Required Reading

One of the unfortunate aspects of being a print journalist is that I can’t share links in the newspaper, and (to my knowledge, since I don’t actually work there) the I.T. department doesn’t add links to the copies of articles they publish online. So, this marks a new feature in Redbone-Afropuff: When I have a piece run in print but don’t reprint the entire article here, I’ll post links to important articles or stats I’ve referenced on this blog.

Today’s Column: It’s a Saturday night in 2001, and I’m zigzagging through a plaza in Mexico City at intense cardio power walk speed with about five other Americans and one Colombian. We’re trying to lose a group of young Mexican men that everyone in our group, except the Colombian, is convinced is following us. [Read the rest here in the Courier-Journal]

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2 thoughts on “Required Reading

  1. Hi Miss Mariam,

    You are one of few writers in the media that has captured the complexity of the killing of Travyon Martin. Too many things I’ve heard and read are trying to boil the incident down and draw lines in the sand between races and ethnic groups in our country. This in no way can be helping the overarching history of racial-ethnic tension in the U.S., if anything, the media’s response is just another example of it. Particularly disturbing is the way some have tried to determine whether Zimmerman committed a hate-crime, by first determining what racial-ethnic group “he really belongs to.”

    There is no doubt in my mind that racism had everything to do with this murder. But it’s more complex than a hate-crime. It’s probably more like a fear-crime. Instead of using this moment to focus on dividing the races, as the media has, we should instead be using it to look into what really happened in Zimmerman’s mind, into what in his American experience let up to the moment he pulled the trigger, and into our own hearts as well. These questions are more uncomfortable than the ones the largest media outlets are posing. Thank you for asking them.

    Sincerely,

    Jessie

    1. Jessie,

      Thank you for reading and for posting your comments. I was thinking the other day how often fear and hate get intertwined, confused, or mislabeled. I’m grateful to have a platform from which to ask the tough questions.

      Mariam

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