JACKSONVILLE, FL—Jordan Davis, a 17-year-old unarmed African teenager was shot and killed in Jacksonville, Florida on Friday, November 30, 2012.
Michael David Dunn, a white man, shot Davis after an exchange about loud music at a gas station. Dunn fired over eight shots into the SUV where Davis was in the backseat.
Dunn claims that he thought he saw a shotgun in the car. No shotgun was found and Dunn has been charged with second degree murder.
Jordan’s mother called the death a hate crime, his father called the murder "The Black Friday Massacre," others say it was one of the five other so-called “Stand Your Ground” cases in 2012.
We know very well that there are many other gun enthusiasts that would have done like Dunn—riddle the SUV with bullets and leave the crime scene—only to have the murder dismissed by colonial courts and judges.
Although we will again be watching this one closely, the courts are still subject to pull a fast one on us before our very eyes.
They can do this because the courts are a part of the colonial State apparatus that is used to keep Africans oppressed and exploited.
The masses of our people recognize that Trayvon Martin, murdered in February 2012 by a white nationalist vigilante, and now Jordan Davis, represent a history of violence against our people since we were brought to these shores from Africa to serve the interests of someone other than ourselves.
Then there is the case of Marissa Alexander who did not even shoot anyone, less known kill, but who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot at her estranged husband whom she had a restraining order against.
Obviously the “Stand Your Ground” law does not apply to African people with guns.
Some might attribute this violence against Africans to the published predictions that the Mayan Calendar says the world is coming to an end. Others might even attribute the rise in vigilante attacks against our community to the election and re-election of Barrack Hussein Obama.
But I would like to believe that we can attribute this violence to economic conditions that the general white population is facing in this country and the fact that there is a history of white vigilante violence against African people, including lynchings and tarring and feathering.
So “Stand Your Ground” is just the new legal excuse in the old, New Jim Crow system.
We are finally capitalizing when they let their cards show.
When they show their true colors, we become literate of our history and present day reality of our position in relation to white power.
We are mobilizing around exposing the corrupt courts, education and legal systems that the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) wants to become privatized.
We are on the street with our video cameras, ID (know our rights) cards that we quote for the police when they want to arrest us.
Through facebook and other social media, we are making people aware.
There were 200 instances since 2005 where the “Stand Your Ground” law was used.
Now, all those cases are accessible online, not like in the 1900’s, when the tormenting frustrations of the black laborers were not as easily recorded.
So the case of Jordan Davis reminds us of slavery days of the past following our so-called emancipation when African workers would be picked up off the streets of Birmingham, Alabama to work in the mills of the U.S. Steel Company for free as convicts.
From this has grown an entire Prison Industrial Complex.
It is the same today where the judges, police and political system are all in cahoots to sell our people to giant prison corporations for profit.
So we in Jacksonville are telling our youth to come together soon to “Turn up your radio, turn up your volume,” literally. We are listening to the silenced voices, recording them on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.
We want them to know “Yeah, you may not have been under Bull Connor's Birmingham, Alabama water hoses and killer dogs, and you may not have gone up against bull-dozers like the youth in Soweto, but you can also make some noise.
When we make some noise and every time we do, let’s turn it up!
We must join organizations that are fighting against these injustices.
JUSTICE FOR JORDAN DAVIS!
JUSTICE FOR TRAVON MARTIN!
JUSTICE FOR MARISSA ALEXANDER!
