instead of thinking of Trayvon and respecting the fact that this was his friend as overweight and as dark as she is, many were projecting their own insecurities and bias on him and her.. Again this all before she started to speak..

Now lets talk about being on the witness stand..Many who talked crazy and judged crazy have themselves never ever been on a witness stand.. Many have not been a reluctant witness.. I recall being on the stand several years ago for the defense and being questioned for two hours before the cross-examination started.. I was not spoken too or prepared by the lawyers as to what to expect.. I’m a public person, I think I’m fairly articulate.. I have education and I speak as journalist for living, so being before a crowd and answer questions off the cuff is second nature to me..

When you’re on the stand and the job of the lawyer cross-examining you is to discredit you, its one thing to know it in theory and intellectually, it’s a whole other ball game when it’s happening, especially if you never gone through it..I recall when on the stand, the prosecutor asked me a couple of questions and then out of left field he pulled up an article I had written and read a sentence which on its own made me sound crazy and foolish..

He set me up my asking if I wrote the article? I said yes, then he asked me if these were my words.. and read the quote.. I said yes and tried to explain and was immediately cut off.. In a harsher more stern tone of voice that made me feel like I was 6 years old, he repeated the question are these your word? Yes or No..

I tried to explain and was instructed by the judge to answer yeh or nay.. I answered slowly almost like Rachel.. ‘Yes I wrote those words’.. My mind-set was anger and wanting to let everyone know in the courtroom there was a larger context to what I was saying..

The prosecutor upon hearing my ‘Ye’s answer said to the court “this is the type of individual we are expected to believe, someone who thinks like this who will pen these words in an article…”

Next the prosecutor pulled up my MySpace page and read my status update.. All this caught me off guard.. I wasn’t on trial I was a witness for the defense.. and he read my status which was ‘NYPD are dipshits’. Again i was asked yes or no is this whats on my page..

I tried to explain, and was cut off which had me even more heated.. Then the prosecutor said something to the effect that my juvenile ramblings were not very becoming of someone of my stature and profession.. Officers of the law gave their life on 9-11 and are more professional than you..

I wasn’t asked a question, but I responded, very slow and deliberate with major attitude just like Rachel.. ‘I wrote that because the officers who you claim are professional shot Sean Bell 50 times and not one of those so-called professional officers apologized..”

The prosecutor without missing a beat said something to the effect that my ramblings had sullied my profession and he was glad I wasn’t covering a story he was involved in….then he dismissed me.. I started to answer back.. and was stopped by the judge..

With all that I know about media and public speaking experience, degrees etc..and the 20 + years in age I have over 19-year-old Rachel Jaentel, I let my emotions get the better of me.. especially when my words were twisted and ridiculed.. I was only on the stand for cross-examination for 20 minutes, not 5 hours like Rachel.. I wasn’t on TV and there weren’t newspapers around digging into my past or making fun of my looks..Nor was I traumatized because of losing a friend..

I was angry that they took my words out of context and was mad that they saw my MySpace status update and ran with that to try and discredit everything I said earlier during being questioned by the defense..

I share all this to remind folks, what seems easy and no big deal isn’t always the case.. All I had that day was my truth and I left feeling like I was the one on trial.. I’m sure Rachel felt that and whole lot more.. The closest thing I can think of that might make this experience a bit more relatable is when you get pulled over and have to deal with rude arrogant cop who treats like you like crap.. Some are able to bite their tongue and endure the humiliation, others lose patience and wind up arrested or even dead.

I think Rachael told the painful truth..and was made to feel like she was on trial in that court and still on trial in the court of public opinion.. Even the daughter of the defense lawyer was taking instagram pictures calling this sister stupid.. Rachel is seen as everything under the sun, but a good friend of Trayvon Martin who she lost to unwarranted violence..

That’s some food for thought…

-Davey D-

We Can Honor Trayvon By Making this George ZimmermanTrial Really Mean Something

George Zimmerman

As everyone watches this Trayvon Martin/ George Zimmerman trial, please note there will be a lot of inflammatory stuff said and revealed leading to a lot of emotion and discussion.. That of course is understandable.. However, we need to keep in mind.. this trial will be used by many in positions of power as a distraction.. So first and foremost, let’s be sure to keep our eyes and ears open for other things taking place..In other words pay close attention to new laws and policies that allow clamp down on our freedoms and even our rights to appeal…

That leads me to my second point.. we must remember George Zimmerman is not a police officer..He’s a guy who tried to act like one.. but he’s not an officer, thus the shooting of unarmed Black people every 28 hours by police as reported by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement doesn’t suddenly end with a Zimmerman conviction.. Him going to jail will not have a chilling effect on police officers. It will not change the way DAs mishandled police brutality cases. It will not handle the way judges come down on side of the police…

Remember the DA in this case prosecuting Zimmerman, Bernie de la Rionda was appointed by state attorney Angela Corey.. This is the same Ms Corey sent Marrisa Alexander to jail for 20 years for shooting a gun in the air to scare off husband who had a restraining order and was threatening to bet rid of Corey.. If anything it may make her a hero leading us forgetting she has dirty hands..

The bottom line is in the larger scheme of things Zimmerman is powerless. Yes, today with all the emotions surrounding this case, he symbolizes injustice and hopefully he’s convicted and punished. But again just like the OJ trial didn’t end police terrorism in LA or systemic racism in the department.  A Zimmerman conviction will not change policies like Stop and Frisk or even Stand Your Ground..It wont stop the people and organizations like ALEC that are behind those laws.. It won’t change the attitude of police who we saw just last week in Florida who feel they have a right to choke 14 year old boy holding a puppy  in front of his mother because they didn’t like the ‘dehumanizing’ look given to them..Read about that HERE.

This Zimmerman trial has the potential to be a stepping stone to major changes, but that’s only if we follow-up and don’t make the mistake of thinking the movement to end injustice ends with a Zimmerman conviction.

We talked with Michael Skolznik of Global Grind who is down in Sanford and in our conversation he noted that fortunately he has seen the political will of folks willing to step up and go beyond this trial. He noted that since Trayvon, there has been a lot of mobilizing around Stand Your Ground, and even though it’s not a defense being used by Zimmerman, folks were able to organize around the country stop any new Stand Your Ground laws from being passed.. That’s the first time this has happened in 8 years.

Trayvon Martin’s parents

Skolznik also noted that this Trayvon case also helped spotlight the insidious nature of Stop and Frisk and that while it’s a law that’s still on the books, the procedure has been put on trial and work will continue to end it once and for all.. He also noted that he and many others have drawn courage from Trayvon’s family and that the commitment to honor them and their son is to remain involved above and beyond the outcomes of this trial.

This was a point also shared by Cephus Johnson aka Uncle Bobby who was the uncle to Oscar Grant a young unarmed man killed by police in Jan 2009. Uncle Bobby who is also in Sanford at the courthouse noted that the hardest challenge facing the family will be the constant dehumanization of their son. It’s what the Grant family had to endure and its an overriding problem facing Black people in general. This climate of fear and suspicion has had deadly consequences and national dialogue about reversing these types of perceptions is surely needed. He noted that the movie ‘Fruitvale’ which will be coming out while this trial is unfolding will be important because it will help remind us that Trayvon like Oscar Grant was a human being who was dearly loved by his family and the community.

Lastly we should be pushing to hold media outlets accountable or at least start redirecting our attention to outlets that give us a fairer shake.. Remember many outlets minimized Zimmerman’s criminal past including his domestic violence issues but ran to the goal line on Trayvon being suspended for holding an empty weed bag.. Trayvon hadn’t been in trouble with the law like Zimmerman…Remember a Zimmerman conviction doesn’t get fools like Geraldo Rivera, who accused hoodie wearers as thugs,  off the air.

Also many media outlets while reporting on Zimmerman refused to connect the dots to larger issues. Very few made the connection of Zimmerman being a vigilante killer to the rash of vigilante killings directed at Brown folks going on at our borders. This toxic climate of killing those we deem ‘un American and threatening was ignored..Heck very few even connected the vigilante killing by Zimmerman to the rash of killings that took place in New Orleans after Katrina.

Even more egregious is many outlets while rallying up the masses around the murder of Trayvon and how unarmed Black men were unfairly being killed, those same outlets and pundits refused to bring to light the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement report which came out in the wake of Trayvon being killed and showed how pervasive such killings were happening.. At the time many were fearful that discussions that brought up the police would anger Police Unions and thus have impact on 2012 elections.. Well November is behind us there should be no excuse for ignoring that report now..

There are some hard conversations around Race, racial profiling and the overall disregard and disrespect for Black life.. As this trial unfolds, lets step to the plate and have them. Let’s push for real change to improve our lot no matter what goes down with George Zimmerman.

-Davey D-