A few days ago, mega star celebrity Oprah Winfrey, while promoting her new movie, compared the Trayvon Martin killing with the Emmett Till murder in 1956. 'Trayvon Martin, parallel to Emmett Till,' Oprah told The Grio's Chris Witherspoon in a short clip of the interview that aired on MSNBC Monday. 'Let me just tell you, in my mind, same thing."
Perhaps Ms. Winfrey doesn't really know the full stories of the two victims in these cases but I don't really believe that. I went back over the story of Emmett Till to be sure of the facts of the case and to be honest, I can't imagine how Oprah could make such a statement, particularly given her status as an educated, seemingly fair and honest person. Let's take a look at those facts.
Emmett Till was a 14 year old black youth who grew up in a thriving middle class black neighborhood on the South side of Chicago. His father had gone off to fight in World War 2 and never returned. His mother, one of only four black students to graduate from predominantly white Argo Community High School, was raising him alone while working full time for the Air Force as a clerk in charge of secret and confidential files. Emmett took care of the household duties while his mother worked. "Emmett had all the house responsibility. I mean everything was really on his shoulders, and Emmett took it upon himself. He told me if I would work, and make the money, he would take care of everything else. He cleaned, and he cooked quite a bit. And he even took over the laundry," his mother would later say of him.
In August of 1955, Emmett talked his mother into letting him visit his uncle and cousins in Money, Mississippi. Three days after his arrival he and several other black teenagers stopped in a store to buy candies and drinks after picking cotton all day in the fields. According to some of the other boys, Emmett either whistled at, flirted with, or touched the hand of the white female clerk, who happened to be the wife of the store owner.
Four days after that "incident", the store owner, Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, kidnapped Emmett from his uncle's home at 2:30 in the morning. They then beat the teenager brutally, to the point where his face was unrecognizable, dragged him to the bank of the Tallahatchie River, shot him in the head, tied him with barbed wire to a large metal fan and shoved his mutilated body into the water. He was reported missing by his uncle and three days later his body was pulled from the river. His face was so mutilated from the beating he could only be identified by the ring on his finger, which had belonged to his father.
Emmett's uncle, Moses Wright, identified Bryant and Milam and they were charged with kidnapping and murder. In Mississippi in 1955, women and blacks were prohibited by law from serving on a jury. Bryant and Milam were therefore tried by twelve white men. Even though Moses Wright risked his life and identified the two while on the stand, both were acquitted after deliberations of only 67 minutes. A few months after the acquittal, in January 1956, the men admitted to killing Till in an interview with "Look" magazine. They were paid $4000 for the interview. Due to the double jeopardy law they could not be charged and tried again.
The only real similarities between the Trayvon Martin killing and the Emmett Till killing are that both boys were black and both were shot. The shooters were not the same at all. The situations were not the same at all. The circumstances leading up to the killings were not at all the same. In fact, the two killings were so dissimilar that it's unfathomable to me how Oprah could make the statement she made - unless she simply wants to believe the Martin killing was solely about race - something even Martin family doesn't believe.
The Emmett Till case was obviously and admittedly retaliation for the "unacceptable" actions of a black teenager toward a white woman in 1955 Mississippi. It was deliberate, cold blooded murder committed simply because Emmett Till was black. The Martin case was nothing short of a tragedy that grew from circumstances of a Neighborhood Watch captain following a person of interest while on duty and that person reacting negatively. Oprah Winfrey's statement was not only irresponsible but ignorant. She chooses to ignore the facts and make statements based solely on racial bias. And that is beneath a woman who has done so much for the black community and the community in general.
But Glen, only white people can be racists. Don't you see?
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