Quote from: Novak 1334 on Jul 16, 2013, 07:48:16 AM
Fact of the matter is, another young man died needlessly. Unfortunately, being the circus of ridiculousness that the media is it will be dogged by race issues, regardless of the basic tragedy that a human being killed another for no apparent reason. Zimmerman put himself in that situation by being over zealous, in turn Trayvon Martin assaulted Zimmerman, Zimmerman resorted to shooting him and was found not guilty because of gun law. (don't get me started on the U.S and guns, needless to ay it is as ridiculous as religion) Idiots will argue that Zimmerman himself is a minority, because apparently racism is the preference of white people apparently, every moron who cries out racial hatred when a tragedy befalls somebody of color will scream for his head, and the death of a young man will become a spectator to another media frenzied farce. His family will suffer more than they deserve having suffered more than enough already.
Agree with you 100%. Well said.
Painting Zimmerman as a racist is speculative and unnecessary as his reaction to Trayvon Martin being in a "wholesome", gated white neighborhood (where a relative of Martin's happened to live), probably was reiterated by 'instinctively' structural and systematic racist errors embedded in U.S. culture and society. What Zimmerman did was wrong and he SHOULD have been charged with manslaughter, because that is exactly what it was.
But less "subconscious" displays of racism were, and are, a part of this whole ordeal, and we're talking about the right-wing media and the culture of perceiving black people (especially young black men) as a problem and the death of one of them as less of a concern than the death of, for example, a white person; we're talking about Zimmerman's defense apparatus (not talking about Zimmerman himself) catering to the dark corners of America where being young, black and in the "wrong" neighborhood is considered a crime in itself. This of course will trigger a reaction from especially the black community since the long struggle from sub-human slave to a full-worthy human (equal to the white man) apparently isn't over, but not only that - other minorities and people in the margin can feel and fear the injustice and effects of this as well, which of course will engage the Left, prone to always take the side of minorities, workers and the poor. So what we got here is the perfect case for the media - a raging feeding frenzy from the Right to the Left and everything in between.
Trayvon Martin's life (and death) was never treated as the life of a firsthand citizen in this trial. The part of the jury who made up their mind beforehand that Martin didn't belong in that neighborhood and that what Zimmerman did (shooting and killing Martin) was considered as the righteous defense of himself and that neighborhood, won.
Also, the jury selected was a joke too... One Hispanic lady and three white ones, which is pretty bad considering that Zimmerman's ethnicity is of some sort of Hispanic/Latino decent and the place the manslaughter took place at was in a mostly white neighborhood.
Another proof of this embedded, structurally racist error displayed here, i.e. how little a young black man's life is worth in the U.S. is, is the laxness of the authorities - they waited 44 days before arresting Zimmerman.
44 days. As if that wasn't enough they're now going to give Zimmerman his gun back - the same gun he shot and killed Trayvon Martin with. They're giving him the gun back so he can defend himself against pissed off people who want to hurt him (and as we all know guns solve all problems!). If that isn't telling of how structural racism is still live and well in this country then I don't know what is.
Then we have U.S., and especially Florida's gun law, which pretty much enabled this all to happen. If Zimmerman didn't have that permit to carry guns outside of the home and if Florida didn't have their "Stand your ground" law etc., Trayvon Martin would've been still alive, because I really, really doubt that an unarmed Zimmerman would have stalked and confronted Martin. Instead Zimmerman would've done the right thing, i.e. use his cellphone and call the authorities about a "suspicious looking" young man in the neighborhood. The gun empowered Zimmerman to do the wrong thing, to go vigilante.
This case deserves all the attention it can get because it candidly show us how much work there still is to be done in this country. The rift is huge still.
"Land of the brave and free" ...what a joke.
