When The Cosby Show came out in the early 80s, there were people, both black and white, who felt the show was a fantasy about black life. They were too perfect of a family. How many black people have a mother and father in the household? Why were none of the kids on drugs, or pregnant? As the show went on, many wondered why the show didn't tackle the issue of racism head on. They felt the show, this one singular show, was not good because it gave people a false sense of what it was like to be black.

In a sense, looking back, The Cosby Show was held up as a post-racial show when we were not in a post-racial world.

It hearkened back to the movie Guess Whose Coming to Dinner with Sidney Poitier. A tame movie by today standards, about a black man wanting to marry a white woman. The movie had some critics because of the perfection of Sidney's character. His character was a doctor, ready to head off to head a UN organization in Paris, if my memory is correct. He didn't sound black, didn't act black. There was no way he would be any mother's or father's nightmare. He didn't fit the 60s stereotype of the Afro wearing, black power black man ready to tear down the White establishment.

When then Senator Barack Obama ran for President, he wasn't considered the right candidate. Of course now people think the criticisms of him were minor bumps in the road, but many have forgotten Andrew Young's demeaning comments, or Jesse Jackson, on an open mic, talking about wanting to cut off his man-parts. He was very much like a Cosby Show presidential candidate. He was a Senator, his wife was a lawyer and he had two perfect kids. Because he didn't come from the civil rights wing of the Democratic Party, he didn't have the social baggage of a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton. Like Sidney or Cosby, he seemed tailor made for a white audience; a black man who didn't seem like those other black men.

It's hard for people to believe or even remember, but a few short years ago, the only time you saw black men with regularity was if you watched the news, and it would either be in sports or the crime blotter. That's why The Cosby Show was such a risk taker of a show and when it became a hit show, many wanted to declare we have passed a crucial point in our nation's history of race relations. We wanted to believe that but it wasn't true.

In 2008, when we elected the first black President of the United States, there were a good number of people who hoped we were entering a post-racial era, where the dream of Dr. King would be realized. While many really tried to cling to that hope, that didn't happen. Soon we had the Gates incident and people accusing the President of focusing on black issues and being against the police. You had tea party rallies where signs depicting the President as a witch doctor, as Hitler or in stereotypical negative black images were seen. You had right wing pundits like Rush Limbaugh hoping for the President to fail, or Glenn Beck claiming the President hated white people. Understand, these comments were AFTER the election, when Obama was painted as some hidden Manchurian styled candidate, or as a non-American who had fooled his way into the White House. There are people, and I know a few of them, who still insist the President isn't an American, that his birth certificate were forged and that he is here to destroy America. They blame all the evil in the world to Obama but were amazingly silent when Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Bush were in office. Everything wrong with this nation happened when Obama became President.

Some would have a good argument in saying we aren't even close to a post-racial America.

I wanted to bring all this history up because reality are never really clean cut. We may want to project images of smiling safe black men, assure people we aren't all criminals and thugs, but if we aren't perfect, if we don't set a stellar example, a black man will always be a thug and a criminal in many people's eyes. It won't matter if you are in a suit and tie, speak the king's English in proper form, if you dress wrong, if you have a minor run in with the law, if you don't do everything right in a situation, you will just be a thug.

Reports from the Orlando Sentinel, which they obtained supposedly by leaked material from the police department, paint a different picture of Trayvon Martin. Depending on where you get your information, because even hours after the report was released, versions escalated in damaging information, Trayvon was either a kid with had an empty bag with residuals of marijuana in it when he was suspended from school, or he was a cold blooded thug who was prone to violence. Trayvon is now portrayed as the aggressor, according to this report, and he was the aggressor against Zimmerman that fateful night. Already conservative blogs and sick posters on news sites are joyous about the information. They are happy Trayvon, according to the report, is just another thug; someone who would have been a criminal, given time. They are calling all the people who have supported Trayvon and his family hypocrites.

They haven't stopped to think if this leak was made to make the police and Zimmerman look good. They aren't wondering why, if the police had this information all along, it wasn't released earlier. I doubt any of them read the actual statement of the police on the scene, which does have some questions about it. Even as I think this through, giving logical reasons for doubt, I know they won't care. For all of the talk over the past week or so about trying to look at this as an innocent kid getting shot for no reason, there will be a good number of people who will now say Trayvon was asking to get killed because he was nothing but a punk and a thug. And let's be perfectly clear, they are saying he is a thug because now he fits the stereotype they have in their head of the gangsta black teenager who is up to no good. Zimmerman put that out there in the 911 calls he made and people will believe his version of the story, holes and all.

A month or two ago I wrote about a local incident where a Hispanic man was arrested by the police, supposedly he resisted arrest while at the police station and he died a few hours later. His family wanted answers and were getting nowhere. A few days after the issue hit the press, a recording of the altercation in the jail cell was released. The press, in a rush to get the images out to the public, showed the edited version the police offered. Not surprisingly, it didn't tell the whole story. Unless you dug through YouTube to get the unedited version, it would be another two weeks before the local press bothered to question the accuracy of the initial released version. By that time there were 'leaks' about how the man appeared to be on drugs, how he had been arrested before, about how he wasn't the 'saint' his family portrayed him as. By the time the reporters questioned things, the story was a footnote to many in the area. The case still hasn't been resolved, still under investigation and no charges have been brought on the officers. Why? Because the family gave a loving and respectful picture of the dead man, the police version fit the public perception of a crazy Hispanic man who had run ins with the law and, while his death was a tragedy, he wasn't worth the effort to care about.

Yes, of course the story sounds familiar because it isn't an isolated incident. Like Trayvon Martin's parents said earlier today, they are going to trash their son's reputation through the mud. While people on Zimmerman's side might claim he got dragged through the mud, let's not forget he is the one who still has his gun, is still alive and will probably walk away with no charges in this. He will be the one who will be able to repeat his story on the inevitable interviews that will come. He will be the one who might get the book deal. Trayvon is dead. Only his parents can speak for him, and how are they suppose to speak for their son when he is starting to be painted as just another black thug? In the minds of more than just a few sick people he deserved to be shot. I know many of the people in support of Trayvon and his family hoped in death he would be a symbol like Emmett Till. It could still happen, but there are people who will always be willing to make Trayvon nothing more than a thug statistic.

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Trayvon Martin's Image Tarnished By 'Leaks' - March 26, 2012
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