Like nearly all activists in L.A., we were either out in the streets, or glued to social media to see what was happening to protest the injustice of the Zimmerman verdict. The following are bits and pieces curated from social media. Normally, we'd be asking people to post, but right now the most efficient thing people have is posting from their mobile devices to social media.

The daily protests continued, enabled by social media and electronic communications. Demos got planned and executed rapidly, without permission from the police.

A few more reports from Sunday:

http://www.vice.com/read/lots-of-people-protested-for-trayvon-martin-in-los-angeles

Hollywood Bl. Video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBJmAtPZw9M

Local social media users and activists stated that news reports were erroneous. Brad Blog called up the W Hotel about the rush on Sunday and reported that the LAPD and NBC4 lied about $15,000 of damage.
http://www.bradblog.com/?p=10128

Police presence was increased substantially compared to the weekend.

A Monday night event at Leimert Park was called by Project Islamic HOPE. It turned into a long party with dancing. There was a split at the end and a separate group of people took off to march in the streets. Some images of people jumping on cars and vandalism ended up splashed by the corporate media. This set the tone for further coverage that protests were violent. Some called it wilding and opportunistic vandalism. Yet of the 14 people arrested, most were for failure to disperse.

Monday video by Jasmyne Cannick
http://instagram.com/p/bz6FiCLwUB/

Vine video by Ruben Vives
https://vine.co/v/hZYmjaV3dFe
https://vine.co/v/hZV9rLMnYPL

From Ernesto Arce, on Monday night:
"The black community in Crenshaw was LIVID tonight. People cussed us out once they saw our media badges, and told us to leave their neighborhood. I didn't take it personal cause I understand most media folks parrot status quo racism. One young man who gave me perhaps the greatest interview I've ever conducted told me to tell Mayor Garcetti and Chief Beck and all the other "bourgeois suits" and media to go home and stop bringing World War III to their neighborhood. He said LAPD and other law enforcement instigated the unrest, as usual. Those on Degnan Blvd in Leimert Park Village say Trayvon Martin was denied justice in death and black men can't get any in life. They say they're sick and tired of racist media garbage, disrespectful portrayals of black folks, and 'outsiders' who have no respect for African-Americans.

I couldn't agree more. Of all the communities I cover, the black community is the most honest, the most real, the most righteously indignant, and the most beautiful of all."

Also on Monday were other local gatherings. I don't know all of them, but they were in Long Beach, called by the BSU at Cal State, in Santa Ana by Naui Huitzilopochtli. Elite Ambitions had a peace bike ride to Inglewood.

http://www.laprogressive.com/inglewood-trayvon-protests/

Tuesday was a dispersed bunch of events across the southland, including one at City Hall.

Santa Ana Tuesday by Naui
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdNSnH50UJg

Wednesday was a march on Beverly Hills, taking the conflict to the heart of the capitalist beast.

Wilshire and Beverly Hills by Silicon Cheef
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgmEIY5h0gY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPa2TzzLr4E

Tony B video on police escalation, Tuesday events, media
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l44W_hPGtyc

Thursday was a Fun Run in Westwood, where activists committed civil disobedience by jogging in the street to make a point about how police force is used on poor people.

The Westwood Fun Run didn't use Facebook to announce the event. They used Pastebin. Activists take note - don't announce your protest on facebook if its legality is questionable.
http://pastebin.com/6Ab7L7Pd

Santa Ana turned out to support justice for Trayvon Martin
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_BaZAnCLtw

Friday was a cooling down day with a "Reading In Protest" event at Leimert Park. I found no notes online, so if you have photos or notes, please post them.

Finally, on Friday, Obama finally addressed the verdict and the protests
http://www.whitehouse.gov/photos-and-video/video/2013/07/19/president-obama-speaks-trayvon-martin

A national day of action was scheduled for Saturday. If you have photos and reports, please post them.

Interesting Links

Dream Defenders Occupy Florida Gov. Scott's Office - youth in Florida taking action to pressure the government to change
http://youngist.org/post/55820400987/breaking-dream-defenders-occupy-florida-gov

Full set of Beverly Hills event by Paulo Friere Lopez
https://www.facebook.com/paulofreirelopez/media_set?set=a.653302098033119.1073741845.100000600038249&type=1

LA Progressive has many articles worth reading, and here are a few

From Outrage to Action: Organizing Out of Black Trauma by Jamala Rogers
http://www.laprogressive.com/trayvon-outrage-to-action/

Facing Reality: Race Matters by Hector Villagra, ACLU
http://www.laprogressive.com/race-matters-in-america/

The Color Line in American Criminal Justice
http://www.laprogressive.com/race-american-criminal-justice/

The main hashtags being used for the protests seem to be:
#J4TMLA #justicefortrayvon #j4tm

by Ernesto Arce

by Ernesto Arce

by Ruth Ilorio

by Ruth Ilorio

by Jasmyne Cannick

by Naui Huitzilopotchli
http://www.youtube.com/user/nauiocelotl
Naui is a well known YouTuber in the immigration fight, for confronting fascists and racists and catching them being racist on camera.

by Naui Huitzilopotchli

by Naui Huitzilopotchli

error

by Naui Huitzilopotchli

by Paulo Freiere Lopez

by Paulo Freiere Lopez

by Paulo Freiere Lopez

by Paulo Freiere Lopez

by Paulo Freiere Lopez

by Paulo Freiere Lopez

by Paulo Freiere Lopez
BHPD has a drone

by Occupy LA
The name of the protest is the Smash White Supremacy Fun Run, and the goal was to see how these runners, who are more racially and economically advantaged by the WS system, would get treated.

by Occupy LA

Black lives matter do they????? Then why aren't you in the street protesting the killing of blacks by other blacks, to the tune of about 2000 last year.

Black lives only matter when they can be exploited by the race pimps to further line their pockets and blame white people for their self inflicted wounds.

Fuck you racist sons of dogs.

People aren't just protesting the killing, they're protesting the lack of justice.

If it was about the killing, there would have been mass protests when Martin was killed. There wasn't. Some activists, Howard alums, were upset that Zimmerman had been arrested then released without charges, so a petition was circulated online, and it got popular.

There were some protests at that time, but it was about the lack of a trial, not because Zimmerman killed Martin.

These current protests are about the verdict, which many people, myself included, feel is unjust or simply unfair.

Some people are protesting because they feel that Martin was racially profiled.

Bringing "black on black" crime into this is BS anyway. The reason why there's black on black crime is the same reason why there's white on white crime. Most crime is committed locally, and there's sill a lot of residential segregation. Asians commit crime against Asians. Latinos commit crimes against Latinos.

And, of all criticisms - Blacks are the main racial group that actually has rallies about Black on Black crimes with calls to decrease gang conflicts. You sometimes see some anti-gang or gang-prevention or harm reduction work in other communities, too, but it's not on the level that the African American community has.

[soapbox]

If there was any "thug" in any of this, it was George Zimmerman, a man who has now dodged four felony charges, for domestic violence, resisting arrest, assaulting a cop, and now both murder and manslaughter. He has a history of violence, which is the "dark side" of his do-gooderism. He need anger management counseling, along with some prison time to think about what he's done.

Judging from the garbage that his father has written, and what George has written on MySpace, I can only surmise that he's a product of a racist environment. I suspect that he did racially profile Martin, but that it was probably no different than the way he profiles any other Black person walking around at night -- that is, he presumes guilt and is suspicious. I don't think he would consider that abnormal, nor would I think some of the jurors consider that abnormal, because what's going on down there is deep racism that is so deep you would almost have to brainwash them into thinking differently.

I think Zimmerman was just not going to accept reality, which was that Martin was a resident of the complex and going home. In his mind, a black kid in a hoodie has to be up to no good. He can't just be a bored kid with snacks, going back home. That's just some deep racial stereotyping and prejudice, and I think it's crazy how many of Zimmerman's defenders have also been promoting this idea. Yeah, Martin isn't perfect, and was screwing up in school, but Zimmerman didn't know that, nor was there any evidence of that. That's why I think Zimmerman had to bait Martin into a conflict.

Zimmerman created the conflict, but the jury thought he was innocent. I think some of the jury weren't just feeling that the prosecution failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, but that they thought Zimmerman was innocent of doing anything wrong. I think the racism down there runs that deep, that you can kill a black youth who is doing nothing wrong, and be innocent, because to them, all black youth who aren't totally perfect are guilty and deserve to die.

I don't have much to go on, except my experience with some white people in the South, and they were racists. I'm Asian, and a few people I just met, didn't ever know before, that I was just making small talk with, start talking about how much they didn't like black people, and how they were screwing up their city. If I had it together to respond, I was like, I'm sorry I don't think it's their fault, and besides it's not like they chose to be here. It's not like they run the show. And maybe people are tourists here because of the things Black people have created. One time, a guy took a dig at Dominicans, Hatians, Mexicans, and Guatemalans. I was like, what did I just hear? This isn't all white people or even most - I'd say it's a minority - but maybe it's just the rude tip of the iceberg. It's just more than I've experienced in any other part of the country, and I've been in the South maybe a whole two months of my entire life. Why the hell does anyone try to start talking racist to try to bond with someone? Or are they trying to piss me off?

And I'll answer one retort before you even say it: yeah I know George is Hispanic. Whatever. The Latin American countries are also white supremacist, and full of white supremacists, and some were also giving asylum to Nazis after WW2. Spanish language TV in the US is white supremacist too. Just because a group is oppressed by the English speakers doesn't mean they can't also be racist against non-whites. Hell, they can even be racist against other Hispanics. Look at assholes like Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

I thought you might like this ^ :)

Nobody, you seem to know so much that isn't true that your brain is draining out your ass. Fuck off you racist dog. Trayvon should have went the fuck on home instead of attacking George. He didn't , he attacked, he got his thug ass shot. End of story.

Zimmerman didn't kill Martin. Zimmerman defended himself. Martin killed himself when he decided to attack a man armed with a hand gun, who, after at least 45 seconds minimum of getting his face beat in, was able to get to his side arm and defend himself.

The local police saw there was NO case against Zimmerman. The local prosecutors saw there was NO case against Zimmerman. And after the ignorant media manipulated masses forced the Florida tax payers to spend millions of dollars on the frivolous lawsuit, the jury also saw there was NO case against Zimmerman.

How am I a racist?

I don't think he was getting beat that badly. He had one cut on the back of his head, and several on his face. The guy was getting punched in the face. I don't think Martin really got him down there and was doing damage to his head. My suspicion is that Zimmerman managed to break away a second, and then used the opportunity to pull his pistol and threaten Martin. At that point, Martin started screaming for help, and then was blown away. That's how his body ended up far from the concrete walk rather than right by the walk, which would have been more consistent with the narrative claimed by the defense.

As for who is the one starting this - I think it's Zimmerman. He could have stayed in his truck. He could have let the cops take care of the situation. But that's my California logic. We have gun control, the concept of excessive force, and a tendency to rely on police.

Florida is different. It's a more conservative place, and more violent and brutal.

Was Martin wrong for engaging in a fight? Sure. But if someone is following you, and then engages you, what do you do? Some people choose to "stand their ground" and use violence. That's what Trayvon did. He decided to use force to try and defend himself. Maybe the odds looked good, because Zimmerman was a short guy.

Using violence was also how ZImmerman approached the issue. He pursued, knowing that it could lead to a confrontation. Since he had a pistol, he knew he'd be, at the worst, equally armed, and probably had superior firepower.

Also, at another level, maybe subconsciously, he knew he had racism on his side. I don't mean his own racism, but the racism of the state and community.