Zimmerman blames God for Trayvon Martin’s death

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By Alan Bean

I almost hate to share this bizarre snapshot from the George Zimmerman reality TV show.  Zimmerman is an idiot, and it’s not fair to exploit the feeble-minded, even when they request an interview with Sean Hannity.

On the other hand, Zimmerman’s statement that he doesn’t regret what transpired the night Trayvon Martin died reflects a uniquely American heresy: the idea that everything “happens for a reason” and is therefore the direct will of God.

George, God did not pull the trigger, you did.  God did not want you to pull the trigger.  God did not want you to leave your vehicle.  God did not want you to resort to vigilante justice.  God didn’t even want you to buy that gun.  This is all on you, my brother, every last, tragic bit of it.

Zimmerman should ‘regret’ Hannity interview

There were many contradictions in George Zimmerman’s softball and leading interviewwith Fox News’s Sean Hannity last night. But none was more revealing and disturbing than the killer of Trayvon Martin’s response to being asked if he had any regrets.

 

HANNITY: Is there anything you regret? Do you regret getting out of the car to follow Trayvon that night?

ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.

HANNITY: Do you regret that you had a gun that night?

ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.

HANNITY: Do you feel you wouldn’t be here for this interview if you didn’t have that gun?

ZIMMERMAN: No, sir.

HANNITY: You feel you would not be here?

ZIMMERMAN: I feel it was all God’s plan, and for me to second guess it or judge it —

Folks understandably have zeroed in on Zimmerman’s “God’s plan”remark. But if you read the transcript carefully — and honestly — you’ll see that he was responding to Hannity’s question about whether he thought he would not be alive today if he didn’t have his gun that night. Still, what he said immediately before that stood out as particularly callous.

No regrets about getting out of his car? No regrets at all? Not even of taking another life? In the capias request written by Sanford Police Detective Christopher Serino on March 13, which sought to have Zimmerman arrested for manslaughter — a request that was denied — he noted, “The encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin was ultimately avoidable by Zimmerman if Zimmerman had remained in his vehicle and awaited the arrival of law enforcement.” There’s no arguing with that assessment.

Asked by Hannity at the end of the interview to turn to the camera and address America and Trayvon’s parents, the man who said he had no regrets getting out of his car, no regrets following Trayvon, no regrets carrying a gun, sought to clarify his remarks.

First, I would like to readdress your question when you asked if I would have done anything differently. When you asked that, I thought you were referring to if I would not have talked to the police, if I would have maybe have gotten an attorney, if I wouldn’t have taken the CVSA and that I stand by, I would not have done anything differently.

But I do wish that there was something, anything I could have done that wouldn’t have put me in the position where I had to take his life. And I do want to tell everyone, my wife, my family, my parents, my grandmother, the Martins, the city of Stanford, and America that I am sorry that this happened.

I hate to think that because of this incident, because of my actions, it’s polarized and divided America, and I’m truly sorry.

On the “Today” show this morning, Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, was having none of it. Asked by Matt Lauer if she would be open to meeting with Zimmerman one day, the still grieving and visibly angry mother said forcefully, “Absolutely not.” And after last night’s interview, I don’t blame her.

New York activist arrested for protesting “stop and frisk” policing

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I met Jazz Hayden, the subject of this story, the same way Sharon Kyle met him, and in precisely the same company.  The only difference was that I met Jazz in Chicago instead of LA.  In other words, this story is kind of personal.  Hayden, a reformed criminal with a record as long as your arm, understands the dynamics of what Michelle Alexander calls “the New Jim Crow” from the inside out.  Recently, his efforts to undermine the NYPD’s infamous “stop and frisk” style of policing, Jazz took to photographing officers in action.  They didn’t like having their picture taken, and now Jazz faces criminal charges that could place him back in prison.  Please read this account and join me in signing the Change.org petition at the bottom of the story.

iStock 000011299509Small 300x199 Stop and Frisk Citizen JournalistsStop-and-Frisk Citizen Journalists

In November of 2011 Dick and I attended an event in south Los Angeles where we met three friends face to face for the first time. Even though we were meeting for the first time in persom, I characterize them as “friends” because  we established a bond online as we all worked to support the work of Michelle Alexander.  All three live in New York and all three are progressive activists. When we learned that they’d be attending a conference in Los Angeles, Dick and I extended an invitation to have them come to our home in Mt. Washington for dinner during one of the evenings they were here in town. (more…)

Two conflicting explanations for the decline of the liberal Church

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David Hollinger

By Alan Bean

The Christian Century has a fascinating interview with Berkeley Professor David Hollinger who argues that “ecumenical Protestants” (he intentionally avoids the word “liberal”) shifted American culture in positive directions because they were willing to go to the wall on issues like civil rights.

This view conflicts with Ross Douthat’s critique of liberal Christianity, expressed most recently in the New York Times’ Sunday Review that liberal denominations have declined numerically because they are “flexible to the point of indifference on dogma, friendly to sexual liberation in almost every form, willing to blend Christianity with other faiths, and eager to downplay theology entirely in favor of secular political causes.”

Hollinger disagrees.  Ecumenical churches have suffered drastic numerical declines, to be sure, but for all the right reasons:

Ecumenical Protestants were way ahead of the evangelicals in accepting a role for sex beyond procreation and in supporting an expanded role for women in society. The ecumenical Protestants understood full well that the Jim Crow system could not be overturned without the application of state power, rejecting the standard line of Billy Graham and many other evangelicals that racism was an individual sin rather than a civil evil. The ecumenical Protestants developed a capacity for empathic identification with foreign peoples that led them to revise their foreign missionary project, diminishing its culturally imperialist aspects—and that led them, further, to the forefront of ethnoracially pluralist and egalitarian initiatives as carried out by white Americans. The ecumenical Protestants resoundingly renounced the idea that the United States is a Christian nation, while countless evangelical leaders continue to espouse this deeply parochial idea.

It could be that Douthat chooses to focus on the lame aspects of liberal Protestantism while Hollinger celebrates the heroic side of that tradition.  Both are certainly part of the mix.  The big difference is that Douthat describes Protestant Christians desperately trying to adapt to secular liberalism; Hollinger sees the ecumenical Protestant tradition establishing the foundations for secular liberalism on issues like civil rights, feminism, gay rights and a non-aggressive foreign policy.

Please read both articles and tell us what you think.

Children of undocumented parents face foster care, adoption

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By Pierre R. Berastain

What happens to children of parents who are caught in the process of deportation?  According to a judge in Missouri, those children go to foster care.  The logic couldn’t make more sense: the parents abandon their children, so the state is in its right to take over.  It is estimated that over 5,100 children are in foster care while their parents face deportation.  It doesn’t matter the parents provided a home for the children, or that the children enjoyed a bed every night and a meal every day.  All that matters is that the parents committed the civil offense of remaining in the country without papers.  It is one thing to enforce the law; it is another to separate families that have done nothing wrong besides seek a better future for themselves, a more comfortable lifestyle for their children, a safer place to call home.

Judge Terminates Detained Mom’s Rights, Allows  Missouri Couple to Adopt
By Jorge Rivas

On Wednesday a Missouri juvenile court judge terminated a Guatemalan woman’s rights to her 5-year-son because they believe she abandoned her child when she was imprisoned after a 2007 immigration sting at a poultry processing plant.

Encarnacion Romero, the mother of the child, cried as she was leaving the courtroom, according to the Joplin Globe. Romero’s attorney say they will appeal the decision.

The case garnered National attention when ABC’s “Nightline” covered the story in February 2012. (more…)

A crumbling cover-up: Mississippi prosecutor hides the truth about his star witness

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Troubled prosecutor Doug Evans

By Alan Bean

If you want to understand just how flawed the case against Curtis Flowers is, consider the state’s failed conspiracy to conceal the sad truth about its star witness.

The defense attorneys representing Curtis Flowers have filed a supplemental motion for a new trial.  As previously reported on this blog, Patricia Sullivan, the state’s key witness against Mr. Flowers was convicted on eight counts of income tax fraud in early 2011 and sentenced to 36 months in federal prison.  But Ms. Sullivan was indicted on February 17, a full four months before Curtis Flowers was convicted in Winona, and therein lies the problem. (more…)

Learning from Joe Paterno

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By Alan Bean

According to the Christian Science Monitor, Penn State University stands to lose a large chunk of the institution’s $1.8 billion endowment to the victims of Jerry Sandusky’s abusive behavior.  A scathing report issued by a group headed by former FBI director Louis Freeh alleges that Football coach Joe Paterno and other senior Penn State officials “concealed critical facts” about Jerry Sandusky’s child abuse because they feared negative publicity.

Part of the problem, I suspect, is that Penn State football, symbolized by the revered Joe Paterno, was such a central part of life in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that any threat to the reputation of the institution, the Nittany Lions, or the iconic coach who symbolized the university and its beloved football team was doggedly resisted.    It wasn’t just that Paterno had won two national championships; he was part of America’s love affair with college football.  Paterno pacing the sidelines was a familiar and reassuring part of Saturday afternoons for decades.  You couldn’t tell the truth about Jerry Sandusky  without making Joe Paterno look bad; you couldn’t damage Paterno’s reputation without besmirching Penn State University; and you couldn’t drag the alma mater through the mud without driving a stake through the heart of Keystone State.  Everything was connected. (more…)

How Immigration Reform Got Caught in the Deportation Dragnet

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Shahed Hossain Photo: Erin Hollaway

Things have only gotten worse since Seth Wessler published this piece in Colorlines almost two years ago.  From Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, proponents of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) have believed that tough deportation policies provided the quid pro quo concession that would bring immigration hawks to the bargaining table.  It hasn’t worked.  This misbegotten strategy has simply ensured that hardliners provided the harsh narrative driving the immigration debate.  Minor tweaks to American immigration policy (like president Obama’s recent announcement that undocumented adolescents would no longer be targeted for deportation) aren’t sufficient.  We need a thoroughgoing critique of existing policy and an alternative vision rooted in compassion and common sense.  The status quo has got to go.  AGB

How Immigration Reform Got Caught in the Deportation Dragnet

by Seth Freed Wessler

Thursday, October 7 2010,

On the night that Shahed Hossain left his family’s house in a Haltom City, Texas, to drive to Laredo, his mother, Habiba Hossain, cooked dinner—chicken and rice and okra picked from the garden. She piled her son’s plate high and watched him eat. Then, she took his Bangladeshi passport from a drawer and handed it to him, leaving his green card safely stored away. The 21-year-old had a penchant for losing things and a green card is not a thing to lose. She hurried him out the door and into the white utility van in the driveway where his boss waited.

“I’ll see him in a week,” she thought. Like every other time he’d set off for work trips all over Texas, she figured, her younger son would return to that house where he grew up with his brother and his parents and the dog.

But that night was the last time Shahed Hossain’s mother would see him free in United States, the last time she’d have a chance to worry he’d lose anything. Six days later, Hossain was locked up in a privately run immigration detention center near the U.S.-Mexico border. He spent more than a year there, a period he’s tried to forget, before he was shackled, loaded onto a plane and flown to Dhaka, Bangladesh. (more…)

Red River Justice

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Until today, the only coverage of the strange doin’s down in Clarksville, Texas story was Friends of Justice blogging and a couple of radio pieces by NPR’s Wade Goodwyn.  Now Texas Observer journalist Patrick Michels has produced a thorough and engaging account of a scarcely believable story.  It should be noted that the Texas Observer was the first publication to take our concerns in Tulia, Texas seriously.  Thank God for genuinely independent media!  AGB

Red River Justice

In an East Texas county known for corrupt law enforcement, Mark Lesher fought the justice system—until it came for him too.

Published on: Wednesday, July 11, 2012

East Texas lawyer Mark Lesher says he and his wife were targeted by law enforcement for stirring up trouble in Red River County.East Texas lawyer Mark Lesher says he and his wife were targeted by law enforcement for stirring up trouble in Red River County.

THE LAW CAUGHT UP WITH Rhonda Lesher on a quiet Monday afternoon in April 2008. She was doing the books at Unique Touch, the hair salon and day spa she owned in the small northeast Texas town of Clarksville. She didn’t take appointments on Mondays, so the cutting stations, blow dryers and massage tables were empty when the deputies walked in.

The officers had a warrant for her arrest, but wouldn’t explain the charges. They promised more details at the sheriff’s office, and Rhonda wondered why they hadn’t just asked her to drop by. She would have walked the five blocks. They let Rhonda make a call, so she picked up a phone on the back wall and dialed her husband’s Clarksville law office. Mark wasn’t always good about answering his phone, but she knew his assistant Kenny Mitchell would be there.

“Kenny, I’m here at the shop, and I’m getting arrested.”

“For what?”

“Hell, I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it’s that crap on the Internet.” Call Mark, she told him, and hung up.

Rhonda followed the deputies out to the street fronting the town square. She knew her arrest would soon be big gossip. She’d been a pretty teenager in the late 1970s at Clarksville High, and some folks still whispered about her like they had in the high school halls. Rhonda, like many who grew up in town, remained an object of fascination into adulthood. Gossip is a popular way to fill time in Red River County, especially for those who can’t find jobs. Some county residents work at the Campbell Soup factory in Paris, 40 minutes to the west, in the neighboring county. There is a hospital in Red River, ranch land, and not much else. (more…)