How is that “an attempt to keep the race angle going”? Martin and Zimmerman are of different races regardless of what the media calls Zimmerman.
I expect they refer to him as a white Hispanic because he has one American-born white parent and one foreign-born Hispanic parent.
I agree with everyone who distinguishes this case (and the DSK case) from the Duke case. The latter was a rush to judgment. This one is totally different: people are pissed because the authorities did nothing, not because of the bad guy.
As I said, you have to work backward and assume it’s really all about white people. By now practically everyone knows Zimmerman is Hispanic because his mugshot has been all over the internet, and it’s still a story that an unarmed black teenager was shot to death in an incident that may have been racially motivated, and that the shooter was not charged because of a controversial Florida law.
Well, he started out as “white” in the media. That’s where all the attention came from. When it came out that he is hispanic the Times used the “white hispanic” descriptor. I can’t think of any reason other than race baiting. Refer to my hypotheticals above.
It is a local story if the shooter and victim are both black. Probably still a local story if the shooter is hispanic. If this were merely a story about a controversial Florida law then race would not have been mentioned at all.
No, it isn’t. The case got attention because a guy shot an unarmed teenager to death for walking around his neighborhood while wearing a hoodie, and the shooter was not arrested or charged because of Florida’s laws. It was initially reported that the shooter was white, and now people know he’s Hispanic. You may have noticed the case is still in the news.
That’s why I named several specific reasons.
I seem to have lost my chart that tells me how much media attention a story is going to get based on the races of the people involved. Can you link me to a copy so I can check your math? Regardless of the race of the shooter - at least as long as he wasn’t black, since Zimmerman evidently called Martin “coon” while talking to the cops and black people probably don’t profile each other quite this way - race was going to be an issue here. It seems pretty clear that Zimmerman was watching Martin just because he was black. I’m not sure why it is supposed to be less outrageous if a Hispanic guy shoots a black guy for what amounts to no reason than if a white guy does the same, but I won’t bother questioning that silliness.
You’re only saying that in hindsight. When the case first broke, the Duke lacrosse players were not “clearly innocent” and most people did not think they were. You can look at threads on this very MB.
And even after a lot of the facts had emerged, the NYT had a lengthy article purporting to show that the case against the players had a very strong basis.
And the point - again - is not that the case against GZ is as baseless as the case against the DL players. It’s clearly a lot stronger. The point is rather that in comparing the initial portrayal against the subsequent evidence, it’s clear that there was a slant to the initial portrayal and to how the gaps in knowledge of the facts were initially filled in.
I read the OP as opening an interesting discussion of the dangers of the reaction against traditional racism (against black people) going too far the other way, and ending up in racism against white people. I don’t think either are a good thing.
I’ve certainly seen versions of this cycle (instant reaction is that victim is innocent, with public opinion shifting back and forth as more information comes in) that didn’t have much to do with race. For instance, the Robert Dziekański taser incident.
Duke had more to do with the frequency college age male sports teams get accused of this type of stuff and then assuming they are guilty also. This type of incident (team members in a group assaulting someone) is reported frequently (frequently as in often enough for me to think “oh, another one”).
I don’t either. But that’s not just what the OP wants. If it were, he should be satisfied that a race-neutral probable-cause case can be made with respect to Zimmerman. (And, I’ll add, DSK and the Duke lacrosse players.)
Each of these people were investigated in the ordinary course. When somebody makes a police complaint about a serious crime and there is physical evidence to substantiate the allegations, an investigation ordinarily commences.
What the OP wants is for us to be a little more solicitous for these folks, people who like him, people with whom he identifies. Unfortunately, what he hasn’t shown, and what he cannot show, because it isn’t true, is that any of these people suffered any special mistreatment. Innocent people are investigated and even prosecuted with some regularity. Acquittals are not extraordinary events in our courts. (In fact, we might even want to ask the OP if he thinks similar caution should apply in light of other infamous acquittals involving people who don’t look like him, OJ Simpson, say, or Casey Anthony.)
Take the blinders off. An unarmed teen being shot is certainly news but it does not garner the attention of a white on black crime. The only reason this story has legs is because it was initially reported that a white guy shot an unarmed black teen. Since both the victim and the shooter were known to police there is absolutely no reason to mention race in the story.
Did you read the recent story of those two black teens that doused a white 13 year old with gas and set him on fire while referring to him as “white boy”? I wonder why that story didn’t get more media attention. I wonder how much attention it would have received if the races were reversed.
You don’t need a chart…just a little common sense and awareness of your surroundings. It is not clear what Zimmerman said under his breath in that 911 call but, just as the media has done since the beginning, it fits the narrative better if he is calling the kid a coon.
This case no less outrageous regardless of the races involved. Nonetheless, if white racism is involved or suspected the odds of it being a national story, and staying in the national news for an extended period of time, increase by at least an order of magnitude.
The OP is missing an obvious possibility. That the reason we always hear the other side of the story may be because there’s a PWM involved.
Read or watch the news and I’m sure you’ll be able to find plenty of stories about a black man committing some crime. And when it’s reported, that’s the end of it. There’s no general interest in hearing the other side of the story as it emerges.
But when it’s reported a white man committed a crime, the general public wants to be updated. They want to hear the other side of the story.
In the public mind, “Black guy commits crime. The end.” is an acceptable narrative. But the other story they want to hear is, “White guy commits crime. Why did he do it?”
That was part of the reason, but I wouldn’t say it was the big one. The main reason the case got so much attention was the idea that these rich white college kids harrassed and sexually assaulted a poor black mother who they hired to strip at their frat party. It played into a lot of people’s preconceived notions about race and power, and that’s why a lot of people took the allegations at face value.
When people say things like this, I take it as an acknowledgement they don’t have a real argument. How silly of me that I didn’t realize I’m blind and clueless. Now that you’ve pointed this out, I’m overwhelmed.
Do you think the Martin family is less upset knowing that their son was shot by a Hispanic man? Do you think it seems less outrageous to anyone that a Hispanic guy shot an unarmed black guy to death, the police didn’t care, and the family of the dead man had to do this much work to get anyone to notice? I don’t think so. So it’s hard to find an actual convincing reason to believe this case would sell fewer newpapers or draw fewer page views if it had been correctly reported from the beginning that Zimmerman is Hispanic. This case became a national story because it touches on several controversial issues, one of which is race - in the form of Zimmerman evidently doing a little racial profiling and perhaps the police deciding not to look into this any further. It also touches on gun control issues and self defense laws. These are all issues that get a lot of attention on a regualr basis.
You’re right that, say, a Hispanic gangbanger shooting a black gangbanger wouldn’t be a national story. Since this is about a Hispanic neighborhood watch participant shooting a black man who was not committing any crime or doing much of anything other than drinking iced tea and eating some Skittles before their confrontation started, that’s a significant story. It’s unexpected, just like it’s unexpected that for several weeks there would be no criminal investigation into a situation like this. But I assume you’ll continue making unsupported assertions about what kind of coverage the story would be getting in other circumstances.
It’s possible race was a factor in what happened, so you do not get to dictate what matters and what doesn’t. Martin was not doing anything that sounds suspicious based on any description I’ve heard, and Zimmerman had a track record of calling the police about black guys (and smal children). For whatever it’s worth, I find it very hard to believe that there would be no investigation if a black man shot someone in a situation that even remotely resembles this one (as opposed to something clearer, like a break-in). Maybe I’m wrong. Either way, people are not only interested in this case because some of them thought a white guy pulled the trigger. Just because an issue involves race and black people does not mean it’s really all about white people.
I think it says that the case against the Duke kids was weaker than the case against CZ, as I’ve said, but also that the Lying Whore thread was almost a month after the case first broke, and after the weaknesses had begun to be evident.
See the Wiki article on the initial media treatment of the Duke case (including the NYT article that I recalled earlier).
Considering that Zimmerman was recorded on the 911 tape complaint about “fucking coons” minutes before shooting to death Trayvon Martin I find it utterly asinine to suggest race had nothing to do with this case.