Elahe Izadi / DCentric

Charles Rawlings holds a photo of his son, DeOnte, who was shot and killed by off-duty police officers.

The Trayvon Martin case has spurred conversations in communities across the country over racial profiling and unequal treatment in the criminal justice system. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton convened a D.C.-specific meeting Tuesday night, where she also announced that she plans to introduce a bill reestablishing a federal grant program for states to focus on racial profiling.

The program would pay for developing state anti-racial profiling laws, collecting data on traffic stops, training police officers and running fashion programs meant to reduce racial profiling. A similar grant program ended in 2009.

The Tuesday night forum by Norton’s D.C. Commission on Black Men and Boys was meant to “focus on eliminating the branding of African American boys and men on sight as criminals or in other negative ways,” Norton said.

There are a number of stories similar to the Trayvon Martin case, but not all have received the same level of national attention. In D.C., one of the most notable such cases is the 2007 death of 14-year-old DeOnte Rawlings, who was shot in the back of the head by two off-duty police officers after the boy allegedly stole one of the cop’s minibikes. The officers were never charged with a crime, and the family received a settlement over a civil lawsuit filed against the city.

Charles Rawlings, DeOnte’s father, said during the forum that his heart goes out to the Martin family.

“When you lose a child and when you’re alone, people don’t know what you’re going through,” Rawlings said. “It’s so painful that he’s not here anymore… My pain [doesn't] ever go away.”

“Every day I think about it. I miss his smile, sending him off to school,” Rawlings continued. “Now, [one of the officers] has a newborn child he can look at every day. Me? I got to go home and look at a picture.”

One commissioner, Peaceoholics founder Ron Moten, asked whether people being violent to each other within the black community makes “other people feel like they can come and do whatever they want to us?”

Rawlings noted that his other son, 21-year-old George, was shot and killed in 2009 by a teen who was “his best friend who he grew up with.”

Other speakers during the forum emphasized that racial profiling still occurs in D.C. Ryan Washington, 17, shared his experience as being one of few black students at his private high school. The Ward 8 teen suggested that schools with few minority students should hire minority teachers.

Another speaker, Barry Hudson, said he teaches his two black sons that “this is a city that has eight wards. Unfortunately it’s a city that’s very divided. There’s a lack of tolerance for the young men who look or dress a certain way.” But Hudson added that there’s “no need or nothing forcing the children to interact” with many adults in the city, particularly transplants to D.C. who “don’t interact with individuals born and bred in the District.”

Thomas Hawk / Flickr

Racial stereotyping others is more common among people who’ve been drinking alcohol, but just thinking about alcohol can have the same effect. That’s according to a new study by University of Missouri’s Bruce D. Bartholow, who found that people who saw alcoholic beverage ads were more likely to mistakenly see tools as handguns when associated with black male faces.

This is how the experiment went down: participants were shown a bunch of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drink ads. Then they saw pictures of black and white men’s faces for a split second, followed immediately by pictures of handguns and tools. Those who were exposed to the alcohol ads were more likely to exhibit racial bias, by mistakenly identifying the tools as handguns after seeing photos of black male faces. Participants who saw non-alcoholic drink ads didn’t make the same mistake as often. The quick speed of the experiment kept participants from over-thinking their responses.

Bartholow previously conducted a similar experiment in which participants actually drank alcohol. But this new study shows that even thinking about alcohol increases racial bias. Bartholow’s assessment: the mental association with alcohol could be enough for people to subconsciously relax their inhibitions and “allow their behaviors to be more influenced by stereotypes,” according to a news release.

The experiment helps shed some light on which external factors can influence racial stereotyping. There are a number of cases in which unarmed black men have been shot or even killed by people who mistakenly saw the men wielding guns. It’s unclear whether the Trayvon Martin case fits this description, although his shooter did say he shot the unarmed black teen in self-defense. But take the case of Amadou Diallo, who was shot to death in 1999 by plainclothes police officers who said they thought Diallo was pulling a gun. The unarmed 23-year-old African immigrant was actually reaching for his wallet.

Peter Kramer / Getty Images

Geraldo Rivera is a FOX News correspondent.

Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old black Florida teenager killed by Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, was wearing a hoodie at the time of the shooting. Zimmerman, who hasn’t been charged with a crime, told a 911 dispatcher that Martin “looks like he’s up to no good, or on drugs or something,”

As the case has captured national attention, many have focused on the hoodie. It’s being used as a symbol to stand in solidarity with the Martin family, and now, it’s being partially blamed for the incident. Controversial television personality Geraldo Rivera said on the March 23 edition of “Fox and Friends” that:

I believe that George Zimmerman, the overzealous neighborhood watch captain should be investigated to the fullest extent of the law and if he is criminally liable, he should be prosecuted. But I am urging the parents of black and Latino youngsters particularly to not let their children go out wearing hoodies. I think the hoodie is as much responsible for Trayvon Martin’s death as George Zimmerman was.

Rivera went on to say that he tells his “dark-skinned” son Cruz to not leave the house wearing a hoodie because “people look at you and they — what do they think? What’s the instant identification, what’s the instant association?”

Many then took to Twitter to criticize Rivera, who then tweeted this:

Its sad that I have to be the one reminding minority parents of the risk that comes with being a kid of color in America--channel the rage

March 23, 2012 12:37 pm via Twitter for BlackBerry®ReplyRetweetFavorite

@GeraldoRivera

Geraldo Rivera

Rivera’s advice shifts responsibility from aggressors to victims, much like saying rape victims were “asking for it” because of what they were wearing. But Rivera’s statements also somewhat allude to the painful decisions that many parents have to confront, of how to protect their black and brown children in a world where racism exists and can costs lives.

A more nuanced approach comes in a TIME piece entitled “How to Talk to Young Black Boys About Trayvon Martin” by Touré. The fourth point (emphasis mine) reads:

You will have to make allowances for other people’s racism. That’s part of the burden of being black. We can be defiant and dead or smart and alive. I’m not saying you can’t wear what you want, but your clothes are a red herring. They’ll blame it on your hoodie or your jeans when the real reason they decided you were a criminal is that you’re black. Of course, you know better. Racism is about reminding you that you are less human, less valuable, less worthy, less beautiful, less intelligent. It’s about prejudging you as violent, fearsome, a threat. Some people will take that prejudice and try to force their will on you to make sure you feel like a second-class citizen and to make certain you get back to the lower-class place they think you’re trying to escape. The best way to counter them involves not your fists but your mind. You know your value to the world and how terrific you are. If you never forget that, they can’t damage your spirit. The best revenge is surviving and living well.

Still, many parents fear that no matter how well they prepare their children, they can still become the victims of violence because of their appearances. Liz Dwyer of GOOD writes one of her sons doesn’t think he can be gunned down like Trayvon, partially because of where he lives:

I’m glad he believes he’s safe, but Trayvon was in a gated community, not an urban ghetto. Ruha Benjamin, assistant professor of sociology and African American studies at Boston University, says middle-class black Americans cannot “buy our way out of racial violence.” Benjamin, who has two boys of her own, says the reality is that our sons, “no matter how well-dressed, how well-spoken, might be in the wrong gated community with the wrong bag of threatening Skittles and get mowed down by someone who has decided, essentially, they are out of place.”

Martin wasn’t targeted simply because he was wearing a hoodie, because a hoodie, in of itself, isn’t a symbol that an individual is up to no good. It matters who is wearing it and where. Would Zimmerman have called 911, reporting a “suspicious” person in his gated community, had Martin been a white girl wearing a hoodie? What if Martin hadn’t been wearing a hoodie at all? Martin could have been wearing different clothes, but he couldn’t change the fact that he was young, black and male.

Werth Media / Flickr

A photo of Trayvon Martin appears on a protester's sign during a March 19 rally in Sanford, Fla.

A national debate about racism in the criminal justice system has been reignited by the Feb. 26 killing of an unarmed black teenager in Florida by a non-black man who hasn’t been charged with a crime.

Here’s what happened, according to news reports and newly-released 911 recordings: Trayvon Martin, 17, was walking from a convenience store to his father’s house in a gated community in Sanford, Fla. That’s when Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman, 28, spotted him. Zimmerman called 911, reporting a seeing a suspicious person. “This guy looks like he’s up to no good or he’s on drugs or something,” Zimmerman said to the dispatcher, and began following Martin. A struggle ensued and Martin, unarmed, was fatally shot in the chest. Zimmerman claims self defense and hasn’t been charged with a crime. Federal authorities announced late Monday that they would launch a full-scale criminal investigation following protests over local police’s handling of the case.

The narrative appears to be a sadly familiar one, of seemingly double standards, of little to no punishment when the shooter is white and when the person shot is black. Benjamin Crump, the Martin family’s lawyer, has said that if the roles were reversed and Trayvon Martin was the shooter of a white man, an arrest would have been made immediately.

Orange County Jail

A 2005 photo of George Zimmerman.

But a letter from Zimmerman’s father, Robert Zimmerman, to the Orlando Sentinel complicates the narrative. Robert Zimmerman writes that his son, George, is “a Spanish speaking minority.” (He also goes on write that his son has black family members. “The media portrayal of George as a racist could not be further from the truth,” the letter states.).

Orlando Sentinel reporter Rene Stutzman has been closely following the case and had an exclusive interview with Robert Zimmerman. Stutzman tells DCentric that George Zimmerman’s father is white and his mother is Hispanic.

Does Zimmerman’s Hispanic heritage change the larger story? Maybe not, but it does demonstrate that America’s longstanding black-white debates about racism have been complicated by the country’s shifting demographics. Racial identity for Hispanics is much more fluid than for other groups. Many Hispanic immigrants feel they are accepted as white by larger society, but those with darker complexions still face plenty of discrimination, according to a 2010 American Sociological Association report. In other words, a light skinned Hispanic, such as Zimmerman, may be treated as a white man by larger society, while a darker Hispanic may be treated as black. And when it comes to racial profiling, anyone can discriminate against anyone else. A person can even be sued for racially discriminating against another person of the same race.

In the end, no matter how many debates about race this case spurs, one thing won’t change: a teenager who was carrying little more than a bag of Skittles and a can of iced tea is dead. And for now, a community is torn apart as so many questions remain unanswered.

D. / Flickr

Asian American teens are bullied more than youths belonging to any other racial group, according to new data from the U.S. Justice and Education departments.

Teens aged 12 to 18 were interviewed for the study. More than half of the Asian American teens reported being bullied in classrooms, compared to almost one-third of white students. The disparity is even greater when it comes to cyber bullying; 62 percent of Asian Americans surveyed reported being harassed online once or twice monthly, while only 18.1 percent of whites were cyber bullied.

AFP reports on the findings:

Policymakers see a range of reasons for the harassment, including language barriers faced by some Asian American students and a spike in racial abuse following the September 11, 2001 attacks against children perceived as Muslim.

“This data is absolutely unacceptable and it must change. Our children have to be able to go to school free of fear,” U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Friday during a forum at the Center for American Progress think-tank.

Muslim Americans, many of whom are Asian American, are also facing increased institutionalized profiling by law enforcement since 9/11, recent reports indicate.