I have the EMT report, that said he had a single 1" laceration on the back of his head, which the EMT characterized as “small”, with “minor bleeding”. The EMT noted no defensive wounds to his hands or arms.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/93960335/Documents#fullscreen (last page)
I don’t know when that picture was taken, but if you see more than one small laceration, it must have happened after Zimmerman was examined by the EMT. Make of that what you will.
One may argue that an attack is justified, but shooting an unarmed man to death then claiming it is not an attack is just silly.
That’s a tautology. You’re saying he doesn’t look white because he doesn’t look white.
In your opinion do Portuguese-Americans and Sicilian-Americans not “look white” and do they instead “look Hispanic”?
I ask because I’m from Southern New England and we have lots of Italian and Portuguese Americans who look like Zimmerman.
Furthermore, in my experience most Americans if they meet a guy with an Anglo name, no accent, and no darker then most people from Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, they’re going to assume he’s white.
If he was more Mestizo-looking you’d have a point, but he doesn’t, so you don’t.
I try to be a helpful person so Im’a help out.
The OP is an idiot and other choice words.
Damn…I hate spraying Dr. Pepper all over my iPad!
[QUOTE=Ibn Warraq]
That’s a tautology. You’re saying he doesn’t look white because he doesn’t look white.
[/QUOTE]
You mean sort of like the assertion that he looks ‘white’ because he looks like a ‘Portuguese-Americans and Sicilian-Americans’ to you? 
Yeah, if I squint I could see Portuguese (duh) or Italian in him. Except he’s not either of those things, and is in fact a hispanic. Now, if you want to claim that hispanics are ‘white’ then that’s fine…Red attempted to make that case above. And, frankly, I’m not a believe in race anyway, so go for it. But then I have to say that Trayvon is ‘white’ as well, since we are tossing out race.
And had this crime happened in Southern New England you’d probably have a good case that the guy is a ‘white’ person with ancestry or roots from Southern Europe. In Florida, however, odds are better than he’s a ‘white’ guy who is in fact hispanic.
Leaving aside the fact that obviously you are seeing this guy differently than I am if you think he’s no darker than (I presume) most Italian Americans in Brooklyn, in my experience here in the South West having an Anglo name and little or no accent means dick (I have an Anglo name and no accent) wrt folks thinking you are a hispanic or not thinking you are a hispanic. It comes down to how you look, and the guy not only looks like a hispanic he IS a freaking hispanic, not an Italian. Perhaps in New England folks would in fact assume that someone who looks like he does is Italian and thus ‘white’, but not where I’m from…and I doubt that the same hold true in freaking Florida either, where there is a large hispanic population.
Seeing as I’m considered a Mestizo (that’s an Indian/Spanish/Who Knows mix for anyone who is not familiar with the term…it’s not always a flattering term to apply to someone either, since there is a real caste system about this stuff in Mexico), I disagree with your assessment and would love to know what you base it on exactly. In the picture I linked too he does look like he’s got a larger mix of Spanish in him, to be sure, but other pictures I’ve seen have pretty distinct (to me) native indian features. Even if he has NO indian blood in him I don’t see where that invalidates my point, however…if he’s full blooded Spanish American (:dubious:) he’s STILL a freaking hispanic, which doesn’t make him ‘white’ except by stretching that term to ridiculous levels rendering the term meaningless.
Look, it seems important to you guys to make this dude a white boy, probably because you are more comfortable attacking him and his actions if he’s a white man shooting a black man…or something. If you want to pretend that he looks like an Italian to you, and that this make him white then knock yourselves out. To me, his race is not that important to the case…it’s more important, obviously, to how those opposed to Zimmerman and his actions want to SPIN the case, and probably a set up for if Zimmerman is exonerated or found guilty of a lesser crime (‘Well, he’s white…what do you expect?? Of COURSE they let him go…why would they lock up a white guy for shooting a black child?? Come see the corruption inherent in the system, help! help! we are all being repressed!’).
To me, the key points are about what happened that night, not the color of their skin or what ‘race’ they are. I think Zimmerman’s actions were stupid and definitely ill advised. He should have left it to the police as he was instructed. It was a stupid thing to do. That said, Trayvon should not have turned to confront him, and certainly shouldn’t have attacked him, as seems obvious that he did. He should have run away, preferably to some place public, and called the police. I think the biggest fuck up with Zimmerman’s, over all, but the whole sorry mess was a cluster fuck all around. Whether that means Zimmerman should be convicted of something I have no idea…that’s in the hands of the justice system. I don’t know enough about the law to know.
-XT
Question: do black people, by and large, identify hispanic people as being, effectively, “white”? I have no idea.
Not in my experience, no, but that might not be the norm. My WAG is that, as here and in Southern California, black people seeing someone who looks like Zimmerman are going to think either ‘hispanic’ or ‘Mexican’ instead of ‘white’. I don’t know how race relations are in Florida between hispanics and blacks, but if it’s like here (in New Mexico/Arizona, where we don’t have a large black population, while having a very large and diverse hispanic population) then it would be a neutral association (i.e. identifying Zimmerman as ‘hispanic’ wouldn’t be any more threatening than identifying him as ‘white’)…but if it’s like Southern California, especially in the LA region, it would definitely be more threatening, as relations between blacks and hispanics is much more tense. If that’s the case, then it actually might shed some light on why Trayvon turned on and attacked Zimmerman, actually…something I hadn’t considered until you brought it up.
-XT
Assuming, of course, that he did turn on and attack Zimmerman. Which assumption I do not necessarily share.
Assuming he did, to be sure. My take from the evidence I’ve seen suggest he did, but I concede that not everyone is seeing it that way. Still, it’s a puzzle piece to me and my own train of thought on this cluster fuck.
-XT
I don’t even know why it matters if Zimmerman “looks” white or not.
Do yall really think Latinos are immune to anti-black bias? That seems to be the issue that has spawned this obnoxious tangent. Even if Zimmerman looked as Hispanic as George Lopez, that doesn’t have any bearing on whether he prejudged Martin for racial reasons.
[QUOTE=you with the face]
I don’t even know why it matters if Zimmerman “looks” white or not.
[/QUOTE]
Obviously it DOES matter to some whether Zimmerman is ‘white’ or not.
Definitely not. In fact, I’d say that hispanics, in my experience are more likely to prejudge a black person in this sort of situation than anyone (other than, perhaps, another black person or maybe an asian). I don’t believe that’s the point of trying to make Zimmerman ‘white’, or that there is much question that he DID prejudge Trayvon and his actions based on racial profiling…or whether it matters whether he did or didn’t use racial profiling to determine what his actions were that night. The key point is that he did what he did, he followed Trayvon, there was a confrontation at some point, obviously it escalated to violence for some reason, and in the end a man died.
-XT
He’s white, he looks as white as any slightly tanned Florida bro, in no sense has having one Peruvian grandparent of unknown racial extraction ever rendered someone in U.S. racial perception not white, killing a black guy for no reason and getting away with it is the ultimate in “white privilege,” no one would ever have questioned his whiteness by looking at him if they had not been given the external information about his ancestry, the whole point of this discussion is that if he was black or his target wasn’t he would just be Florida Death Row Inmate #451 and the Hispanic ancestry doesn’t change that…
Shall I go on? George Zimmerman is white, for all purposes to which whiteness is relevant to his criminal case. Anyone disputing that is intentionally missing the point.
So, it’s never possible to shoot an unarmed person in self defence then? Or, for that matter, by accident?
Of course it is. Which is why we need evidence that Zimmerman attacked Martin, not merely that he shot him.
In what way is shooting an unarmed man in self defense not an attack?
Are you suggesting Zimmerman shot Martin by accident?
In the way it’s defence… Exactly the same as if someone was to punch you, and you punched them back to stop their continuing attack, you would not have attacked them.
No, I’m pointing out that a dead body with a bullet hole in and of itself does not show that someone attacked them.
In most cases, of course, there is plenty of evidence that the dead person was attacked, and it’s usually trivially easy to find. The issue in this case is that there isn’t.
Sematics. So you do not ascribe to the wisdom, “The best defense is a good offense”? Self defense can absolutely be an attack.
So it would be correct to say that Martin attacked Zimmerman?
Regards,
Shodan
It remains unknown, unless you represent a certain demographic, and then it’s gospel.
I don’t think that is in question; he may have been defending himself. Standing his ground, so to speak.
[QUOTE=Condescending Robot]
He’s white, he looks as white as any slightly tanned Florida bro, in no sense has having one Peruvian grandparent of unknown racial extraction ever rendered someone in U.S. racial perception not white, killing a black guy for no reason and getting away with it is the ultimate in “white privilege,” no one would ever have questioned his whiteness by looking at him if they had not been given the external information about his ancestry, the whole point of this discussion is that if he was black or his target wasn’t he would just be Florida Death Row Inmate #451 and the Hispanic ancestry doesn’t change that…
[/QUOTE]
:dubious: First time I saw his picture, without knowing squat about the case, my first impression was ‘hispanic’. Personally, I think all of the above is a load of horsehit. IMHO, it’s exactly the opposite…no one would have thought of this dude as ‘white’, except that him being ‘white’ spins this whole event into a different light for some people. I’m still unsure WHY folks seemingly need this guy to be ‘white’, and why they are uncomfortable with him being hispanic, but it’s obviously true. 
I disagree with you that if the roles were reversed that the outcome would be different…I think that is your own prejudices talking. Or, show me another similar case where the black man is on death row for similar actions.
He’s not white, but it’s irrelevant to the case. I think ‘the point’ is in the eyes of the beholder, however.
-XT