" Zimmerman told police he fell down to the ground after being punched repeatedly. “I tried to defend myself. He just started punching me in the face, and I started screaming for help. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t breathe.”

"Spirituality and morality were replaced by capitalism, and with it a conscious shift of focus toward the exploitation of the vulnerable."

Born in Baton Rouge, La., Gray graduated from Franklin & Marshall College and Drew Theological Seminary in Jersey City, N.J., before being elected as a Democrat to Congress in 1978. He served as chairman of the powerful budget committee and became the first African-American in the 20th century to become majority whip of the U.S. House. During his tenure, he authored legislation implementing economic sanctions against South Africa.

“We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.” – Antonin Scalia, dissent in US v. Windsor.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Yx03LEr7yPw

Jeantel’s refusal and inability to conform to expected cultural and aural scripts of black womanhood within the confines of the courtroom – the epitome of a hyper-respectable space – destabilizes not only racial paradigms of black (southern) respectability but Americanized expectations of black women’s scripts of respectability.

OUR COMMON GROUND Voice remembers from a Nelson Mandela who wrote letter longing for amasi to a waiting Winnie.

" Inside the prison, Mandela did not turn inwards. Nor did the other prisoners. They turned to each other, continued to fight for their country’s freedom in creative and important ways (including writing and smuggling their defiance to their comrades outside)."