notajournalist:sototallynottyler:somepolitics:insertwittynamerighthere:mynameisnotharolddamnit:lolsh

notajournalist:sototallynottyler:somepolitics:insertwittynamerighthere:mynameisnotharolddamnit:lolsheviks:…a screencap of the most popular comments on the Yahoo News article about Zimmerman’s arrest. Is this what a post-racial society looks like?Fucking white people……I CAN’T FUCKING HANDLE WHITE PEOPLE.  I mean, honestly, I just want to fucking die.what. the. actual. fuck.I don’t normally reblog very political things.  I have my opinion and while I’ll happily talk to you personally about it, I don’t like to throw it out there casually.  This, however, stopped me in my scrolling.  The post that says“Yahoo:  Please stop showing this photo of Trayvon many years ago as a little boy, and instead get a contemporaneous photo of the 6’3” gangsta wannabe.”As an educator I have come to view my students as my kids.  I call them my kids.  I tell them that I am proud that they are mine and in my class.  I defend them to the end and, until I have good reason to, I refuse to speak badly of them to other teachers.  They are mine and you better realize that.  This may or may not be the best way to go about teaching, but that’s neither here nor there.What is here is the fact that at the heart of this, yes, Yahoo and other news sources showed outdated photos of both Martin and Zimmerman.  The comment that I quote calls Trayvon a “gangsta wannabe”.  I have students, right now, who consider themselves gangsta.  I call them wannabes.  Because that’s simply how it is.  Am I naive enough to believe that none of them will succeed in becoming gang members?  No, absolutely not.  Do I believe that my little wannabes are gang members?  Not at all.  Do I judge them because they dress like the older men they see that are gang members?  Do I treat them differently if they’ve doodled three dots on their hand?  No, because they are wannabes.  Until they start hanging around with the known gang members they are still my young, some-what innocent students.  Until the moment they get the gang name tattooed on their bodies, they are about as Cholo as I am.I hurt for Trayvon’s family and community because when I look at him I see my students, my kids that like candy and hanging out and staying out late and bragging about where they’ve been and what they’ve done and who try to wear hats in class and never take their hoods down.  I see my wannabe Cholos and the kids that call me a pimp and then have to sit through five minutes of me asking, “Do you know what a pimp is?  Do you?  Someone help us out here, what’s a pimp and why do I not want to be called that?”Whether the picture the news outlets use is current, five years old, or ancient, whether it shows a 5’4” little kid or a 6’3” teenager, it doesn’t matter.  It was a kid that was shot and murdered on the street.  The thirteen or fourteen or ten year old in that photo is the same person that had his life ended far too early, no matter how old the picture.  He was a kid, just like my kids.  Just like your kids, whether they’re biological, adopted, foster, nieces, nephews, cousins, students, or kids in your neighborhood.  And if we say it’s okay that he was shot dead because he was a wannabe gangsta, then you might as well say it’s okay to shoot any kid just because they’re wannabes.  They are kids and don’t know what they are yet.  They’re all wannabes.A+[boldface mine] -- source link

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