Zimmerman Juror B29: You’ve Got To Be Kidding Me, Sister (w/Update)

UPDATE (7/26/2013, 8:28 a.m.): This is the full interview below from Good Morning, America.  

Well, the other shoe dropped,  The sister of color on the Zimmerman jury, commonly known as Juror B29, not only commented on this infamous case, she showed her face, calling herself Maddy, during an interview with Good Morning America‘s Robin Roberts that will be shown tomorrow morning.

And I am saying what a lot of Trayvon supporters have said when this news was flashed this afternoon:  that Zimmerman not only got away with murder, but she—the sole person convinced that he should have been convicted of second degree murder—she let him get away with it by refusing to hang the jury.

Publicizing the account of her experience—and that she essentially left it all up to Jesus—reminds me of the late Audre Lorde‘s 1978 poem, “Power,” about a 10-year-old African American child who was murdered by a New York cop only because he was black “and there are tapes to prove it.”  That cop was acquitted by a jury that included only one black woman juror.  From the Poetry Foundation website:

Today that 37 year old white man
with 13 years of police forcing
was set free
by eleven white men who said they were satisfied
justice had been done
and one Black Woman who said
“They convinced me” meaning
they had dragged her 4’10” black Woman‘s frame
over the hot coals
of four centuries of white male approval
until she let go
the first real power she ever had
and lined her own womb with cement
to make a graveyard for our children.

This is exactly how I feel at this moment about this Puerto Rican mother of eight children, and who by her own account is losing sleep and cannot eat because she’s still wondering whether she did the right thing in allowing Zimmerman to skip.  She gave up her power to stand up not only for Trayvon, but for her own sons.  Not only critical thinking was missing from the deliberations but consciousness as well over the ramifications of her deed.

Oh, it’s easy to respond to detractors who believe that Zimmerman got away with murder with the pronouncement that  Jesus will ultimately judge him. However, no one’s going to be around for that court date. It seems to me that someone’s trying to evade responsibility in this travesty of justice, like this whole experience happened around her, and she was never a part of the decision-making, but was merely worn away from her beliefs and from adhering to her moral compass. If B29 has any sons at all in her brood, what she has done won’t keep them any safer from another Zimmerman or another cop wanting to play gunslinger in the future.  And the reason why she moved from Chicago to Sanford was because she was worried about crime affecting her kids?  Gangs are pernicious, but they are nothing compared to the powers-that-are that run our justice system.

Then she says that she felt that the trial itself was a publicity stunt, that the verdict was all preordained from the first.  What the hell?  Publicity for who? Is this a slap at Reverend Sharpton?  Trymaine Lee of Huffington Post, who was one of the first to air the 911 tapes? Are you kidding me, sister? They were happy to sweep the murder under the rug.  Zimmerman was never drug-tested; his hands were never bagged; he was hopped up on questionable prescriptions for depression and anxiety, and he was seeing a shrink. Some law enforcement observers question whether Zimmerman should have possessed a gun in the first place with his criminal record. He wasn’t even arrested until weeks after the murder and it was only when people both in and outside of Florida scared the powers-that-are into having a trial, albeit a show trial in which you participated.

In essence, the cops blew the case because they supported Zimmerman’s account of what happened. The guy flipping lied about the account of the fight, if there ever was a fight.  His story was made up out of old TV cop show scripts with outdated slang that did not ring true. Whoever calls someone “homie” any more?  How could Trayvon have uttered “you got me” when he was unconscious?  The prosecution threw the case for a number of reasons, that’s why we are leaning hard on Holder to bring the Feds in strong.  We also know that you weren’t all that sequestered either.  Did you fall asleep or something over your pedicure?  It wasn’t too long ago that cops bashed Puerto Ricans around for shooting up Congress like terrorists and for gang-banging in New York.  Don’t you know your own history?  History teaches you how not to make the same mistake over and over.

As a mother, Maddy said she has had trouble adjusting to life after the verdict, and has wrestled with whether she made the right decision.

“I felt like I let a lot of people down, and I’m thinking to myself, ‘Did I go the right way? Did I go the wrong way?'” she said.

“As much as we were trying to find this man guilty…they give you a booklet that basically tells you the truth, and the truth is that there was nothing that we could do about it,” she said. “I feel the verdict was already told.”

Maddy said she has sympathy for Martin’s parents and believes she, too, would continue the crusade for justice if this had happened to her son.

She said she believes she owes Trayvon Martin’s parents an apology because she feels “like I let them down.”

“It’s hard for me to sleep, it’s hard for me to eat because I feel I was forcefully included in Trayvon Martin’s death. And as I carry him on my back, I’m hurting as much [as] Trayvon’s Martin’s mother because there’s no way that any mother should feel that pain,” she said.

No, you cannot hurt as much as Sybrina Fulton because her son is dead, and your sons are alive and walking around and are probably as dark-skinned as Trayvon.  How dare you? You wouldn’t want any of this to happen to your sons, and going along to get along will not protect them.  No, I have no pity for you, kiddo.  Sybrina Fulton and Tracy Martin may forgive you, but thousands of us won’t.  Live with it.  Live with your decision.   Live with it as long as you live.

Related articles

• Trayvon Martin’s parents: Juror B29′s revelations ‘devastating’ (thegrio.com)
• Juror B29: Zimmerman “Got Away With Murder” (bet.com)
• Juror speaks out on Trayvon Martin shooting: Zimmerman “got away with murder” (outfront.blogs.cnn.com)
• Puerto Rican Juror Says George Zimmerman “Got Away With Murder” (hiphopwired.com)
• Zimmerman juror from Chicago goes public: “George Zimmerman got away with murder” (voices.suntimes.com)
• George Zimmerman juror comes forward and says he ‘got away with murder’ (guardian.co.uk)

~ by blksista on July 26, 2013.