@kd24 - yeah, sorry for bringing up Davis. I was just bemused that the "right to life" was finally being acknowledged, and wanted to poke the bear a little. I get shit brought up about me in threads I haven't even posted in, just figured a little fair play is well within the unspoken rules of decorum in this forum. Don't like it? I'll turn around in an instant if you want to get some standards around here.
You mean you like the unity of an unthinking mob trying to turn George Zimmerman into George Wallace? Jesus Christ also brought the unity of all walks of life to one cause when the Pharisees and their assembled supporters shouted "CRUCIFY! CRUCIFY!" during his hearing with Pontius Pilate. That behavior isn't new or even original.
Nor is your behavior of putting evil thoughts into the minds of people who don't share your view of the world. I don't know why your philosophy and logical process is so weak it requires you to think people who disagree are full of hate and bigotry - but I will say it's an indication that maybe you should be a lot less judgmental and actually study the issues independently rather than regurgitate talking points. Get out of your bubble world.
But lets get back on this racial thing. Breitbart has a timeline of the media coverage that desperately tried to paint Zimmerman as the poster child for white racism:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/13/Media-Zimmerman-Coverage-Rap-Sheet
Problem is, Zimmerman is Peruvian. His great-grandfather had very dark skin. Zimmerman comes from one of the most multi-racial families in America.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-s...-grandparents-would-have-looked-lot-george-zi
George Zimmerman's great-grandfather holding George Zimmerman's mother when she was a toddler.
I just want to say upfront that I've thoroughly enjoyed your attack on the media portrayal of Zimmerman. And I know that sounds sarcastic probably, but I can't word it any better other than saying "Yeah, actually you're way right on that". So... good on you.
And now I'm going to switch gears from praising your good arguments to pointing out your shit ones.
George Zimmerman saw a young guy wearing a dark hoodie walking close to houses on a rainy night, in a neighborhood that had a recent rash of break-ins committed by young guys likely wearing Martin's style of clothing and around Martin's age.
The bolded words imply that even you recognize this as conjecture.
Given he has his own history wearing county orange, he might have thought Martin was casing houses from stories he heard in hail or general knowledge of criminal behavior. So he called the police via the 911 dispatcher.
Holy shit, that's like the most convenient set-up for a plot ever. Man goes to jail, and is tutored in all the ways of criminology by the masters themselves and upon release becomes a master investigator. Fiction aside, I don't see how walking down a street listening to music holding skittles and Arizona in the middle of the night is "normal criminal behavior for casing a place they're going to rob." That sounds more like "the most dense criminal behavior in the history of all criminals, especially for one who has gotten away with robbing multiple houses in the same area".
Then again, if you're point with this line of thought was proving Zimmerman as a moron with horrible judgment, then by all means, this story supports that claim. However I believe your story was an attempt to have a non-racist person find themselves in this situation. Frankly that's not possible, there is a racist sentiment inherent in this no matter how you look at it. That said I'm still not sure if Zimmerman is actually racist or just so stupid he accidentally was racist.
Sharpton is now going around trying to rile up riots (
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/15/NBCs-Al-Sharpton-Plans-Protest-in-100-Cities) on the [unstated by him] basis that police are part of the problem.
Irrelevant to everything else but I found this line amusing. "He's doing something for this reason, even though no one has ever said that's the reason, but I know how they think, that is the TRUE reason." The level of assumption is just A+.
More to the point Zimmerman didn't even give Martin's race until asked to by the dispatcher. NBC edited that tape to make it look otherwise and fuel the white racism false narrative, but the fact is he thought Martin was acting suspicious probably on the basis of what clothes he was wearing and how close he was walking to the houses.
This is the first I've heard of Trayvon Martin walking "suspiciously close to houses", so either I'm uninformed, or you're making another assumption. Not sure. Honestly, not that important.
Martin was in Zimmerman's neighborhood.
No, Martin was in his own neighborhood. He has every right to be where he was considering he was living there. Unless you're saying this from Zimmerman's perspective to outline his stupidity again, at which point, I don't disagree, Zimmerman was a very irrational moron who made way too many assumptions.
Zimmerman has every right to walk around there ask people there what they are up to. What I imagine happened is that Zimmerman tried to talk to Martin after the call just to explain that he'd called the dispatcher and was waiting for the police, just to be safe given the neighborhood has had a bunch of break-ins recently. You can question the wisdom of confronting someone you just called the police on, and maybe that's what set off the physical altercation. Only Zimmerman has the potential of knowing, and who knows what trauma he suffered altered his memory of that night.
Alright, the first sentence is perfectly correct. It's rather rude and presumptuous, but not 'wrong'. However everything after that is complete fabrication. And sure, it's possible to create a story in which Zimmerman isn't all that bad of a guy, just an idiot, but that doesn't prove anything. All it proves is that it's possible he is just an idiot, and not some comical villain who is out to "get the blacks". Not that he necessarily is just an idiot, only that it's possible. It's also just as possible to paint a line of thought that shows him as some villainesque caricature of a person who thinks "all them silverbacks are just horrible scum".
As a said before though, even if he's just an idiot who makes too many assumptions, at least one of those assumptions is racist, as I'll touch on later.
The other problem is Purple Drank. (
http://www.examiner.com/article/trayvon-s-skittles-arizona-tea-and-something-called-purple-drank) The night of the incident Martin had Skittles and a can of Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail [that is the product name, spare me the hyperventilating] - which are two ingredients in the Purple Drank mixture (the other being cough syrup [Codeine]). If what I suggested above and Zimmerman tried to talk to Martin and explain he called the police just to see if Martin knew anything, and Martin was holding 2/3rds of the ingredients for Purple Drank - whether he was going to make it or not - he might have panicked thinking the police would arrest him for that and that's when the beating started.
Or he could've just been to the store to buy some Skittles and Arizona, which are rather popular snacks, and perhaps being threatened by an armed man who has 70 pounds and has lived half a lifetime longer than him is threatening enough in itself that he panicked and tried to fight Zimmerman.
Again, we can paint pictures with the given facts but they don't prove anything. And really you should be more aware of what you're implying with the way you paint the pictures "Zimmerman is a misguided person who made some mistakes that night, but Trayvon was trying to make an illegal drink and had run-ins with the law before, of the two he was clearly the worse person." I'm sure that's a claim you don't want to make, because of the two, only one has killed a fellow human being. As you're so fond of saying, "the onus" is on the people claiming Zimmerman's a racist, you'd be better off pointing out where they make their assumptions and misguided thoughts, rather than trying to prove he ISN'T a racist, because it ends up making you look bad.
Now, Martin had trouble in school as well. In fact he was suspended from Krop High School in Miami-Dade county and he was living with his father's girlfriend the night of the incident. There's an article pointing out that because of Miami-Dade school system's attempt to improve their crime statistics through bureaucratic redefinition, some of Martin's criminal behaviors went uncorrected as they were redefined to disciplinary actions. (
http://spectator.org/blog/2013/07/15/trayvon-crime-school-miami) Martin doesn't live in Sanford, unfortunately his family life is not as good as I imagine he and everyone looking into this wishes it were.
These are all true, but you're missing the point. It doesn't matter if Trayvon was a mass murderer, Zimmerman didn't know any of that, and even if his assumptions proved accurate they were still assumptions.
As I said before, Zimmerman also had brushes with the law, and the most popular photo of Zimmerman in the media was in his "county orange" jumpsuit mugshot.
Bottom Line:
Neither of these guys are saints. Both of them had bad judgement that night, and it ended up getting one of them killed.
This is true, no complaints here.
The problem is that in the aftermath people are being stupid and insisting that calling the police is racist, following a guy wearing form-concealing clothes who isn't from your neighborhood is racist, and being overzealous in trying to protect your community after a rash of break-ins is racist.
People would rather call anything racist that deal with the fact that walking around at night in a neighborhood that has break-ins wearing the same clothes and fitting the same general description of the suspects is going to earn you scrutiny if the neighborhood watch captain is making the rounds. The people crying racism seem to think the ONLY thing that might cause suspicion is Martin's skin color, when the fact is his clothing and behavior are the more likely triggers.
First, clothing and behavior being more likely triggers has been entirely conjecture.
ALRIGHT. Here we go.
Why is Zimmerman a racist? Why can't he just be an idiot?
Well, because even if he's an idiot, part of his assumptions have an inherent racism in them. "Fitting the same general description" of previous break-in suspects? That's just it, it was a general description. To paraphrase one of my favorite films: Oh, and no young black male wearing a hoodie and walking through a gated neighborhood late at night could possibly belong there, therefore couldn't possibly be any other young black male than the burgler. Is that what you're saying?
Zimmerman took the description of "Young Black Male" and assumed the first one he saw was the burgler. Can you not see how that's slightly racist? Even if it's just from pure idiocy, assuming that any young black male in this neighborhood that late at night has no business being there is in part racist. Not entirely racist, or only racist mind you. It's not just because he is black, but rather because he is black AND young AND male. So slightly sexist, racist, and... agist? Overall just bigoted. He didn't follow Trayvon around to find out more, to see if he lived there, or if he was visiting a friend's place, he made an assumption, called the police, and even confronted Trayvon for no other reason than he fit the description of "Young Black Male". He discriminated against Trayvon on the basis of a description that fits around 10 million people (
Black Male, Ages 15-30). The implication that any one of those 10 million people are equally worthy of suspicion for the crimes of one is horrendously bigoted.
Now are his reasons SOLELY because of race, no of course not, but race is a factor in it, no matter how you slice it. Racism isn't... for lack of a better term, "Black and White". The world is not separated into pure black-hating racists, and normal people. It's not as if race has to be the ONLY reason for him to be racist, just the fact that race itself is a reason at all is enough for it to be racist.
Keep in mind, I agree that the race aspect of this case has been heavily hyped up and overblown, but I disagree with the idea that there isn't a race aspect of this case.
All you have to ask yourself is - if Zimmerman saw a white kid in a hoodie that looked like he was casing houses, would he have called the dispatcher? Zimmerman seems pretty cowardly and meek, so I'd say yes.
I know this was entirely unintentional, but adding the qualifiers to Zimmerman being cowardly and weak makes it seem as if you need more reasons to call the cops on a white kid as opposed to a black kid, and one of those reasons is "cowardice".
That's just regular funny, but I know you didn't mean it that way.
