Our society is different from 50 years ago, in 1963, or 100 years ago, in 1913. And yet our fundamental behaviors are unchanged. We grow food and eat, have sex and reproduce, become angry and offended and fight, get enraged and kill. The relative proportions of these activities do change, and their expression. In 1913 a black man who offended a white woman was likely to get killed for it by a mob of white men, a lynching. We don't kill people any more for their race. Well, we don't kill their bodies. They are left alive, and run through a legal 'process'. In this case, it is George Zimmerman.
Please take a look at this article. The Broward Police are planning a 'response' to the Zimmerman trial. Now, what are they worried about? Are they worried about wealthy ocean front dwellers burning their neighbors' cars? Are they worried about elderly Jewish shoppers tearing up the stores of Boca Raton? No. They are worried about blacks rioting if Zimmerman is acquitted. And this is where I have some strong and negative feelings about this whole trial.
As I see it, Zimmerman is being lynched the 21st century way- by attorneys. His life has been destroyed. He is a very public figure. He will certainly have to move away from Florida, or at least from Broward County. And all this for an event where an investigation was performed and the recommendation of no charges was made. The original evaluation of the case found no reason to indict Zimmerman.
Then came the outcry. This was racist! A white man got away with killing an innocent young black man! This was lynching, alive in America today! We need the Voting Rights Act. Southern Police are all white bigots. The black man is always presumed guilty. And in an election year, Zimmerman's case was 're-evaluated', and he was indicted for second degree murder. That means he acted out of malice although not deliberate design. In other words, he had it in for blacks like Martin, and took his chance to kill one. This was thus no accident. Zimmerman hates blacks and took the opportunity to finally kill a black man.
But since when does mob outcry equate to a sober evaluation of a case? Only when it involves politics and racial pandering, that's when. And so Zimmerman has had his life destroyed over an event where a politically and racially unweighted evaluation said he should not even be charged.
Now, you may say that evaluation was racially charged. All southern policemen, etc. But a good look at the evidence says not. So far the biggest impact the prosecution has had is to make a case for not indicting Zimmerman. Weeping, dignified mothers make good theater but bad facts. The truth is no one can identify who was screaming with certainty. Everyone's friends think it was their guy. Wow. Shocking, that. The coroner found marijuana in Martin, and conceded the amount was likely enough to cloud his judgment and behavior. A firearms expert says Martin was on top of Zimmerman when the gun was discharged, supporting Zimmerman's own assertion. Zimmerman's injuries were remarkably bad, not what happens if you sucker punch a young man and then shoot him. And there is conflicting eyewitness testimony, likely based on the varying distance of the witnesses from the fight, their angle of view and the time.
And so we have a case brought out of racial pandering, where the police are now preparing for racial violence. When will we act on King's words, that a man be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin? Just because a black man was killed does not mean he as targeted for his race or that the investigation was invalidated by race. Oh, and it's rich to call Zimmerman a white man. He's Hispanic! It makes much better press to say a white man killed a black man. The NYT even persisted in calling Zimmerman a 'white Hispanic'. Is that similar to a black man being an Oreo (for those who do not recall, that's a man who is black on the outside and white on the inside)? What does that make Zimmerman, a taco? Bland, Hispanic on the outside but really just another prejudiced white cracker?
The reason I don't own a gun is that if I experienced this at the hands of society I would be tempted to act like Charles Bronson in Deathwish. I hope Zimmerman is exonerated, and that the black community of Broward County will have the sense and strength so see events not in racial terms but in human ones. Prejudice is making judgments of an individual based on negative assumptions about their group identity. Who's doing that now?
Ted
Please take a look at this article. The Broward Police are planning a 'response' to the Zimmerman trial. Now, what are they worried about? Are they worried about wealthy ocean front dwellers burning their neighbors' cars? Are they worried about elderly Jewish shoppers tearing up the stores of Boca Raton? No. They are worried about blacks rioting if Zimmerman is acquitted. And this is where I have some strong and negative feelings about this whole trial.
As I see it, Zimmerman is being lynched the 21st century way- by attorneys. His life has been destroyed. He is a very public figure. He will certainly have to move away from Florida, or at least from Broward County. And all this for an event where an investigation was performed and the recommendation of no charges was made. The original evaluation of the case found no reason to indict Zimmerman.
Then came the outcry. This was racist! A white man got away with killing an innocent young black man! This was lynching, alive in America today! We need the Voting Rights Act. Southern Police are all white bigots. The black man is always presumed guilty. And in an election year, Zimmerman's case was 're-evaluated', and he was indicted for second degree murder. That means he acted out of malice although not deliberate design. In other words, he had it in for blacks like Martin, and took his chance to kill one. This was thus no accident. Zimmerman hates blacks and took the opportunity to finally kill a black man.
But since when does mob outcry equate to a sober evaluation of a case? Only when it involves politics and racial pandering, that's when. And so Zimmerman has had his life destroyed over an event where a politically and racially unweighted evaluation said he should not even be charged.
Now, you may say that evaluation was racially charged. All southern policemen, etc. But a good look at the evidence says not. So far the biggest impact the prosecution has had is to make a case for not indicting Zimmerman. Weeping, dignified mothers make good theater but bad facts. The truth is no one can identify who was screaming with certainty. Everyone's friends think it was their guy. Wow. Shocking, that. The coroner found marijuana in Martin, and conceded the amount was likely enough to cloud his judgment and behavior. A firearms expert says Martin was on top of Zimmerman when the gun was discharged, supporting Zimmerman's own assertion. Zimmerman's injuries were remarkably bad, not what happens if you sucker punch a young man and then shoot him. And there is conflicting eyewitness testimony, likely based on the varying distance of the witnesses from the fight, their angle of view and the time.
And so we have a case brought out of racial pandering, where the police are now preparing for racial violence. When will we act on King's words, that a man be judged by the content of his character and not the color of his skin? Just because a black man was killed does not mean he as targeted for his race or that the investigation was invalidated by race. Oh, and it's rich to call Zimmerman a white man. He's Hispanic! It makes much better press to say a white man killed a black man. The NYT even persisted in calling Zimmerman a 'white Hispanic'. Is that similar to a black man being an Oreo (for those who do not recall, that's a man who is black on the outside and white on the inside)? What does that make Zimmerman, a taco? Bland, Hispanic on the outside but really just another prejudiced white cracker?
The reason I don't own a gun is that if I experienced this at the hands of society I would be tempted to act like Charles Bronson in Deathwish. I hope Zimmerman is exonerated, and that the black community of Broward County will have the sense and strength so see events not in racial terms but in human ones. Prejudice is making judgments of an individual based on negative assumptions about their group identity. Who's doing that now?
Ted
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