Things are really getting out of hand here. I can’t pick part who needs to be warned and who doesn’t at this point, so I’m going to give everyone one last chance to COOL IT … or the next Zimmerman/Martin comment is going to have to be made in a pit thread.
My apologies. I had thought it would be fair to conclude you believed George Zimmerman to be guilty.
Remember what I said about the role that some black people have in helping to form the stereotypes about them? I would suggest that many of your comments said as a “black man”, do the exact opposite of helping to stop the formation of negative stereotypes of black people.
If the black man had a likely broken nose, a bloody head- witnesses saw the other guy on top of that black man throwing punches “MMA-style”- and the other guy had no wounds of any kind? That black man is likely to be going home- and not being charged with anything.
In other, more ambiguous situations? Yes, a black person may statistically be more likely to be arrested, etc. Prejudice, bias, etc. exists. But at about a 1 to 50 ratio of what you seem to think it does.
(He had been put in the hospital by this kid before, so it’s not an entirely straight-forward case of a punch being upheld as grounds for lethal self-defense.) But it’s interesting nonetheless.
It is interesting that the State Attorney didn’t appeal the decision even though they charged with second degree. It indicates to me that they screwed up filing for 2nd degree in the first place.
Fascinating. In every job I’ve had after college I have always been the only black person. I’ve had white people praise me, treat me like shit, etc and never have I extrapolated that behavior to white people as a whole. I treat whites with humanity just as I treat any other living, breathing human being. With that said, I am not here to help strengthen or weaken stereotypes you (or, for that matter, anyone here) have of black men. Though, to be honest, with 3 science degrees and four published papers on Pubmed (2 are first-author) before the age of 30; that’s on top of being raised by a single parent on evil and socialist welfare with no daddy in the wasteland of Detroit, Michigan. Far as I’m concerned, I’ve already made Black History - what’s your contribution to your field? Where’s your adversity? Now, if you need great black role-models, there’s the Obamas, the Smiths (Jada and Will), the Washingtons, Ms. Berry, Oprah, and the list goes on and on; but please, like Charles Barkley, don’t look to me as a role-model. Bitte, schoen.
I don’t think Zimmerman donned an Elmer Fudd hat and went “nigger hunting”. I think Zimmerman approached Trayvon, tried to physically restrain him, got his ass beat, and then shot him. Yes, I think uneducated white people think black people are animals. Even the United States constitution referred to us as less than human. Why are you so confident that this meme has vanished from the annals of time? I’m genuinely curious.
The slave-holders didn’t want the Constitution to refer to blacks as 3/5ths of a person – the slave-holders wanted blacks to count as a full person. The free states wanted balcks to not be counted at all.
Fascinating. I had thought that generalization was an innate cognitive tendency that universally applied to every human being. I’ve finally found an exception.
Hmm.. that sure sounds suspiciously like generalization to me- or "extrapolating behavior to white people as a whole’. Actually that seems exactly what it is. But such a concept, to you, is so unfamiliar that you find it ‘fascinating’. So there has be some other reasonable explanation.
Perhaps you should try seeing yourself, and other people, as people, not colours. For whatever reason, you appear to view everything through a lens of race. That, ultimately, makes you racist. It may be unconscious, but it’s obvious in all your posts.
That racism existed, or exists, against black people doesn’t give you the right to indulge in it against anybody.
Considering that Zimmerman was heard pounding his flashlight on the dog potty minutes before the incident, near where Martin’s body was found. what is your hypothesis as to why unbruised Martin couldn’t get away while Zimmerman was just standing there, trying to make his flashlight work? Was he just waiting for Zimmerman to finish? If so, this would seem to indicate he wasn’t that frightened, so why did he run away? Bringing up race doesn’t help matters. I’m a proud Native American, pretty much uneducated, but I’ve come to the conclusion blacks and whites are as much a part of the human family as we are. Hopefully that will be the final word on that subject.
Really? Does that include the uneducated white people who according to you think black people are animals? Because that would be both a very noble thing to do on your part and an extremely bigoted position to take.
Seriously good job overcoming adversity. You’re entitled to a modest self pat on the back.
that’s a pretty big self pat on the back. Make sure to thank your mom at the award ceremony.
? What evidence do you have that Zimmerman tried to approach him let alone restrain him? The evidence shows the fight started on the sidewalk that Zimmerman had walked back and forth on. Why would Martin be there in the first place considering Zimmerman didn’t see him while on the phone to the dispatcher.
If you give any merit to what Zimmerman said, the probable reason, imho, Martin took off running is because he saw Zimmerman was on the phone. He attacked when he saw Zimmerman reaching for his phone.
I’m often accused of focusing on the law and not the morality of a situation.
And of course, when the issue is how to treat someone arrested for a crime, that’s exactly what we should do.
But Honesty’s point should not simply be forgotten, because this is both an individual issue – Zimmerman accused of a crime, which the state must prove against him beyond a reasonable doubt as to each and every element – and a larger social issue.
The larger social issue should have ourselves asking questions like, “Should the law really remove a duty to retreat Isn’t a human life worth more to us than the right to not back down, even if you were acting legally in the first place? In other words, retreating to avoid a fatal confrontation is what our society should encourage, not standing one’s ground even if someone dies. This isn’t Tombstone. Police are minutes away. In this age, the law should reflect our society’s understanding of the primacy of human life over human pride in being able to stand on a patch of ground.”
Zimmerman must be tried according to the law, as it is. But what should we make the law be?
Another question is how you remove human error from the system? I remember reading about this case in Alabama, where the man’s wife and daughter were missing, so they executed the cruel and heartless husband and father for killing them, only to find the wife and daughter alive and well in Indiana. The number of people released from prison is getting rather high, since the advent of DNA testing, many of whom, after spending decades in prison, couldn’t have committed the alleged crime.