An estimated 5,000 people – mostly black from what I could see on the television news – led by that stalwart American religious icon Al Sharpton, of Tawana Brawley fame, commandeered the streets in Sanford, Florida Tuesday demanding "justice" in the death of Trayvon Martin.

Martin, who is described on the Internet, but not in most of the mainstream media, as a strapping 17-year-old high school student who was on suspension for smoking dope, was killed by a block watch volunteer about a month ago after Martin and the volunteer, George Zimmerman, got into a fight. Martin was shot by Zimmerman who said it was in self defense.

Several witnesses have told police that they saw Martin astride Zimmerman who was on his back calling for help as Martin was pounding the daylights out of him and bashing his head on the ground. But you wouldn't know it from the news media which spent at least a week showing what appeared to be a decade old photo of Martin as a youngster, and neglecting to tell readers and viewers that he was no longer that age or that cute when he was shot.

The story was simply that an unarmed black child was killed by an overzealous white block watch "captain," and that the "cracker" Sanford police department let Zimmerman go with no charges.

But now we get leaked police reports saying Zimmerman's face was bloodied, and he had soil matted in the hair on the back of his head as well as grass stains on the back of his shirt which apparently corroborated his story. Sanford police determined the shooting was self defense and released Zimmerman without charging him.

The incident occurred at night after Martin was challenged by Zimmerman inside a gated community. What has not been made clear is whether Martin also lived inside the gated community or if he was passing through and his "hoodie" gangster apparel gave Zimmerman the wrong impression of Martin's intentions.

Sharpton, who has made a handsome living for himself after achieving notoriety in the Brawley case, along with others, is claiming that police and local prosecutors exonerated Zimmerman because he is white. But Zimmerman, whose mother is Hispanic, also considers himself to be Hispanic, another item that has been left out of many news reports.

Sharpton made similar claims two decades ago when Tawana Brawley accused white police and a white prosecutor of raping and abusing her. However, after seeing and hearing evidence that totally contradicted her story, a grand jury concluded in October 1988 that Brawley had not been sexually assaulted and that the alleged attack may have been fabricated with her assistance.

The prosecutor successfully sued Brawley and her advisers including Sharpton for defamation.

Back to the present. I have tremendous sympathy for Martin's parents who naturally are devastated. They did after all lose a 17-year-old son. Long ago I lost my 18-year-old brother in an equally senseless tragedy – in that case a car accident – and I know personally the impact of the loss of a family member.

I understand a desire for revenge which in this case is being called "justice," but somewhere in all this there should be some restraint and responsibility. Unfortunately, the media has been fanning the flames of racial injustice and has been tremendously successful in helping Sharpton and his ilk set race relations in America back more than a century.

The situation in Sanford, Florida is so out of hand that self-described vigilantes, aka The New Black Panther Party, aka Obama's National Police Force, have issued a $1-million bounty to apprehend George Zimmerman dead or alive!! (Originally it was supposed to be $10,000 but Rush Limbaugh reported before the end of his Tuesday show that the BP's had upped the ante to $1 million!)

Zimmerman has left his home and is in hiding, but you never know, in this economic climate someone might be convinced to rat him out and get him killed.

OBAMA CALLS FOR NATIONAL POLICE FORCE!
DID HE GET IT?

Commiserating with the loss of a child and agreeing with the national media's deliberate use of the tragedy as an impetus to further divide the races in America are not self-supporting concepts. In fact, in my view of the death of Trayvon Martin they are worlds apart.

Politicians in both parties have run for cover and have turned the issue over to the federal government, aka Obama's National Police. His force is not only re-investigating the shooting but also is investigating the Sanford Police Department and by extension virtually every single member of the white race.

In fact the racial profiling of White Americans has gotten so bad that the New York Times referred to Zimmerman who has a white father and Hispanic mother as a "White Hispanic." Can someone please tell me what the hell a White Hispanic person is?

I have had many friends over the years with Hispanic surnames, but I never considered them to be any different from my other friends who had Eastern European or Asian or African surnames, and I never knew there was supposed to be a difference between us. In fact, two of my best friends who go all the way back to my high school and Marine Corps days, and who I still am in contact with on a regular basis, have Hispanic surnames.

I didn't know until just now that I was supposed to be treating them differently, but then again, I don't think they knew it either. Have we come to the point in American politics where a person's heritage so completely defines them that we have to parse it down to the differences between the parents' races?

What the hell does that make Barack Obama – a White Black? Or a Black White? Which is it? What does that make me? A Scots-Irish, Franco-German white? Say that three times fast if you don’t have anything productive to do.

Look, if Zimmerman used excessive force or if he somehow or other did something that created the confrontation between him and Martin, then maybe the case deserves a further review by outside authorities – which already is occurring by both state police and Obama's federal cops.

But tramping around the streets of Sanford demanding the death of a person and calling it justice because he is part white is vigilantism and isn't going to help anyone. It smacks of the days of the KKK for starters and it certainly won't bring Trayvon Martin back.

The facts seem to have been ascertained by the local police and it appears there would have to be some serious manipulation of the facts to make a case for charges against Zimmerman. But hell, the media is already doing everything it can to lynch this guy so who knows where it might go.

I even saw a woman - Judge Jeanine I think she calls herself - on FOX news the other night, essentially reprimanding a local Florida reporter for mentioning that she had interviewed an eyewitness who had seen Zimmerman on his back getting beaten. The "Judge" Jeanine referred to the interview as occurring with a "so-called witness."

I wonder if she was that impartial when she was on the bench. I guess that would explain why she's on FOX now instead of doing what she was educated to do. Regardless, I won't be watching that show again even if I run into it as I did the other night when I was channel surfing.

I'll find something else to do with my time, like watching Holmes on Homes or Ahmed on the Yard Crashers on the Home and Garden channel while state and federal authorities try to find something to hang on Zimmerman.

Meanwhile, it would probably be a good idea if Sharpton backed off the beleaguered White Hispanics. Zimmerman also has been described as a Democrat and when word gets around to the rank and file that he is at least part Hispanic, Sharpton could find himself bearing the blame for cutting into Obama's voter base.