I think it’s important that George Zimmerman has had a trial.
I don’t know if George Zimmerman is guilty of murder under Florida’s laws or not. That’s partly a subjective determination which can only properly be made by a judge or jury. Martin’s death was not so clear-cut that a cop or prosecutor ought to have decided that Zimmerman should face no consequences. In our system, that decision is, and should be, made in a courtroom.
Given the US’s historic and ongoing racism, I think it’s reasonable to particularly fear such decisions being made by cops or prosecutors in cases where the person killed was a young black boy. It is reasonable to wonder, when a clearly innocent, unarmed, black kid is shot to death and the police decide no charges are needed, if the same decision would have been reached if the body were white.
That all remains true if Zimmerman is found “not guilty,” which strikes me as the most likely outcome (and one I’d probably vote for myself, if I were on the jury). From the progressive, anti-racist point of view, victory doesn’t require a guilty verdict. Even in a hypothetical perfectly non-racist system, injustice would still happen, and sometimes people would get away with murder. This is because our justice system, when it’s working properly, is and should be biased in favor of the dependent defendant.
I don’t blame people for being unhappy with Zimmerman being found not guilty (if he is found not guilty), or for correctly seeing it as part of a pattern in which black lives are taken less seriously by our justice system. But I also think that, given the facts of this case, it wouldn’t require racial bias for the jury to find that Zimmerman acted in self-defense.
Russell Simmons writes:
Even with this important day coming soon, I remind myself that we have already accomplished a tremendous amount in the memory of Trayvon. All we ever asked for was for equal justice for the young man who was killed that drizzling night in Sanford, Florida. If George Zimmerman had rights, so did Trayvon Martin. And that is why Mr. Zimmerman was properly arrested and charged with murder in the second degree. He will soon be judged by a jury of his peers, and that is the best we can do.
Victory should not require any particular verdict in this trial. That there was a trial is the victory.
Of course, some people consider it ridiculous that there was a trial at all, or that the jury is being allowed to reach a verdict. Over at Ethics Alarms, Jack writes:
Last week, Judge Debra Nelson, presiding over Zimmerman’s trial, rejected the motion by Zimmerman’s defense team to dismiss the case before a single defense witness had been called, because the prosecution had not met its burden of proof. Media analysts were quick to note that such motions are routine, but this one wasn’t: it was obvious and undeniable that the prosecution’s case could not support a verdict of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. A courageous, fair and ethical judge would have dismissed the case: Judge Nelson did not. Judges usually default to the position that we should let the jury decide, but when the evidence won’t support a legitimate guilty verdict, as in this case, that position is irresponsible.
Not for the first time, Jack genuinely can’t imagine that any reasonable person could ever disagree with the right-wing view. This case is not nearly as clear-cut as he suggests.
According to Findlaw:
Florida’s jury instructions (which are based on the Florida statute) spell out three elements that prosecutors must prove to establish second degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt:
- The victim is deceased,
- The victim’s death was caused by the defendant’s criminal act, and
- There was an unlawful killing of the victim “by an act imminently dangerous to another and demonstrating a depraved mind without regard for human life.”
The last element — an “imminently dangerous” act that shows a “depraved mind” — is further defined by Florida’s jury instructions. Three elements must be present:
- A “person of ordinary judgment” would know the act, or series of acts, “is reasonably certain to kill or do serious bodily injury to another”;
- The act is “done from ill will, hatred, spite, or an evil intent”; and
- The act is “of such a nature that the act itself indicates an indifference to human life.”
Note that prosecutors do not have to prove the defendant intended to cause death, Florida’s jury instructions state.
IF the jury is persuaded that Zimmerman, who told the dispatcher “Fucking punks. Those assholes, they always get away,” before disregarding the dispatcher’s request to stay put and chasing after a 17-year-old kid in the dark while carrying a gun, had demonstrated both ill will and committing an act that was very likely to lead to serious bodily injury, they could reasonably find Zimmerman guilty of second degree murder.
The jury could also find Zimmerman guilty of the lesser included offense of manslaughter. Findlaw again:
To establish involuntary manslaughter, the prosecutor must show that the defendant acted with “culpable negligence.” Florida statutes define culpable negligence as a disregard for human life while engaging in wanton or reckless behavior. The state may be able to prove involuntary manslaughter by showing the defendant’s recklessness or lack of care when handling a dangerous instrument or weapon, or while engaging in a range of other activities that could lead to death if performed recklessly.
So to find that Zimmerman committed manslaughter, no finding of spite or ill will is required.
Zimmerman’s strongest argument is that Martin’s death was in self-defense. Although not all witnesses agreed, both Zimmerman’s injuries and the testimony of the closest third party witness support Zimmerman’s testimony that Zimmerman had been punched in the nose, and that Martin was on top of Zimmerman and may have pounded Zimmerman’s head into the ground.
I think someone in that situation could very reasonably fear “death or great bodily harm,” even if he provoked the situation himself through his own idiotic actions. However, from the standard instructions given Florida juries in self-defense cases:
The use of deadly force is not justifiable if you find George Zimmerman initially provoked the use of force against himself, by force or the threat of force, unless:
* The force asserted toward George Zimmerman was so great that he reasonably believed that he was in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and had exhausted every reasonable means to escape the danger, other than using deadly force on Trayvon Martin;
So there if the jury believes that Zimmerman “initially provoked the use of force,” AND if they believe that Zimmerman had not “exhausted every reasonable means to escape the danger,” then they could reasonably decide that Zimmerman was not acting in legitimate self-defense.
Honestly, if I was on the jury, I’d probably vote “not guilty.” Someone on the ground, being straddled and beaten, can reasonably be in fear of death or serious injury, and may not believe he has any way out other than his gun. And although much of Zimmerman’s testimony doesn’t seem credible to me, that he was on the ground being straddled and hit by Martin does strike me as credible, given his injuries and the neighbor’s testimony.
But I’m not on the jury. And I don’t think the judge was wrong to think that determination should be made by the jury.
* * *
A couple of random thoughts:
* Ironically, it seems to me that if Zimmerman had died – if in the course of the scuffle Zimmerman’s head had hit the pavement so hard that Zimmerman died of a mortal injury – that Trayvon Martin would have a much stronger case for self-defense than Zimmerman has.
* Although I think Zimmerman may have reasonably been in fear of his life, given how objectively minor his injuries were, that fear was almost certainly mistaken. If Zimmerman hadn’t had a gun, it is overwhelmingly likely that both Zimmerman and Martin would be alive today. Yay guns!
* I actually think that chasing after someone in the dark with a gun, unless there are highly compelling circumstances justifying it, should itself be a crime – even if the gunholder winds up in a situation where he fears for his life. (I don’t find Zimmerman’s story that he didn’t pursue Martin credible, although of course a jury could reasonably disagree with me about that.) The potential for an otherwise nonlethal conflict to escalate into something deadly when idiots like Zimmerman bring a gun into what had been a non-gun situation is obvious, and in my opinion Zimmerman’s actions showed a depraved indifference to that possibility. That should be a crime. But maybe it’s effectively not a crime, under current Florida law.
* I find it disgusting that so much of the discussion of this trial, and the trial itself, (such as admitting evidence that Martin had – gasp! – smoked pot at some point!) has been about disparaging Martin and his friend Rachel Jeantel. In particular, the racist, sexist, classist, and fatphobic attacks on Jeantel have disgusted me. For more on this, read Erikka Yancy, Demetria Lucas, and Mychal Denzel Smith.
Robert:
I wonder what you think the word “indication” and “shit” means. If you mean “iron-clad evidence” and “violence,” there is zero indication that Zimmerman started any shit – but there is also zero indication that Martin started any shit. We know that one of them started the fight, but we don’t know which one of them it was.
If by “indication” you mean “reason to suspect,” of course there’s reason to suspect that Zimmerman may have started any shit – just as there’s reason to suspect that Martin may have started any shit. We know for a fact that shit got started, after all, and there were only the two of them present.
Zimmerman had a history of starting shit, including attacking a cop. He was angry (“Fucking punks, these assholes, they always get away”) and appears, from his recent history of 911 calls, to have a bug up his ass about young black men. There is every reason to suspect that Zimmerman might have been the one to “start shit.”
What bullshit. If a big stranger follows me in their car, looking hostile, then jumps out and follows me on foot, of course I’ll find that provocative. That doesn’t give me a right to attack the person, needless to say, but it’s ridiculous of you to claim that I have no right to find that at all provocative.
Actually, no, the best interpretation to put on Martin’s actions is that Zimmerman got physical first and Martin got physical only in self-defense. It’s interesting that this didn’t even occur to you as a possibility.
Conrad:
It’s possible that the shooting happened just as the police said it did. (And I never said otherwise.)
It’s also possible that a cop made a bad mistake – mistaking a drugged-up gesture for reaching for the gun, for instance – and that’s what instigated the shooting. If so, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that police have shot guns when they shouldn’t have, or lied to protect each other.
Any time there’s a shooting, and the only people left alive
to tell the story,tell a story that absolves themselves of all responsibility, a logical person should consider the possibility that the shooter(s) are lying. That doesn’t mean that they are lying – just that we should recognize that it’s an obvious possibility.* * *
In another case, a young man was patted down twice, then handcuffed and put in the back of a police cruiser. According to the police, he then got out the gun he had hidden which the police didn’t find when they searched him, and even though his hands were cuffed behind his back, managed to shoot himself in the right temple (he was left-handed). The cruiser had a dashboard video camera, but according to the police, it happened to malfunction and not be recording at the time when he shot himself.
All that is possible. People do sometimes hide weapons where a pat-down doesn’t find them. If the handcuffs were put on loosely enough so that he could slide them up his forearms partway, it is possible to shoot yourself in the head while your hands are cuffed behind you, if you’re flexible (and he was 21, an age where people are often very flexible). Video cameras do sometimes fail to work at just the wrong moment. Someone in a moment of irrational (suicidal) thinking might use his right hand to perform a very tricky task even though he is a lefty.
I honestly believe all that to be possible. Plus, the police had a supporting witness (not identified in news reports).
But it would be ridiculous to not even consider the possibility that the police and the witness may not be telling the full and honest truth.
“It’s also possible that a cop made a bad mistake – mistaking a drugged-up gesture for reaching for the gun, for instance – and that’s what instigated the shooting. If so, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that police have shot guns when they shouldn’t have, or lied to protect each other.”
I completely agree it’s possible the woman wouldn’t have actually fired the gun (or, if she
had, that anyone would be killed or wounded). The question is whether police officers are obliged to take that chance.
It seems like the most typical outcome in any situation where a person wields a gun in the presence of police officers is (a) a fatal shooting of the gun-wielder (usually involving an overwhelming display of firepower), (b) no criminal liability for the policy; but (c) severe damage to the police officers’ careers. I would think that “c” (along with the possibility that “b” won’t apply and “d” (the possibility of civil liability)) is sufficient to keep the police from ever feeling like they can just shoot people for no good reason and get away with it. That, and the fact that there really aren’t THAT many psychopaths in the world.
I would also agree, of course, that any police officer involved in a shooting is likely portray the shooting as justified, whether or not it is. However, I am equally convinced that any family member of the deceased, any lawyer representing the family, and any political/racial activists responding to the shooting are likely to portray the shooting as unjustified, whether or not it is.
Of course, you have raised the point that the deceased can never testify in these situations, so the shooter can spin whatever exculpatory tale he wants without fear of contradiction. To some extent that’s true, but it’s unavoidable. What’s the alternative? We don’t even LISTEN to what the shooter has to say? Obviously, that would go against common sense as well as violate the accused’s due process rights.
Moreover, the idea that a shooter (whether it’s the police or anyone) can make up any story they want to support a claim of self-defense is simply not that realistic anymore, not in an era of highly sophisticated forensic science, dashboard cameras, cellphone cameras, recorded 911 calls, etc. It MAY be that some fraction of guilty shooters get away with murder by claiming self-defense, but I doubt it’s a high percentage, and I’m pretty sure even the “not guilty” ones pay a high price in the form of bankrupting legal fees, loss of jobs and careers, and civil liability. Again, barring actual psychopathy, there’s very little in it for police or anyone else to just shoot people — strangers, usually — for no good reason on the theory that investigators, the coroner, and eventually a jury will by into their phony claim of self-defense.
I think we would both agree that all of these cases require careful case-by-case examination. Where I think I would probably differ from you is that I am highly skeptical of the idea that the “system” makes it so easy for police or ordinary, lawful gun-owners to kill people and get away with it that they are, in fact, cavalierly shooting minorities for no good reason, or just to blow off steam, or because they are racists.
I honestly believe all that to be possible.
As lawyers say, anything’s possible, counsel. That’s very different from whether something is likely, particularly when it’s a stream of well-it’s-possibles that turn into an outlandish result, and that’s supposed to drown out the more obvious and probable cause. Certainly, another possible explanation is that a Black Panther provocauter slipped by the cops, leaned into the police car without being seen and shot him exactly when the videocamera malfunctioned.
We can sit around and make shit up all day that’s “possible”. By doing so, we’d be intentionally avoiding talking about whether any of those “possible” fantasies makes more sense that the obvious, also “possible” and far more likely explanation.
Also, duh, Martin was wearing a hoodie! As you know, that’s thug gear that instantly transforms any young black man wearing it into a violent, uppity punk who always swings first.
Mythago:
Ta-Nehisi Coates put this very well:
And TNC doesn’t even mention that as much as Martin has no violent history, Zimmerman does.
So yeah, maybe Martin went berzerk and jumped a larger stranger in the night while shouting unlikely-sounding threats. And maybe the dude in the cop car shot himself in the right side of his head with a gun magically appearing in his left hand while handcuffed. But … y’know … Occam’s Razor.
—Myca
No violent history? What about TM’s penchant for fighting? Didn’t you see his text messages?
Conrad, you keep on referring to his text messages without quoting any, and without supporting links.
For the benefit of those who haven’t seen them, here’s how the Tampa Bay Times reported them:
So those are the text messages. None of them indicate that
TreyvonTrayvon was in the habit of psychotically attacking strangers for no reason at all, or that he was violent beyond the norm (at least for boys). To me, the texts look like normal teenage boys puffing themselves up and talking shit to each other.It should be noted that
TreyvonTrayvon was probably lying about why he was suspended – school records indicate that he was suspended three times, once for tardiness, one for pot, and once for writing on a locker with a magic marker. There’s no record of him ever being suspended for fighting.It’s ridiculous to suggest, as you have repeatedly, that being in a schoolyard boxing match – one with a referee and rounds – proves that someone is likely to jump a stranger for no reason.
Actually, no, the best interpretation to put on Martin’s actions is that Zimmerman got physical first and Martin got physical only in self-defense. It’s interesting that this didn’t even occur to you as a possibility.
Look at the map. Barring TM lying in wait (which is what GZ said happened) or GZ running, there is no way that GZ is the person who closes distance. Forensics do not indicate GZ ran.
I suppose it is possible that TM could have closed distance peaceably, intending to chat and offer some Skittles, and that GZ then attacked, but that seems so improbable a scenario that you’re right, I didn’t consider it.
A scenario where TM is lying in wait so that GZ is technically the one closing distance (aka an ambush) is not consistent with a good-case scenario for TM’s actions, so I didn’t consider that either.
Given the location of the fight, there’s not a physical movement scenario consistent with a well-behaving TM and a fight-starting GZ. Just for the record, also, you characterized my retraction of the statement that GZ was on the phone, as an admission that TM couldn’t have just walked home. That isn’t what I said, and it doesn’t contradict the physical movements of the men: TM started walking first, GM started walking second, if TM had walked home GZ would never have seen him again. That appears to be physically proven. TM left footprints, dude. His footprints are back and forth, back and forth, looping and relooping. He didn’t even try to go home.
I can hardly stand to read this thread. But I’m going to share this anyway, even though I’m convinced only the “choir” will read it.
http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/07/17/trayvon-martin-and-why-the-right-wing-media-spe/194930
If you go back and look at the coverage of the Martin story as it began to unfold nationally in the winter of 2012, the conservative media, including Fox News, were especially slow to take interest in the matter. That’s in part, I suspect, because there was no natural angle to pursue. As Orlando Sentinel columnist Beth Kassab wrote at the time, there was “no good way for gun proponents to spin the death of an unarmed teenager.” The Martin killing didn’t fit the far right’s usual narrative about violence and minorities and how white America is allegedly under physical assault from Obama’s violent African-American base.
At the time, National Review editor Rich Lowry even wrote a blog post headlined “Al Sharpton is right,” agreeing that Zimmerman should be charged with the killing of Martin. (Lowry slammed the shooter’s “stupendous errors in judgment” that fateful night.)
That same day, on March 23, President Obama answered a direct question about the controversy and said, “My main message is to the parents of Trayvon Martin. You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.” That quickly sparked a mindless right-wing media stampede as Obama Derangement Syndrome kicked in. “Once Obama spoke out, caring about Martin became a ‘Democratic’ issue, and Republicans felt not just free but obligated to fling all sorts of shit,” Alex Pareene wrote last year at Salon.
Pledging to uncover the “truth” about the shooting victim and determined to prove definitively that anti-black racism doesn’t exists in America (it’s a political tool used by liberals, Republican press allies insist), many in the right-wing media have dropped any pretense of mourning Martin’s death and set out to show how he probably deserved it.
The list of things TM “possibly” did to get the 10-day suspension for tardiness posted by Glenn Beck is particularly heinous, and yet of a piece with the whole genre of “he was asking for it/he was a thug” media.
Robert, could you PLEASE start providing links to support your claims about “forensics” and “footprints”? There’s nothing like that in the link you provided, which attributes TM looping back to GZ’s story, not to any forensic evidence. A search for “Trayvon Martin footprints” turned up nothing.
Of course there is – for example, TM could have walked back and confronted GZ, and then GZ could have been the first one to throw a punch. Or TM could have slowed or stopped for a bit because he was concentrating on his phone conversation, and GZ caught up with him. Etc, etc.
And yet the idea that Martin hid in the bushes and then jumped out and attacked Zimmerman in a homicidal rage for no reason at all, yelling really unrealistic dialog, strikes you as extremely plausible – is in fact something you don’t question or doubt for a moment.
So when a (you say) unlikely scenario would imply that Zimmerman might have started the fight, it’s not worth considering, because unlikely. But when an unlikely scenario implies that Trayvon started the fight, you accept it uncritically.
No double-standards here, oh no.
So what?
I don’t think that most reasonable people are even suggesting the POSSIBILITY that Trayvon was some hyperaggressive psychotic kid. That’s a ludicrous straw man. And in that vein, nobody who thinks that Trayvon probably threw the first punch thinks it was “for no reason at all.”
Most people (including me) conclude that he probably got in a fight with Zimmerman because he was freaked out, pissed, scared, angry, had poor judgment, or some combination of all of those things. Those are all decent reasons to want to attack people, though they’re not good reasons as a legal standard and you’ll get in trouble if you actually attack people.
On a similar point, I’m not sure why folks are trying to insist on Zimmerman’s violent nature. It doesn’t seem all that different from Trayvon’s, and especially when combined with the allegations of hideous racism, the proof isn’t in the pudding.
Seriously: if you had a violent hyper-aggressive dude driving around, he would probably tend to beat people up (or get in fights with them) instead of making panicked calls to 911 in the role of a neighborhood watch. All those years of police reports, and no reports of actually fighting with a single person who he reported? If he had decided to shoot Trayvon and lie about it, he’d probably have done it rather than calling police just before he shot him.
And of course, why on earth would someone planning to shoot Trayvon toss out their biggest advantage? Zimmerman was carrying a gun: why let Trayvon get close enough to hurt him? Why get hurt at all, for that matter? Why rely on the hope (in this unlikely scenario) that Trayvon wasn’t carrying a knife/gun/etc. on his own; why get into a fight with an unknown-armed-status assailant without either drawing or dealing with his weapon, this time and not any other time that he’d call 911?
Bizarrely enough, the thing which probably had a lot of effect was the fact that the gun was concealed. It’s quite possible that a freaked-out 17-year old with average-teenage-male judgment and aggression issues (wmight have decided that the best option was to take a swing at his follower. It’s much less likely if he knew that Zimmerman was armed with a gun. I don’t personally like guns much, but they’re certainly much riskier when concealed.
It’s also George Zimmerman’s story. And a lot of people on the right seem to be taking it seriously. (A google search turns up over ten million uses of the words “Trayvon” and “thug” in combination.)
I don’t think that Zimmerman was a violent hyper-aggressive dude, but I can’t understand why you and others say that having attacked a cop, and had a restraining order taken out, is not relevant. There is ZERO chance that if Trayvor Martin had been arrested for attacking a cop, folks here would say that was irrelevant.
As for what actually happened…
Although we can’t know, I think Zimmerman frightened Martin by following him; that the two argued; that Zimmerman, convinced he was following a criminal, either grabbed or shoved Martin; both of them were frightened and thus hostile and thus the confrontation escalated to a fight; and that once Zimmerman was losing the fight he drew his gun and shot Zimmerman. I don’t know for sure, but that seems like a reasonable guess, and in character for both of them. It doesn’t require assuming that either one of them acted like a homicidal maniac.
–Florida police officer, commenting on Zimmerman’s acquittal.
ZOMG, people who had nothing to do with the case are racist or derogatory towards Martin? Well, that certainly demonstrates….nothing?
“And yet the idea that Martin hid in the bushes and then jumped out and attacked Zimmerman in a homicidal rage for no reason at all, yelling really unrealistic dialog,”
I’ve addressed the dialog question; you didn’t take me up on my offer to (offline) explain my bona fides on why you’re wrong. And it wouldn’t be no reason at all; you’ve acknowledged several of the possible reasons. He was pissed. He was scared. He thought it was self-defense.
TM’s looping is corroborated by the 911 calls. There is a section of the HLN reconstruction which is purely based on Zimmerman’s testimony; it is so labeled. The overall map is not purely based on Zimmerman’s testimony; it’s drawn from the entire available facts.
You’re right about the footprints; I read something Jeralyn wrote about footprints and it got conflated in my mind.
He was arrested for attacking a cop. But that’s it. They didn’t prove it, dropped the charges and, given your comments here, do you really think police officers arresting people for crimes against them should have their testimony take at face value. It is basically a failed self serving accusation.
As for the restraining order, so what? They’re great and feminists should be very proud of introducing them. It is a very good idea to protect people from the threat of future abuse. But because of that they don’t require proof that anyone has committed any actual violence. So they mean nothing from an evidential standard.
If a big stranger follows me in their car, looking hostile, then jumps out and follows me on foot, of course I’ll find that provocative.
Just out of curiosity, why do you think Trayvon (5’11”) thought that the guy in the car, Zimmerman (5’7″) was “big”?
Zimmerman was heavier than Trayvon. I’m about 5’11”; a man four inches shorter and heavier than me is not “big”, they’re a “short fat guy”. Regardless, Trayvon would not have seen Zimmerman’s girth until well into the confrontation, so it’s not a big stranger following him in the car, it’s a short stranger following him in the car.
Point well taken, Robert.
That said, I bet they both thought the other guy was bigger and heavier. Strangers in the dark tend to seem bigger and heavier than they do in the light.
Ampersand says:
July 19, 2013 at 12:58 pm
I don’t think that most reasonable people are even suggesting the POSSIBILITY that Trayvon was some hyperaggressive psychotic kid. That’s a ludicrous straw man.
It’s also George Zimmerman’s story. And a lot of people on the right seem to be taking it seriously. (A google search turns up over ten million uses of the words “Trayvon” and “thug” in combination.)
Sure. There are nut jobs on the right. There are also nut jobs on the left, of the “I don’t care what the facts say, I know what I know” kind of thing. (And also: hyperagressive/psychotic is one thing. “Thug” is another. If I showed folks those texts above OUTSIDE the context of this trial… well, I suspect quite a few reasonable people and many liberals wouldn’t classify the author the same way.
It’s relevant, but not very. That’s mostly because it is relatively old, and because Zimmerman was relatively young when it happened. And because we don’t see a lot of other indications that the 20-year old Zimmerman is the same, violence-wise, as the 28-year-old Zimmerman. It’s the same reason that it would be odd to flag 18-year old Trayvon if he got into a fight when he was 12. Or how, had he lived, it would be odd to accuse 26-year old Trayvon Martin of being “violent” on account of those texts sent when he was 17.
have continued, it’s probably
From this afternoon: President Obama’s remarks on Trayvon Martin (full transcript)
(Via this post on The American Prospect.)
Re: It’s the same reason that it would be odd to flag 18-year old Trayvon if he got into a fight when he was 12. Or how, had he lived, it would be odd to accuse 26-year old Trayvon Martin of being “violent” on account of those texts sent when he was 17.
Uh, no. The legal difference between a 12 y/o and a 18 y/o (or a 17 y/o and a 26 y/o) is massive: one’s a minor, one’s an adult. The difference between a 20 y/o and a 28 y/o is not. 20 yr olds are considered legal adults, and whatever Zimmerman did is part of his adult record.
See that must be a “white” thing or a “Florida” thing because I’ve handled cases where a PC 148 (which is a lesser of a “battery” or “assault” charge) was still relevant over 20 years after it happened even if the person hadn’t committed a crime since if they were Black or Latino.
This lady right here makes me so proud to be 92% White.
True…and stories do change. When two of the officers testified under oath for a deposition for a lawsuit they filed against the city to be retired like the ones involved who weren’t on probation at the time (meaning at will including firing at will), their stories changed a bit. When the DA’s office and U.S. Attorneys’ office became aware of that they reopened their probes though no charges of course were filed. I was at the meeting with the U.S. Attorneys in 2002 when they finally closed the books on it. Not a fun meeting at all with Debra Yang and her staff.
Going through the statements to the DA and the depositions by the two plus the sergeant showed problems in the accounts. But it was a much larger problem with the department (which received a scathing review by the State and federal DOJs in theirs separate investigations) and I was interviewed twice for the federal probe and talked with the then State AG and his staff on their probe along with the monitor assigned during the period of the decree.
Interestingly enough while doing research on the department including in that era, one of the four officers involved contacted me. He was one of the younger ones who was nearly shot by the other younger guy who was on the ground behind him. I was more interested in feedback on what the department was like at that time especially for a newer probational officer than the shooting itself. I did get the impression from him that there’s more than a bit of resentment at the sergeant who (with two poor evaluations under his belt including the coverups or failures to report two beatings that resulted in criminal charges and convictions for officers) 1) left them in a cross fire situation without intervening and 2) engaged with other officers in the use of racist slurs which I think is why at least some of the officers believed they were fired for. You know charming comments like “NHIs” (no humans involved, reserved for minorities), “Watts Death Wails” and “animals coming here by the busloads” and ‘if it helps them feel better, we shot her with black bullets” not to mention another shooter telling another officer, “I capped the black bitch twice in the head.”
Comments like that don’t exactly help promote the judgment that a shooting is righteous do they? Mr. “NHI”/”Watts Death Wails”? What happened to this lateral from L.A.? He left our city’s department, was hired up north, got promptly sued and settled for an excessive force case and then got arrested in Anaheim at an Angels’ game for felony assault and battery and did nine months in jail for it. Charming individual indeed.
Well, we both know it isn’t admissible. And obviously I’m not in Florida.
But I don’t think it’s a white thing. I just have a bit of a defense bias. And unlike a lot of folks, I don’t lose that bias and develop a miraculous trust of the accuracy of the prosecution or complaining witnesses merely because the defendant on one particular case is a relatively sympathetic black dude. Neither will I all of a sudden think that double jeopardy is irrelevant. Or that “not guilty” findings should be appealable. Or that past criminal history should usually be admissible against a defendant. And so on.
Yeah yeah yeah, obviously it’s the people who think there’s something wrong when [[a guy who calls the cops dozens of times because he saw blacks in his neighborhood, follows an innocent unarmed black kid in the dark, gets into a fight (started by ?), shoots the kid dead once he was losing the fight, and then claims self-defense and gets off scot-free]] are letting their racial biases get in the way of clear thinking. No reasonable, unbiased person could find that set of events problematic.
I don’t think anyone on this thread has done any of those things. (I have argued that Zimmerman’s past criminal history is relevant to my own personal guess as to what happened, not that it ought to have been used as evidence in the trial.) As far as I know, the only objection in this thread to excluded evidence, was someone arguing that Trayvon’s history of having had a schoolyard fight should have been allowed as evidence.
If you’re talking about people outside this website, most of the activism seems to be trending in the direction of trying to get the laws reformed, which seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to me.
Finally, regarding double jeopardy, the dual sovereignty doctrine was recognized by the Supreme Court in the 1920s (iirc – too lazy to look it up), so you can hardly blame the “justice for Trayvon” folks for that one. Personally, I’d be happier if the Court overturns the dual sovereignty doctrine, but given the anti-defendant tendencies of this SCOTUS I’d be surprised if that happens.
UPDATED TO ADD: The Volokh Conspiracy » Cert Petition Asks Court to Overturn “Dual Sovereignty” Doctrine in Double Jeopardy Law
Just curious: How much have you read on this?
Are you aware, for example, that the much-touted call about th e7 year old was because he was “concerned for his well being?”
Or that he was reporting known criminal suspects who were, eventually, caught and arrested?
Which laws, precisely, do you think it’s reasonable to reform? And what reforms do you think are reasonable?
George Zimmerman made a lot of calls. How do you know that the ones involving black males were placed because of the color of the gentlemen’s skin?
Assuming this website (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/03/22/george-zimmerman-s-history-of-911-calls-a-complete-log.html) is honestly reporting:
Zimmerman made 46 calls in the last nine years to the 911 and the non-emergency lines combined. Four of the calls were about 2 actual incidents, so there were 44 incidents.
7 of the calls note that the person he was calling about was black. (2 of them were concerning Trayvon Martin; as we now know, Zimmerman did not volunteer Martin’s skin color, the dispatcher asked). Of the other 5 calls, one of them was the welfare call concerning the child, which is difficult to view in a racist light; so 5 incidents where there’s a hostile report involved a black person or persons; in one of those incidents Zimmerman is known not to have volunteered racial information.
By my count (it was hard because the page kept scrolling around) there were 11 incidents where there was a person mentioned or involved, but race was not ascertained. 10 of these people were either not gendered or were called male; one was explicitly female. A couple of these incidents mentioned groups; about half of the incidents where a person was mentioned (of any skin color) specified they were male persons; the other half didn’t say.
1 incident specified 2 Hispanic males and also a white male.
3 incidents (including the above) specified white males; there were actually only 2 white males, however, as one of the white males was Zimmerman’s ex-roommate and there were 2 separate, though close together, incidents with him.
13 incidents involved alarms going off, traffic problems, open garage doors, patrol requests, unsafe condition reports, or were unclear.
4 incidents involved stray dogs.
1 incident was a report of vandalism to his car.
A few incidents involved “suspicious activity” or houses that were getting a lot of suspicious traffic or suspicious cars on the road or street, generally without implicating any specific person, or kids playing in the street.
SUMMARY:
5 specifically “black-inclusive” events
1 specifically “Hispanic-inclusive” events
3 specifically “white-inclusive” events
11 individual or group events, not otherwise racially specified
~22 incidents not involving individuals, not identifying individuals, or not human-centered
So out of 21 ‘bad guy’ reports, about a quarter involve a black person, about fifteen percent involve a white person, about five percent involve a Hispanic person, and about 55 percent don’t report on a racial basis.
Out of ten or so hostile-reporting incidents where gender is specified, 9 are male and 1 was female, so 90 percent male and 10 percent female.
It would be ridiculous to say “George Zimmerman called the cops a dozen times on men, ten times as often as he called them on women, because they were male.” Why is it not ridiculous to say “George Zimmerman called the cops dozens of times on blacks (actual count: 5), because they were black”?
I am completely open to any evidence, be it telepathic or statistical, that answers those questions, but at first read your opinion seems like a “Zimmerman was a big guy” ASSUMPTION rather than an actual data analysis. He didn’t call the cops on blacks dozens of times, but you think he did.
Why?
My opinion is both that George Zimmerman is a murderer and that the jury cme to the correct verdict. My opinion has no effect on Zimmerman and is not legally binding. I will also note that I’m surprised it took the jury so long to come to a decision. I was beginning to think they might find him guilty.
I think he’s guilty of manslaughter and wish that’s what he’d been charged with. I know, legally the state included manslaughter in the possible verdicts, but psychologically it makes a difference with a jury.
Long time lurker, first time poster here.
I am in need of some help from you good people and, quite frankly, I think you owe me. I shall explain. A decade ago my political philosophies could best be described as Centrist with a slight lean to the Right. I have, however, been gradually drifting to the left. This has been due to a number of reasons such as personal events in my life and watching in amazement as the Republican party drove through Loony Land and into Bat Shit Crazy Land with their increasingly bizarre, irrational and heartless policies.
(No insult to anyone with mental illness intended but I just don’t know how else to describe what has happened to the Republican party in recent years.)
Another major reason is this website. I stumbled across it some years ago and have been making forays into it ever since. I have found the articles and people’s responses to be challenging and thought provoking and as a result, have rethought many of my positions on some subjects.
So now to my problem. I have, on another website, been engaged in a rather contentious discussion concerning the Zimmerman verdict and the related topics of racism in America and racism in our justice system.
NOTE: I am not going to mention the name of this website because it deals with a controversial form of sexuality and I am not sure the people on that website (or the site owners and administrators) would want it mentioned on another site. Suffice it to say, most of them are good and decent people (to one extent or another) and the site does have some great “off topic” message boards. Okay, back on topic:
I have been arguing from the position that racism in America and our justice system has a disproportionately negative effect upon black people than upon white people. I have been arguing with a few posters in particular on whether black racism (or what you and I might describe as racial bigotry, my opponents not subscribing to the definition of racism most subscribed to on this web site) and white racism are on an equal footing. My opponents contend that they are and I have contended that they are not.
An example of one of my recent postings during this debate:
I will believe that white and black racism are on an equal footing when:
A white person has a greater chance of being convicted of a crime because he is white.
A white person has a greater chance of receiving a harsher sentence when convicted of a crime.
A white person has a lesser chance of getting a bank loan because he is white.
A white person has a lesser chance of being rented a home or apartment because he is white.
A white person moving into a neighborhood does not cause property values to go down.
White teenagers vandalizing a car generate more police calls than black teenagers vandalizing a car… or black men sleeping in a car.
A young white man walking down the street at night is more likely than a young black man walking down the street at night to be judged a “punk” and an “asshole,” and assumed to be up to no good and ends up dead on the ground as a result.
I could go on (and on and on and on) but I think the point is made.
Note: the second to last example is a reference to an episode of ABC’s “What Would You Do?” you can see it on Youtube HERE (PART ONE) and HERE (PART TWO)
Anyway, after some more back and forth I was “hit” with this:
“In 1997, criminologists Robert Sampson and Janet Lauritsen reviewed the massive literature on charging and sentencing. They concluded that “large racial differences in criminal offending,” not racism, explained why more blacks were in prison proportionately than whites and for longer terms.
A 1987 analysis of Georgia felony convictions, for example, found that blacks frequently received disproportionately lenient punishment.
A 1990 study of 11,000 California cases found that slight racial disparities in sentence length resulted from blacks’ prior records and other legally relevant variables.
A 1994 Justice Department survey of felony cases from the country’s 75 largest urban areas discovered that blacks actually had a lower chance of prosecution following a felony than whites did and that they were less likely to be found guilty at trial. Following conviction, blacks were more likely to receive prison sentences, however—an outcome that reflected the gravity of their offenses as well as their criminal records.
Another criminologist—easily as liberal as Sampson—reached the same conclusion in 1995: “Racial differences in patterns of offending, not racial bias by police and other officials, are the principal reason that such greater proportions of blacks than whites are arrested, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned,” Michael Tonry wrote in Malign Neglect…
The media’s favorite criminologist, Alfred Blumstein, found in 1993 that blacks were significantly underrepresented in prison for homicide compared with their presence in arrest.
But, of course…
This consensus hasn’t made the slightest dent in the ongoing search for “systemic racism. ”
Note: I am keeping the author’s name (or, rather, screen name, on that other website) out of this for the same reasons I mentioned above.
Anyway, here is the gist of my problem: I am not a very good “Googleologist” and have been unable to find anything that refutes or contradicts these supposed studies. So please folks, help me! If you know of any reputable web sites/studies that I can site to use in response please direct me to them. My lack of quick response is already being used as evidence that I am running away (man that stings… yeah… I know I should be more mature but, damnit, it stings) and therefore white racism doesn’t really exist in America but is only a product of “white guilt.,” which of course is a product of “liberal propaganda.”
Any help will be greatly appreciated.
Well, I hope I managed to get through all of that without too many typos, spelling errors, etc.
Thank you,
Peace and Prosperity to you all,
Marcus the Confused.
@ Marcus: Have you considered the possibility that you adversary is right, i.e., that while racism exists to some extent, and may marginally contribute to disparities in arrests, convictions, and sentencing, racism is not the leading factor in explaining those disparities?
FYI, we have a discussion going in the “Black Corpses” thread above on this very subject.
Hi, Marcus. Welcome.
I hope the person you’re arguing with credited the writer Heather McDonald, who wrote every word of that person’s argument. :-)
But McDonald’s summary is less than honest. She establishes a “consensus” by ignoring more thorough and more recent data. I don’t know that there’s a “consensus,” but it’s my impression that most criminologists in the current day – including the ones MacDonald quoted – acknowledge that racism exists and matters to the criminal justice system. David Mustard’s 2001 study, for instance, is much better-designed than older studies, and accounts for criminal history and gravity of offenses (among other variables), but still found a substantial racial effect on sentencing.
Because McDonald neglects to give the author names for most of the publications she relies on, it’s hard to double-check her sources. However, the 1997 review essay by Sampson and Lauritsen – both the most recent source McDonald cites, and the only one where she actually names the authors – simply does not endorse McDonald’s conclusions. The authors are discussing direct and indirect effects of racism; the bit she quotes is regarding direct effects. Sampson and Lauritsen go on to write, in the very next paragraph:
By the way, a recent (2011) report (pdf link) from Washington State didn’t find that much had changed:
McDonald also quotes a single (and I suspect out of context) sentence from criminologist Michael Tonry. Since MacDonald’s article was written, Tonry published a book on the subject, “Punishing Race.” Here’s the publisher’s summary of Tonry’s conclusions: “Tonry confronts issues of racial disparities in the criminal justice system, documenting that blacks are still much more likely than whites to be stopped by police, arrested, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated. Tonry demonstrates that such patterns are not a result of racial differences in crime or drug use, but rather a result of drug and crime control policies that disproportionately impact African Americans. ”
Another – again, better-designed and more recent – study than the studies McDonald relies on, is “The Independent and Joint Effects of Race/Ethnicity, Gender, and Age on Sentencing Outcomes in U.S. Federal Courts,” by Jill Doerner and Stephen Demuth, published in “Justice Quarterly” in 2010. Here’s the abstract:
Another recent study, this time a 2010 study of juvenile sentencing. “Examining the Impact of Race and Ethnicity on the Sentencing of Juveniles in Adult Court,” by Kareem and Freiburger, published in “Criminal Justice and Policy Review”:
Believe me, I could go on and on.
Many recent, well-designed studies, accounting for criminal history, showing a significant racial disparity in how the justice system treats white versus black and Hispanic defendants. That’s simply a fact.
Conrad
Yes, I have considered it but a lifetime of observation, experience, education and thinking has caused me to be consider the possibility to be highly unlikely.
As for joining the discussion in the other thread… I’ll pass for now. I like to limit my internet battles to one at a time.
@Ampersand:
Thanks for the welcome. Now that I’ve peeked my nose through the door (after years of looking through the keyhole) and have said hello to everyone I may chime in on other threads on your site from time to time. I hope I can be a positive contributor. My time is somewhat limited as I only have internet access at my office (I can get away with this because it is a family business of which I am part owner). I do intend to get a new computer and internet access at home (giving me more time for internet warfare) but I waiting for Microsoft to resolve their Windows 8 issues.
I hope it’s not too long a wait.
In the meantime you have given me some good ammunition to put in my gun for that battle I am engaged in on the other website for which I thank you.
Marcus the Confused.
Elusis:
Or because the conservative media saw an incident of a Hispanic man killing a black man in self-defense in a high-crime neighborhood as newsworthy from a local basis but not a national one. It wasn’t until the leftist media decided that it could be twisted to exploit the “racism” angle that it became a national story.
I go away for a week and this thing is 230+ posts!
Marcus the Confused:
God love you, Marcus, but you are confused if you think that’s going to happen before, say, Windows 9.
This is an odd phrasing, Ron – it makes it sound like you don’t think that “the leftist media” (by which you mean all media other than Fox and The National Review) is sincere in believing that race had something to do with Martin’s tragic death.
Also, this is a case where it really seems that local activists came first, then national black activists, then the media. I don’t think it’s accurate to imply that this was a story led by the media first.
Local activists protest about everything. When black people kill black people here in Chicago and the dead person is relatively young and not a gang member or drug dealer (and sometimes even when they are, if they’re young enough) there’s a march or protest or demonstration each time. Which I am not belittling, mind you. People SHOULD take notice about that kind of thing and try to figure out why it’s being done and how to stop it.
But the coverage of it generally stops with the local media. The national media doesn’t pick it up when there’s a march in the streets of Chicago because one black man kills another. There’s no racism presumed. There’s also no such thing when a black person kills a white person – in fact, people go out of their way to ignore any possible involvement of racial animus. But when a Hispanic man kills a black man, all of a sudden the likes of Al Sharpton find a camera to run in front of and the mainstream media starts trumpeting accusations and presumptions of racism – in this case, even inventing the phrase “white Hispanic” to shoehorn racism in. And yes, I know that “Hispanic” refers to ethnicity, not race. But cite me an example of when you saw anyone Hispanic referred to as “white Hispanic” in any news story before this one. All Hispanics were oppressed minorities until this case came along.
They may well sincerely presume that racism was a main factor in this killing. But that’s no excuse. The media’s job is to investigate and present facts, not to make presumptions and feed them to us as if they were facts.
RonF,
What are you blathering about?
People are referred to as ‘white Hispanics’ all the time. Cubans, for example, are mostly white (and they vote for the party associated with white identity politics, at least the anti-Castro nutjobs do).
I have never seen the phrase “white Hispanic” in a news story until the Zimmerman trial. It may well be used in demographic studies or commentaries about the differences in Hispanic cultures. But whenever I have seen a news story involving someone of Hispanic heritage they just say “Hispanic”.
Inarguably, the Zimmerman trial put the phrase much more frequently in the news than it had been before. But it was hardly the first time. A couple of examples:
* Amber Alert Issued for Three Illinois Children – Salem-News.Com
* Sotomayor court reversed in key race case – UPI.com
If I spent time, I’m sure I could come up with many more.
In this case, it was relevant – to the local protestors and to some portion of the larger social debate – that Zimmerman is a light-skinned man, and that one of his parents is white (iirc – I personally haven’t followed this aspect of the case closely, so I may have this wrong). Why shouldn’t the news have reported this?
Even if telling the story required the papers to use a term that they hadn’t used before, why would that have been wrong?
Correct me if I am wrong, but don’t most demographic questions (or at least the Census) use “White non-Hispanic” and “Hispanic” as their classifications?
That is, they want to distinguish Hispanics from other white people (and it would be too hard to have a class of “Anglo-Saxon-Norman-Celtic-Germanic-Scando-Russo-Greco-Roman” class. (Yeah, that’s right, I left out the Britons, because I don’t want to associate with those types!)
So, even for the Hispanics who are white, they typically group them together.
Amp, if I am right about how the classifications usually go, do you not find it odd that Z.’s whiteness was emphasized.
And, is Z. a “white Hispanic” in the first place? Someone must have made that judgment call for some reason. Does anyone know who?
-Jut
Clearly, “they” wanted to classify Zimmerman as white in order to portray this as “just another example” of how whites are routinely slaughtering young black children with impunity. Of course, the fact the case drew so much national attention goes to show this was anything but an everyday occurrence.
But back to the racial categorizations for a moment: Aren’t we sick of this yet? Who cares whether GZ is white, black, Hispanic, or whatever? Why shouldn’t we just judge his actions for what they were? What does his race have to do with it?
The goal used to be a color-blind society, based on the idea that race doesn’t matter. At some point, people on the left seem to have decided that race DOES matter, i.e., that it SHOULD matter. If you’re white, it means that you are imbued with some kind of inherent sense of entitlement. If you’re black, it means you carry the onus of ancestral victimhood. If you’re mixed-race, it means we have to decide how to classify you in order to decide how we feel about you.
I don’t think America’s descent into tribalism is a good development.
I don’t think America’s descent into tribalism(although that isn’t the word I’d use) is a new development. Seems like something that’s been there since before the very beginning of the USA. Or so the histories I’ve read say.
@243: I think that’s a cop out. The USA wasn’t a really diverse enough to be tribal during it’s early history. There were whites and there were slaves. We got rid of the slavery. Later, we welcomed a lot of immigrant groups, but it wasn’t with the understanding or expectation that they would forever be treated as separate tribes. To the contrary, the expectation was assimilation (the “melting pot”). In terms of the blacks, there was slow but more or less continuous progress toward equal rights, which was achieved, in legal terms, by the mid-1960s.
I guess the point I’d emphasize is that the IDEAL to which Americans generally aspired was that of assimilation and advancement on the basis of individual merit, not group membership.
By contrast, there seems to be this notion that America is a collection of groups, and that this is, in fact, how we should view our society. Maybe I’m just missing it, but I don’t hear a lot of progressives or minority leaders hungering for “POC” to be treated like everyone else. It seems like the rhetoric is all about group membership, group traits, and group rights. If someone pleads for a color-blind society — again, the previously accepted ideal — that plea is likely to be shouted down as a code word for the locking in of white privilege.
How many groups do there need to be to allow for tribalism? Your disregard of Native Americans of several different tribes as available groups speaks to an ignorance of the period. You are engaging in nothing more than truthiness here.
That’s not what the 2010 census did. I think that just about every census since around 1960 has had some new way of categorizing Hispanics. In 2010, there was one question asking “Are you Hispanic?” and then a subquestion about whether you were Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, etc. Then there was a second question asking “What race are you?” where Hispanic was not an option. So Hispanics were expected to check off “yes” to the “Are you Hispanic?” question, and then either white, black, Native American, or however else they identified, for the race question.
I remember being a bit surprised when I was applying for a job in the UK and the white options on the form were “White, British”, “White, Irish”, and “White, Other.”
@245: Right, I’m ignorant of the Indians. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of them. Thanks for bringing me up to speed.
However, the Indians were in no sense regarded as part of American society during our early history. They weren’t even granted citizenship until the 1920s.
I’m not sure you understand what I’m saying, so I’ll try to make it clearer for you. I’m not saying that, throughout our whole history, there was never any racial discrimination. I’m saying that there came a point when it was generally understood and accepted that America stood for the idea of being judged according to one’s individual merit and not one’s membership within a particular ethnic group. This is what MLK preached. At some point thereafter, “progressives” seem to have backed off of that principle, favoring instead a conception of American society in which relationships between racial groups are seen to be in perpetual tension and need to be constantly adjusted. People talk about the interests of “Black America” and “White America” without any apparent resolve to eliminate those distinctions. The idea of being identified according to one’s race is treated as basically a given, not as an evil to be eradicated.
Conrad, if it seems like you’re ignorant of American Indians – or, for that matter, of other groups who were never expected to assimilate when they first immigrated, like the Chinese and the Jews – that’s because your argument (quoted above) pretends that those groups either don’t exist, or were initially welcomed into the “melting pot” when that was not the case, historically. That you wrote an ignorant argument is your own fault, and blaming Jake for pointing it out is silly.
Now let’s go to your new argument:
Well, yes and no. Certainly, there is a common idea that ” that America is a mosaic, not a melting pot” – that is, cultural heritage is something to (selectively) enjoy, not something to eradicate – but that idea doesn’t seem unique to progressives. It’s common to see both Irish-American and Italian-American conservatives take pride in their roots, for instance – Paul Ryan often refers to his Irish heritage when discussing immigration policy, for example. Although most Jews are Democrats, the Republicans Jews I’ve known also take pride in their heritage. Then there’s the almost entirely right-wing southern pride movement, which has its good points, although those good points are too often obscured by apologetics for racism and the Confederacy.
If all of those white people are allowed to take pride in their heritage and remember where they come from – rather than “eradicating” their differences – why shouldn’t Black Americans do the same thing?
Certainly, eradicating racism is a good idea. And I don’t know of any progressives who have given up on that goal – if you do, I’d appreciate it if you’d provide a direct link and quote to them saying so.
But the idea that we should be seeking to eradicate all differences is not the same, and is not a good idea. To use a trivial example, one of the glories of modern living (at least in cities) is that we have access to dozens of cuisines. Given the choice, why would it be a good idea to merge all those cuisines into just one type of food?
You have to be part of society in order to be separated from society due to the effects of tribalism? And, in response to the second sentence, precisely.
I’m saying that there came a point when it was generally understood and accepted that America stood for the idea of being judged according to one’s individual merit and not one’s membership within a particular ethnic group.
At what point was that?
I think that this is both a grave misunderstanding of the liberal position and a belief that is comforting and sounds like it’s true to you.
While I disagree with you on quite a lot of stuff, I think that you’re just factually wrong on this.
Slow your indignation. He’s treating you like you’re ignorant of Native Americans because you’re acting like you’re ignorant of Native Americans.
Considering your posting history here and your professed beliefs, I don’t, to put it mildly, think that you are an accurate reporter of the racial history of the US, the beliefs of Martin Luther King, Jr., or the beliefs of progressives, liberals, and anti-racists.
That having been said, Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote something brilliant back in 2011 you would do well to read:
You appear to have both began and ended your analysis at the bolded section, which is understandable, psychologically. Beginning and ending your analysis there is the best way for white America to never have to face their responsibility for the monstrous things they did, for centuries, in the name of racial supremacy.
But if the bolded section is your sole analysis, you will never reach anything approaching truth or understanding.
—Myca
I swear, Jake, Amp, and I didn’t coordinate this.
Here’s some interesting race-based reporting on crime:
http://gawker.com/video-of-violent-rioting-surfers-shows-white-culture-o-954939719
Elusis, I love that link.
Re: So Hispanics were expected to check off “yes” to the “Are you Hispanic?” question, and then either white, black, Native American, or however else they identified, for the race question.
Right, “Hispanic” and “white” are overlapping, non-exclusive categories. Every demographic or official dataset or form that I’ve ever seen says right up front, “Hispanics may be of any race.” ‘Hispanic’ is a culturally defined ethnicity, that doesn’t have much to do with race.
It’s hard for me to believe that there are some people out there unaware that ‘white Hispanic’ people, uh, exist.
Gee, Hector, is it also hard for you to believe that man with a black great-grandmother is not, in fact, a “white Hispanic”?
In the case under discussion, the use of the term to identify Zimmerman was an obvious ploy, misleading, and a disgraceful media tactic in the whole racial profiling myth of Trayvon’s demise, which loses its zest when the alleged profiler could legitimately be identified as part black.
The point I was originally making was not about racial attitudes going back hundreds of years, but rather racial attitudes going back about 50 years, i.e., to a time when people of good conscience generally considered it to be the goal to live in a society in which everyone was judged according to his or her individual merits rather than as a member of a group (which I termed “tribalism”). The only reason to discussion turned to earlier American history was because someone else suggested (and I paraphrase) that we’ve ALWAYS been “tribal,” and so this is nothing new. I disagree with that, because it seems to me that, just in the last 50 years or so — since MLK — “tribalism” seems to have become respectable again, at least on the left.
Now, obviously, there’s a lot to stew on here, and I’m sure we could devote endless hours of discussion — indeed, we could devote endless years of scholarship — examining whether this is true and the historical bases for my assertion. I get that most of you do not agree with what I posted. Fine. You don’t have to agree with it; I’m simply stating my opinion of the situation as an observer of American society during the period I am talking about.
As for what TNC wrote, while of course it is thought-provoking, I don’t find it particularly logical. First of all, who is the “we” he’s referring to who did horrible things to slaves hundreds of years ago, then “developed a conscience” somewhat more recently, then “decided our efforts constituted reverse racism,” and now are baffled by the relative impoverishment of black people? He is ridiculing “us” for taking a lot of seemingly contradictory positions without seeming to understand that the “us” is actually comprised of a lot of different people over the course of many, many years. It’s an absurd oversimplification.
To answer my own question, it appears TNC’s “we” is meant to refer to white American society. But he needs to understand that no white American today practiced or supported slavery. So it makes no sense to impute to anyone alive today the sins or sentiments of a white slaveholder in say 1700.
It seems he is actually, implicitly saying that white people today owe it to blacks to “make up for” what prior generations of white people because white people today largely descended from white people of many generations ago. Thus, whites are imbued with the taint of their whiteness, carried over from their slave-holding ancestors (whether or not their ancestors actually owned slaves), and therefore white people are indebted to blacks, who, as blacks, are entitled to collect the debt owed by whites (whether or not the blacks’ ancestors were slaves).
Sorry, but I find the whole concept racist — or just stupid, if you prefer. Nobody owes anybody anything simply on account of their skin color. If you think they do, ask yourself how that differs from racism, which assumed that blacks were inherently subservient to whites.
Moreover, TNC’s comments exemplify the exact phenomenon I was attempting to describe in the first place: the idea that’s it’s appropriate to sort people into racial categories and treat them as members of those groups rather than as individuals. AA (to which I think TNC alludes) makes it ok to think of Person A as a White American and, for that reason, to treat him/her differently from Person B, who is categorized as a Black American. Individual merit is consciously, deliberately set aside because the focus is on trying to settle accounts between the groups to which the affected individuals have been assigned.
Re: Gee, Hector, is it also hard for you to believe that man with a black great-grandmother is not, in fact, a “white Hispanic”?
Jack Marshall,
Is it hard for you to believe that people with 1/8 Black ancestry can be racist against Black people?
Because if you doubt it, I can start citing myriads of historical figures who fit the bill, just like Zimmerman.
Jack, are you saying that because Zimmerman has a black great-grandmother(*), it is therefore impossible that his judgement could have been impaired by racism?
(*) I have no idea if this is true or not, but I’ll take your word for it.
Oh no you don’t—you’re changing the subject, Hector!
I don’t doubt that there are plenty of African Americans, black as can be, who are also biased against black people. I encounter them fairly frequently. The point is not that Zimmerman wasn’t biased, though there is no evidence that he was and convincing evidence that he isn’t, but that he is not by any fair measure white, and was just falsely identified as white to bolster a white racism narrative that was attached to the wrong guy. The race-grievance community didn’t have the integrity, fairness, honesty and guts to do an Emily Littella and say, “Never mind!”
And they still don’t.
Re: but that he is not by any fair measure white, and was just falsely identified as white to bolster a white racism narrative that was attached to the wrong guy.
Zimmerman’s of mostly European ancestry. He would be considered white in Peru, probably, he’d certainly be considered white in Jamaica, and by most reasonable criteria he’d be considered mixed-race, mostly white. The fact that he might not be considered ‘white’ according to traditional American racial taxonomies, is an artifact of historical silliness like the one-drop rule. I don’t see any need to humor outdated and scientifically inaccurate understandings of race, and I don’t have any particular problem calling Zimmerman white.
I almost came here this morning to post that, Elusis. :)
I love the comments:
—Myca
Hector, what an embarrassingly lame argument. You do know that this is the country in which this event occurred, and that this culture’s definitions, whether you happen to like them or not, are still the operative ones, that when the media intentionally uses a term that is contrary to such definitions, that is misrepresentation, and that such tap-dancing from you to avoid the facts of the case is flat out sad, don’t you?
Jack,
George is black through his father’s side, right? (I’m not going to bother tracking this down in the race grievance industry websites where you found it.) If so, are you aware that his father identifies as white, so George was raised white and Hispanic, as far as any of us know? I don’t know his mother’s ancestry or personal identification, so it is certainly possible he was raised with a mestizo or indigenous identity. That he has a black ancestor does not, by itself, make him black in any particularly meaningful way. It isn’t how he identifies, it isn’t how anyone else identifies him (until now, when you and the white racial grievance industry have decided that what really matters is that he is 1/8 black).
When he gets stopped by the police, he is white (that is what the police noted him as after he murdered Martin). When he fills out forms, he lists himself as Hispanic. There is no evidence from anywhere or anyone that he considers himself black. It is extremely poor form to ignore someone’s actual racial identity in favor of some identity that you want to assign them to try to win an argument.
Okay, looking it up further, Zimmerman’s mother is of partial Afro-Peruvian ancestry. Which brings up the point that Hector is right, it is not US racial categorization that matters here, it is Peruvian racial categorization that matters in terms of Zimmerman’s mother’s personal identification.
I don’t think Zimmerman’s ancestry matters at all. (As far as I can tell, Zimmerman’s ancestry is an issue that interests folks on the right far more than folks on the lest.)
The roots of Martin’s tragic death becoming national news is that the Black community perceives a pattern – both locally and nationally – of young Black men and boys being shot by security or police, and the shooters being let off easy. There’s a perception that young black boys and men are in danger because they’re going to be racially profiled as criminals, and if a tragedy happens and a young Black man or boy dies, the blame will be placed on the victim, not the shooter.
In that context, it’s really irrelevant whether Zimmerman is white or Hispanic or both. (Contrary to what Jack seems to be claiming, Zimmerman is not black by current American definitions. The “one drop rule” is a racist rule that is not how most people in the US currently think of race).
An unarmed black teen boy, who had every right to be walking in that neighborhood, was shot to death by someone who isn’t Black, who was convinced the boy was up to no good. The police initially let the shooter (who they perceived as white) go without even asking to test him for drugs or alcohol.[*] Then, rightly or wrongly, the shooter claimed self-defense and got off legally scot-free.
Martin’s death thus fit a pattern – one that Black activists have long been concerned with. Saying “actually, Zimmerman is Hispanic” or “actually, Zimmerman’s great-grandmother was black” is completely irrelevant, and anyone saying that has merely shown that they have no understanding of the concerns of Black activists.
[*] I think that’s accurate, but would welcome correction if I’m in error.
I’m hoping I live long enough to meet a White Conservative who will talk about “Black on Black” violence among other lines than to get out of talking about the costs of White on Black violence.
I mean I’ve worked in youth violence movements which address all the different causes and factors with intraracial violence to try to address it and even reduce it alongside many people. It’d be awesome if these same folks who wagged fingers showed up to work alongside those who do this kind of work. I’m sure they have a lot to contribute, maybe some good. Many of us just have yet to see them there. Not only do these White Conservatives not participate but they often try to render those who engage in this important work as being invisible simply because 1) they are truly ignorant or 2) they just want to stick to what helps them derail any discussion of racial profiling that results in the death of men and women of color at the hands of Whites (and in some cases people like Zimmerman outside those racial groups).
Racial identity can be a very personal thing. I know people who are biracial or multi-racial in particular and identify themselves in different ways. That’s their personal choice and the route they took to get there is individualized too. Of course then there’s the other side, how people including bi or multi-racial people are viewed by others not themselves. That’s the part that can play a major factor in our society and too often result in someone’s death.
I thought maybe he was biracial so it doesn’t surprise me. I disagree that there’s more evidence that he wasn’t biased than he was against African-Americans at least in terms of profiling. I don’t believe that if Martin had been a teen with red hair and light skin he would have been seen as anything other than a kid with a drink and skittles walking down the street in a hoodie.
I’m also not going to tell Zimmerman to identify himself or pick his ancestry apart. However he identifies himself or might be identified by family or others close to him I’m not sure whether or not that really makes a difference in his ability to racially profile Martin as “up to no good”. Can African-Americans profile other African-Americans? Yes they can and they do at times, one dividing factor among them that sometimes I’ve heard of is different generation/age and classism. It’s not individuals so much as an institutional issue I think and people live in the same institutional system.
Black LE officers are often taught to profile Black people in the communities they police and some do it quite enthusiastically but then quite a few don’t.
There’s a Virgin Mobile commercial I’ve been seeing a lot recently (for some reason, I can’t find this particular version of it on the internet), where, when people find out that they can now get an iPhone 5 on Virgin Mobile without a contract, they “accidentally” lose or damage their current phones so that they’ll have a reason to get the new one. One of the scenes is a guy who gives his phone to two “obviously not thug” teenagers, backing away and saying something like, “Just take the phone, please don’t hurt me,” while the teenagers look at each other, befuddled. One of these “obviously not thug” teenagers is a white kid in a hoodie.
Here’s the commercial: http://www.marketmenot.com/virgin-mobile-happy-accidents-iphone-with-no-contract-commercial/
Radfem:
When you talk about the cost of a thing you have to consider how much of it you’re getting. The costs of white on black violence, black on white violence, white on white violence and black on black violence are all in part a function of how much of it occurs. What is the cost of white on black violence vs. black on black violence if the ratio of the incidence is w/b:b/b::1:20?
Does that mean that the costs are not different, or have different and possibly disproportionate effects? No. A black guy robbing another black guy because he wants the contents of his wallet has a different societal impact than a black guy shooting a white guy – or a white guy shooting a black guy – because he’s racist and decided to take it out on someone. But a highly numerically disproportionate incidence of black on black violence has it’s own societal impact, and it’s causes and effects and ways to stop it need to be seriously addressed.
There’s plenty of people who look at the crime statistics and see the latest furor over George Zimmerman as exactly the opposite. They see it as an attempt to gloss over the horrible problem of urban violence – which is mostly black on black – by using the relatively rare incidence of white on black violence as a distraction and a way to direct people towards supporting the existing agendas and egos of people like Al Sharpton and away from solving the problems that affect the most people on a day to day basis.
Amp:
O.K. I can agree with that. And on that basis I supported the investigation and the trial. “Nothing to see here, move along” was a bit much in this circumstance for me to be comfortable. But what I don’t support on that basis was the broad-based and vocal presumption – vs. suspicion – on the part of various activist and media (but I repeat myself) people that racism was involved.
“I don’t believe that if Martin had been a teen with red hair and light skin he would have been seen as anything other than a kid with a drink and skittles walking down the street in a hoodie.”
You can believe what you want to, but the fact is that you don’t know, and designating a guy a pernicious, race-profiling racist based on pure speculation—there is NOTHING to support your “belief”—is as unfair, wrong and divisive as can be, not to mention bigoted. You, Al and the rest believe this because you want to, because it suits an agenda and calculated narrative, and if it gets innocent “white Hispanics” beaten up, George Zimmerman killed, and ratchets up race tensions, well, it’s all worth it.
It’s true that we don’t know that Zimmerman is a racist murderer. I also don’t know that you are really a human being. The evidence that we’ve seen is pretty strong for the assertion that Zimmerman is a murderer. The evidence that we’ve seen is also pretty strong for the assertion that Zimmerman used racial profiling in choosing Martin as his victim. Is that evidence conclusive and beyond any shadow of a doubt? No, no it is not. Yet, being human (as you may or may not be, I can’t know), I must make a judgment with the full knowledge that I can never be 100% certain that I’m correct. My judgment is that Zimmerman is a racist murderer. Yours, as a presumptive human being (again, I can’t know that you really are a human being – I’m using my judgment here), is that Zimmerman is not a racist. I’m also going to say that your judgment as a presumptive human being (I’m almost 100% certain that you are a human being, but I can’t know beyond a shadow of a doubt) is that Zimmerman is not a murderer, either. But I can’t know that those are your judgments, I’m using my fallible human judgment to determine that those are your judgments.
” The evidence that we’ve seen is pretty strong for the assertion that Zimmerman is a murderer. The evidence that we’ve seen is also pretty strong for the assertion that Zimmerman used racial profiling in choosing Martin as his victim. “
In a word: Lies. There is no evidence, “pretty strong” or otherwise. The legal standard isn’t “beyond a shadow of a doubt,” but beyond a reasonable doubt, and there is no informed argument that THAT much lower standard was met, as it could not be met with the available evidence. By definition, then, the evidence was neither sufficient, nor strong, and your statement is unequivocally false.
The evidence was insufficient and weak. That doesn’t mean that Zimerman can’t be racist and didn’t set out to murder Martin, but it is outrageous to assume either, which is what you, Martin’s parents and much of the media did from the start. You and the other race-baiters here are assuming facts that don’t exist, and saying you believe them. Wrong. Unethical. Dishonest.
Just repeating the same thing over and over again does not make facts out of this air, and the doubletalk sophistry in your comment still doesn’t change what you can’t argue away—1) Zimmerman previously reported on blacks and whites. 2) Zimmerman isn’t white. 3) Nothing in Zimmerman’s past or conduct suggests he’s a racist, unless one presumes all non-blacks are racist 4) The physical evidence supports his self-defense argument. 5) Self-defense isn’t murder 6) This wasn’t a stand your ground case. 7) Trayvon Martin wasn’t killed because he was in a hoodie carrying Skittles. He was killed because he was bashing in the head of someone who may have provoked him, but who had the right to stop said bashing 8) The verdict was dictated by the evidence, and no contrary verdict would have withstood appeal 9) That is a good thing, and blacks as well as whites should not support weakening of the BARD standard of guilt.
The final fact is that the Zimmerman demonizers are trampling on fairness, reason and rights because of the worst kind of “the ends justify the means” calculations. It is despicable, and its stench will linger for a long, long time.
If you could argue with honesty and integrity, I might take you seriously. You have no idea what I thought about this case from the start. I never said a thing about what I thought about it when it first came to my attention. As any rational human being would have done, I waited for more reporting before I made a judgment. You, presumptive human being, are basically trolling at this point and you can do that without my further participation. Here I was, thinking you were debating honestly. My mistake. Sorry.
I might also note that when we discuss whether or not Zimmerman is a racist murderer, we are not arguing legal standards. By legal standards, Zimmerman is obviously not a murderer.
But you, presumptive sir, in your rush to villify those with differing opinions just bluster and lie and and act in, generally, an unethical and dishonest manner.
I won’t make the mistake of responding to your hysterics again.
High dudgeon is no substitute for legitimate argument, but if that’s all you have, I suppose you should go with it.
So you are arguing that you did NOT make up your mind that Zimmerman was a racist based on the original reports, based in part on a dishonestly edited 911 call, but once you knew he was multi-racial, had mentored black kids, was an equal-opportunity paranoid, and had injuries at the hands of Martin, THEN you decided he was a racist murderer? Got it. The additional reporting, when truthful and objective, completely undermined the narrative you say you “believe.”
I’m a lawyer, formerly a criminal lawyer, and murder is defined by its legal confines. Are you merely saying that Zimmerman killed Martin? Well, yes, we know that. What meaning of “murderer” are you using? If you are not meaning the crime, then you don’t mean murder. In fact, you’re shifting definitions as dishonestly as you manufacture “facts,’ sir, and screaming when you’re called on it.
Am I vilifying those who for their political agendas unjustly label a man a racist murderer, misleadingly represent the law to seed racial unrest, and repeatedly quote falsehood as fact to recruit the ignorant? Damn right, because such conduct is villainous in every way.
Jake:
I disagree. I don’t see that at all. Regardless of whether you’re talking a legal standard or a moral one.
Jake and Jack: Please dial things back a couple of notches.
Jack:
Please note that I have haven’t accused you or anyone else posting in this thread of racism, of holding your view because you want Martin and other kids like him killed, etc. This is civility 101 stuff – don’t accuse the people you’re arguing with of having evil motives. Like the evil motives you just accused Jake of having.
Please don’t do that again. Argue against other people’s arguments, not against what you assume their motives to be..
And arguing as if you had knowledge of what Jake initially thought when this case happened – when, obviously, you have no such knowledge – is clearly unfair.
Regarding “high dudgeon,” I really think that the person who wrote ” The race-grievance community didn’t have the integrity, fairness, honesty and guts to do an Emily Littella” and other such comments should consider the old expression about people who live in glass houses before criticizing other people for getting on a high horse in their arguments. (I’m not saying don’t do it. I’m saying that if you do it, don’t criticize others for doing the same thing.)
Edited To Add: Oh, and regarding this:
Please don’t use name-calling on this blog. Thanks.
Jake:
I think this is over the top. I agree that the particular argument Jack made was unfair, but everyone makes bad arguments now and then, especially in the heat of argument, even people who do have honesty and integrity.
In other words (again), please dial it back a couple of notches.
Ron:
It’s a little like the weather, isn’t it?
We can look at the research and the science and say “global warming is increasing the likelihood of extreme weather events,” and that’s a very justifiable statement. (Sorry, conservatives). But it’s more-or-less impossible to point to any particular storm and say “this storm was caused by global warming.”
Similarly, there is no way to prove what was in Zimmerman’s mind (and perhaps his subconscious mind) when he chose to go after Martin. There’s no way to prove that a white Oscar Grant wouldn’t have been shot in the back while handcuffed. There’s no way to prove that any particular entirely innocent black person being followed around the department store by store security would have been left alone if they were white. There is no way to prove that any particular stop-and-frisk of an innocent young man in New York City wouldn’t have happened if that man hadn’t been black or hispanic. There is no way to prove that any particular job applicant would have gotten more callbacks if they were white.
All we can do is point to the statistics, and the social science, and the studies proving that people making split-second decisions are more likely to think black people are threats than while people, and the tests that prove that identical resumes get more callbacks from employers if they’re perceived to be white, and all the other general evidence. Given all of that, I think it’s extremely plausible that Zimmerman would not have reacted exactly the same way had it been a white kid with skittles he saw. But we can’t know for sure.
The evidence will virtually much never allow us to point at a single, particular instance and say “this is definitely, 100% sure racism,” because almost nobody will ever say “yes, I picked on that person because of their skin color,” and nothing else will ever be acceptable as evidence to conservatives.
In this case, no one knows what was in Zimmerman’s heart. As I’ve said again and again, I think the verdict was correct under Florida law, even though I think Zimmerman is an asshole who acted in a stupid, irresponsible, despicable fashion that led to Martin’s death.
But to me, the pressing problem here is – as I said before – “the Black community perceives a pattern – both locally and nationally – of young Black men and boys being shot by security or police, and the shooters being let off easy. There’s a perception that young black boys and men are in danger because they’re going to be racially profiled as criminals, and if a tragedy happens and a young Black man or boy dies, the blame will be placed on the victim, not the shooter.”
How do we address that problem?
Exactly, Barry. And we should be able to agree that scapegoating George Zimmerman is not a responsible answer.
By the way, the use of statistical probability to assume racist motives by GZ is profiling, exactly as it would be to presume that a black kid is more likely to be larcenous. The irony and hypocrisy of this appears to be lost on many of your commenters.
Jack, is that all the answer you can offer? “Well, let’s make sure that no matter what happens, people who shoot unarmed
whiteblack kids are never stereotyped.”That’s not even slightly adequate.
There’s a big different between judging a specific individual by his actual actions, and judging an unarmed kid walking home by his skin color. Surely you can see that.
The fact that under Florida law it is legal for: an adult with a history of violence, armed with a firearm, to track an unarmed teenager through the streets, provoke a violent confrontation, and, when he’s losing the confrontation he provoked, shoot that teenager dead … is fucking appalling.
And that scenario is 100% consistent with the available evidence.
We don’t know what that’s what happened, certainly … but that’s kind of the point isn’t it? The only person who could testify otherwise has been conveniently shot dead in the street.
I’m not saying that that’s what happened (like I said, we don’t know what happened), but it’s certainly a plausible scenario. And the fact that it’s such a plausible outcome is troubling to me, and ought to be troubling to anyone who claims to care about moral or ethical truth.
—Myca
“Jack, is that all the answer you can offer? “Well, let’s make sure that no matter what happens, people who shoot unarmed white black kids are never stereotyped.”
Wildly beneath you, Barry. What has happened to integrity on the left? The definition of George Z is a person who shot someone is self-defense. Unless you can show—and you can’t– that he wouldn’t have shot an Asian, a white man or a female bodybuilder who was on top of him in a simila state of peril, your cynical presumption of the race as motive for THE SHOOTING is unsupportable.
“There’s a big different between judging a specific individual by his actual actions, and judging an unarmed kid walking home by his skin color. Surely you can see that”
I can see that, just as I can see that there is nothing about Zimmerman’s actions that suggest racism. If he were black—and he is, you know—would you presume racism then? Clearly not. So the entire motive, which is what is at issue, not the conduct…I’llstipulate that the conduct was reckless, foolish and wrong before the confrontation, and legally justified after it—is based on a race-based stereotype, exactly as profiling Martin would be. There is no difference.
Amp:
The statement made by Jake was “The evidence that we’ve seen is also pretty strong for the assertion that Zimmerman used racial profiling in choosing Martin as his victim.”
1) You cite statistics and studies referring to groups of people’s perceptions and reactions to apperances and resumes. Those lead to speculations on GZ’s thinking, but they are hardly “pretty strong evidence” of any state of mind that the individual George Zimmerman had in his dealings with Trayvon Martin.
2) There is no evidence that Zimmerman had any state of mind describable as “choosing Martin as his victim”. As far as anyone can tell, Zimmerman did not do any victim choosing at all. It seems likely to me that Zimmerman had no intention of shooting anyone until after he was flat on his back getting pummeled, at which point HE was the victim.
If someone initiates a physical assault against you, knocking you down, hitting you and knocking your head against the ground and then you fire a gun and kill them, are they a victim, or are you? You will say “Well, we only have one man’s word for that being the case here”. But the bottom line is that despite Martin’s death, he’s not the victim if he was the one who initiated the physical assault. So to describe him as definitely being the victim means that there’s no credibility in Zimmerman’s story. A jury of six who listened to the whole case found that his story did have credibility, and I can’t see how an assertion that they were wrong makes much sense.
Just stop. You are embarrassing yourself.
Barry has already moderated you on this. Now I’m doing it. Stop with the name calling. Stop with the fainting-couch-vapors. Stop with the ‘high dudgeon,’ and discuss this like a grownup.
—Myca
Focusing on Trayvon as representative of “young black men who are not well treated by the system” makes sense. Framing Trayvon as a victim generally speaking makes sense too. There are lots of accurate framings, including “a victim of a bad law;” “a victim of an idiot with a gun;” “a horribly unlucky victim of circumstance; “a victim of a bad system;” or something else. All of them frame Trayvon as a victim, and rightly so. They include “a victim, whose plight received minimal attention from the government authorities, because that’s usually how it works with poor black kids.”
The problem came when people decided that the generic “victim” framing wasn’t sufficient. They wanted something more extreme, because it’s hard to make a good political poster boy out of a normal kid who was killed through a messy, ill-determined, and depressingly normal situation. So they focused on framing Trayvon as an “angelic victim who died because he was deliberately targeted by Zimmerman in the name of white oppression.”
That framing required them to classify Zimmerman as an Evil Murderous White Oppressor rather than a Hispanic Idiot With a Gun. It required them to classify Trayvon as Angelic Blameless Victim Who Would Never Hurt a Fly and Who Did Absolutely Nothing At All, rather than a normal teenager who may or may not have acted in a normal teenage relatively-unwise way, who probably threw a punch–but who shouldn’t be dead now nonetheless.
As it turns out, neither of those extreme framings were actually true. The evidence we have strongly suggests that Zimmerman was an idiot with a gun, not a racist predator whose MO was gunning down black dudes. He also isn’t “white.” And the evidence we have strongly suggests that Trayvon was an average imperfect teenager who may have had average not-so-hot teenage judgment–though he didn’t deserve to die for it.
It may not be the evidence folks wanted, particularly not in a poster boy sense. But it’s the best we’ve got. It’s not as if Zimmerman got off on a technicality here; we heard the best evidence that the state could find, presented by a team of extremely experienced prosecutors. The evidence just wasn’t there. Frankly, it was SO not there that I am bemused about people who are “sure” that ___ happened, although there are a lot of them around.
Trayvon was definitely a victim. But the framing is wrong. Unfortunately there are a lot of people for whom the framing appears to be more important than the underlying facts, and they have a lot of public pull.
Amp:
Why should anyone watching Trayvon Martin presume he was unarmed? There’s plenty of neighborhoods in Chicago where such a presumption would be very foolish.
GZ had no idea that an unfamiliar young man in that neighborhood was walking home.
There is no evidence that GZ judged TM by his skin color.
I have heard this incident summed up as “Two assholes bumped into each other. One had a gun.” It seems a little more complex than THAT to me, but there’s elements of that in it.
Myca:
The certainty that this is what George Zimmerman did on the part of numerous people seems unsustainable to me. In order for what GZ did to be considered having justifiably provoked a violent action on the part of TM, he would have had to at least attempted to strike or otherwise commit violence on TM’s person. Confronting him and questioning him – even in a hostile fashion – is not enough.
Amp:
If you want to say – as many have said – that George Zimmerman is a racist or acted out of racism, then I think that you have to have conclusive evidence that it’s true. Otherwise you are presenting speculation as fact. I do not think that it is unfair to demand that standard, and I think that people who do not hold to that standard are being dishonest. The fact that so many people are willing, eager and insistent in concluding that he definitely acted out of such motives makes me doubt theirs.
Yes. Because the only man’s word we have killed the only other witness.
A jury of six who listened to his story never got any other story, because he killed the only other witness.
Look, of course there was reasonable doubt. I’m not arguing against that. Amp isn’t arguing against that. But this is 100%, fully, compatible with Zimmerman starting the fight, shooting the kid he jumped, and getting away with murder. How can that possibility not bother you?
—Myca
That’s not a politically motivated standard, that’s a morally motivated one. I don’t hold that as a “conservative” viewpoint because I”m trying to discredit anyone, I hold it as a moral standard because I think it’s henious to condemn someone as being racist with inadequate proof.
As I say more than once in the rest of the post you quoted, I’m not certain that this is what happened. I think that there was certainly reasonable doubt presented to the jury.
I consider both scenarios plausible, though considering Zimmerman’s history of violence and anger at the time, I think it’s a little more plausible for him to have initiated violence … but even taking that into account, there’s reasonable doubt.
I think it’s important to err on the side of acquitting the innocent than it is to err on the side of convicting the guilty, and that’s a conviction I still have even after this … but imagine for a moment that Zimmerman did initiate the physical confrontation. In that case, didn’t he just get away with murder by killing the only other witness?
I’ll ask again: How can that possibility not bother you?
—Myca
I think it’s heinous to initiate a confrontation and get away with murder. (And, yes, I believe that stalking somebody is initiating a confrontation. I’ve been stalked and it’s a scary, scary thing.)
Condemning someone as racist (or stating your opinion that someone is a racist) is small potatoes compared with any number of other things up to and including murdering someone. If it’s the determination made by many that Zimmerman probably stalked Martin because Martin was black that, in your mind, is the worst thing about this event… I don’t even know how to respond.
I think that if Zimmerman had considered the possibility that Martin might be armed, Zimmerman would have been a lot more cautious.
I pretty much go with the “idiot with a gun” model– both Zimmerman and Martin, before that night, seem to be within the normal non-murderous human range.
Here’s a hypothetical scenario (proposed by someone at Making Light) which I find plausible. Zimmerman walked up to Martin, put a firm hand on his shoulder or started to, and said something like “I want to talk to you”. Martin was already frightened and angry, and defended himself physically.
The thing is, I believe people overestimating how much authority they can exert is a lot more common than people doubling back to make a surprise attack.
Hi, folks!
I’m too busy at work to participate any further on this thread today (unless I have to moderate), but I wanted to remind everyone to please keep it cool and civil, and try to treat people you disagree with, with respect. Remember that the people who disagree with you are JUST as passionate about, and just as certain that you’re being unreasonable, and probably just as pissed off by you, as you are regarding them and their posts.
I’m not singling out anyone in particular, or either side in particular, I’m just saying that as a general reminder. Thanks!
By this logic, you can’t presume that anyone is unarmed.
I’m curious to know what some of the regulars (RonF, you’re a guy who comes to mind) who don’t consider racism to have been a systemic issue in play for Zimmerman think about this video:
http://youtu.be/ge7i60GuNRg
(summary: a hidden camera “sting” in which three different people try to steal a bike chained up in a public park, with differing results.)
I can only hope.
Just a thought (observation, what-have-you). I don’t see tribalism as something that affects some humans and not others or as something that some of us have “progressed” past (or may be in “danger” or “descending” back into) Humans have always been a tribal species and we still are. Tribal thinking dominates much of our social interactions and our viewpoints. Those of us living in modern Western societies like to think that we are oh so advanced and don’t live in tribes anymore but the reality is that we live in a series of interlocking tribes: Family, friends, neighborhood, local sports team, nation, race, political party, etc., etc., etc. A large part of tribal thinking consists of believing that anyone outside the tribe is dangerous or, at the very least, suspect. We have little tolerance for threats (real or perceived) or even insults (again, real or perceived) to the tribe. The level of our response will depend upon the level of our loyalty to the tribe and the degree of threat that is perceived. An insult to our favorite spots team may generate only return insults. “Foreigners” moving into the area may be perceived as a threat to the local’s earning potential (“they took our jobs!”) and result in a more violent reaction.
Tribal thinking may have served us well during our evolution, strengthening tribal unity and thus increasing a tribe’s chances of survival. Today, however, tribal thinking and tribal reactions can be more problematic. Much of what passes for political discourse consists of my side can do no wrong your side can do no right “thinking.” What is a protest but two tribes, the protesters and the police, facing off against each other? What are fundamentalist Christians but a tribe that sees reality (as they perceive it) itself under assault (and so fights back by trying to impose their version of reality on the rest of us)?
I believe that many of our social problems will disappear (or at least be greatly reduced) when the majority of people look upon the whole human race (and not mere portions thereof) as “my tribe.” The advent of the communications age has made this possible for the first time though we still have a long, long, way to go.
AMPERSAND: I want to thank you again for your assistance. It helped me to keep fighting the good fight though it may have come to naught. After a few more rounds the combatants agreed (grudgingly) that we disagree and withdrew from the field of combat. Of course, I’m still right and he’s still wrong… or maybe he’s just not a member of my tribe… hmmm… uhmmm… nope, he’s just wrong. :-)
@ Marcus: I would agree that the impulse toward tribalism may be part of human nature. It doesn’t follow that we should enshrine racial tribalism as feature of our political system.
At the risk of oversimplification, I would argue that the goal of “liberals” throughout most of the 20th century was to ensure that blacks could compete on the same footing as whites for advancement within our political, economic, and social systems. IOW, they could vote, send their kids to the same schools, marry who they wanted, move to whatever neighborhood they wanted, etc. The goal was equal opportunity, though not necessarily equality of outcomes.
Now, there seems to be an insistence by many on the left for equal outcomes according to racial groupings. One manifestation of this is that, if blacks, as a group, fail to achieve at the same level as whites, it is automatically supposed that the reason is racism. Another manifestation is the assumption that it is the obligation of the citizenry as a whole to enact measures to mitigate the disparity. Whether we’re talking about AA or Headstart, the thinking is that because blacks, as a group, are not enjoying the same outcomes as whites, it’s the responsibility of society at large to somehow close the gap.
My biggest problem with this (apart from the folly of government’s trying to affect outcomes on a macro level) is that the government — and frankly, people in general — shouldn’t be in the race business to begin with. It’s un-American. The whole idea of affecting outcomes by racial groups pre-supposes classifying by race and being more concerned with racial identity than with a person’s individual characteristics.
IMO, we’d be much better off if we’d recognize that looking at people through the prism of race is itself essentially racist. It necessarily implies that there is something to being of a certain race that matters and that defines a person. That IS racism.
Again, while I recognize people may fixate on race or other “tribal” markers in their personal journeys through life, it doesn’t follow that we should make this a basis for public policy decision-making.
Conrad, I don’t feel you ever really replied to my comment @248. Would you mind addressing that? I feel like it might enable me to better understand what it is you’re objecting to. Is it “essentially racist” for a black writer to be interested in Black history in particular, for example?
P.S. 300 comments! Geez!