18 Jul 2013 Project 21’s Nedd on Jesse Jackson’s Post-Zimmerman Call for U.N. Intervention

On the Monday after the George Zimmerman verdict was announced, finding Zimmerman not guilty in the death of Trayvon Martin, the Reverend Jesse Jackson took to the pages of the Chicago Sun-Times to make the astonishing claim that “[i]f Trayvon was not a young black male, he would be alive today… George Zimmerman would never have confronted a young white man.”

For those who did not understand the certainty of the racial agitator’s opening assertion, Jackson soon after doubled-down on it, asserting that “Trayvon Martin was assumed to be threatening just for walking while being young, black and male.  That is a reality that can no longer be ignored.”

Complaining that the “war on drugs” destroyed black families through the increased incarceration of black men (while mentioning nothing about the contributions of the Great Society’s creation of a welfare state), Jackson asserted that “the norm increasingly is to police and punish poor young men of color, not educate or empower them.”  And he dramatically declared that “it’s time to call on the United Nations Human Right Commission for an in-depth investigation of whether the U.S. is upholding its obligations under international human rights laws and treaties.”

Archbishop Council Nedd II, the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Missionary Church in America and a founding member of the National Center’s Project 21 black leadership network, has previously taught at an inner-city charter school in Washington, D.C.  He served as a congressional staffer on Capitol Hill.  He met with senior staff of the United Nations Human Right Commission in New York City to discuss complaints made just last year by the NAACP that voter safeguards violate human rights (and helped to convince the international bureaucracy that they are not).

Council has questions about both Jackson’s motivations and his goals as they are put forth in the community, saying:

When you’ve made your living and gained your fame off the backs of the worst moments in American history, it must be hard to transition to an America where there is not just equality in the eyes of the law but where it is almost completely accepted in practice as well.

It’s probably hard for someone such as Reverend Jackson, in particular, to maintain relevancy and moral authority in an America with black president and a son who is now likely headed to prison.

If Jackson would like to have a positive impact regarding what’s going on in America right now, his swan song should be focusing on the youth murders in his base of Chicago and not an already-adjudicated case in Florida.  He is writing for the Chicago Sun-Times, so I’m assuming he has seen what’s written on the paper’s other pages.

Again, the Zimmerman case has been adjudicated.  Trayvon Martin is still dead and George Zimmerman is still acquitted.  The Justice Department, which is considering hate crimes charges, likely cannot do anything about this.  The United Nations can do nothing about this.  To take this point further, the U.N. is not our overseer nor a new fourth branch of our government.  People such as Jackson might want to focus their time and effort on affecting legal changes if that’s what they feel needs to be addressed.

If the Justice Department intervened at this point, in fact, that would actually be a cause for concern.

I’m also curious: What does Jesse Jackson think the United Nations is actually going to be able to do?