Unless you are going to outlaw guns, stuff like this is going to happen. And since it’s not only “right wingers” who oppose outlawing guns, it’s going to take a lot more than getting them to realize that guns are the problem. Assuming they are the problem.
You want us to prove that an American 17 year old could speak english? Are you kidding?
You are the one saying that it’s impossible that he said “I am begging you”, so the burden is on you to prove that he could not speak english. Not the other way around. Your assertion, you have to prove it.
If you can’t prove that he could not speak english, then what is your claim based on? Clearly not any evidence. Suspicion? Based on what I wonder?
On the contrary. You are the one making the extraordinary claim. Martin was a native-born American citizen, attending an American school. Everyone in his life spoke English.
Those facts permit an inference that he spoke English. “I’m begging you…” is not an esoteric phrase, or some literary allusion. It’s a common phrase in the language.
It’s for you to rebut this inference.
And as an aside, while I have seen on this subject some remarkably weak and untenable arguments tendered from many people, this one might be the weakest one I’ve seen offered earnestly (I discount little drive-by potshots that the proponents don’t bother to defend).
I’m a little baffled by the line of discussion regarding the “I am begging you” recording. It would be far more likely that Zimmerman said this along with “help me”.
It doesn’t make sense that Martin is on top of Zimmerman inflicting injuries while yelling these things. And with 26 seconds between the 2 utterances it seems more consistent that Zimmerman, knowing the cops are on the way and also on the receiving end of the pummeling – wants Martin to stop. It would make sense that Martin would say that if Zimmerman had pulled the gun out and was aiming at him but then the struggle would be over the gun and there wouldn’t be a half minute of beating.
I see no reason to believe it’s real. And if it’s real, admissibility is highly unlikely. There is essentially zero evidentiary value to this clip.
Do you have any idea how moronic this sounds? “Prove to me this kid could speak English, or else I’ll assume he couldn’t.”
Let’s assume Martin did not know any Standard American English at all – that he had the patois of a grade-school dropout from the inner city. “I’m begging you” is still a perfectly comprehensible sentence in Black English. As has already been pointed out, it’s used in rap songs for fuck’s sake.
This is an embarrassing, idiotic, repugnant argument. At the very least, it demonstrates deep ignorance, and at worst outright racism. It’s Sharpton-grade race-baiting.
You are like this close to seeing the light, man. So so close. The only reason you can’t get all the way there is that you refuse to stop treating Zimmerman’s story as a given. Once you stop seeing things through the filter of his tale, maybe you’ll start interpreting the screams the same way many other people do. Maybe.
I agree with you: it makes no sense that Martin could be yelling these things while simultaneously whooping some ass. But you know what? It makes even less sense that it’s Zimmerman who is yelling while getting his ass whooped. Based on the little that we know of Z’s statement, he was supposedly getting punched, head-banged, and/or suffocated up into the very end of the fight. He also supposedly had a 158-lb person sitting on top of him (perhaps even on his chest…right).
It defies plausibility that, through all of this, he would have had the ability to belt out the loud, sustained scream we heard on that tape. This makes no sense.
There are two other things that support the idea that it was Martin screaming:
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One witness (I think he was called “John” earlier) said Zimmerman was extremely calm and collected immediately after the shooting. Almost as if he wasn’t fazed at all by his beating or the shooting. So how likely is it that Zimmerman went from screaming help like his hair was on fire to being as controlled in demeanor as Clint Eastwood…in the span of 30 seconds or less? Not impossible, but it’s just one more WTF? the jury will have to swallow.
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The yell abruptly ends when the gun is fired. Coincidence? Only if you’re inclined to disregard the simplest explanation for no good reason.
The only conclusion that makes sense is that it’s Martin who was screaming and that it was occuring during a time when he wasn’t whaling on Zimmerman. Honestly, this is not that hard to see.
And please don’t retort with “you can’t prove any of this in court!” Because it’s clear you’re not basing your bafflement on any legal arguments.
You (and others) are stretching that characterization a bit thin, don’t you think? In the relevant post of yours that I responded to, you were practically objecting to some imaginary judge that YWTF’s post was inadmissible and should be stricken from the record. Said post did not contain any legal claims whatsoever. (I noticed that you never disputed those points when I brought them up.) Nobody has suggested that “legal mumbo-jumbo doesn’t matter” - just that that is not ALL we’re talking about.
I get that you’re inclined to frame things from a legal perspective, but that doesn’t mean people stating their opinion and speculation in a thread and forum specifically intended for that are “taking advantage” and “retreating into the safety” of anything. These are people working with limited information and trying to speak for a teenager whose death means he can’t speak for himself about what happened from his perspective.
Because we have a much better idea of GZ’s version of events, we have plenty of people defending his actions as he tells it. Because we don’t have TM’s version, people attempting to speak up for him must necessarily make statements of opinion and speculate based on the limited facts.
Anyway, providing a credible version of events from TM’s perspective is much more interesting and necessary to some of us than it is to discuss the various legal questions. You may not agree, but that doesn’t make your preferred way of framing the discussion any more valid, or valiant.
Based on the simple observation of language acquisition works, we can say with confidence that Trayvon Martin’s faculty with standard English was (impressively!) advanced enough that we might reasonably expect him to be able to form a clause which (remarkably) correctly conjucates a simple three-letter verb and places it in the correct order with a couple of pronouns.
We can do this with confidence because we have observed that standard English is spoken regularly in his home – that he was not a feral child, and was not raised from infancy by juvenile gangsters.
We can safely make this assertion because we understand the difference between a cradle language and the sort of affected slang that is commonly used by teenagers.
Mostly, we are able to make this bold cognitive leap because we make some small attempt to look at this situation dispassionately and apply our reason and intellect to it, without taking a deliberately blinkered view.
When I look at that picture, I see a spitting image of the mother of the main character from Big Love. Apparently, they don’t just look the same, but they also *act *the same! 
The notion that it is more likely that someone would be screaming and begging while beating the crap out of another person, instead of coming from the person out of whom the crap is being beaten, is just plain bizarre.
I know no more of Zimmerman’s statement than you do, but I am not aware of any claim that Zimmerman was being continuously strangled throughout his struggle with Martin. Your allegation that it is impossible to scream while being beaten is - well, as I said, it is bizarre.
I have learned to be cautious about accepting your characterization of the known facts of this case. Please produce a cite in which this witness describes Zimmerman as “extremely calm and collected” or the equivalent, and wherein the witness describes the timeframe as thirty seconds or less.
Thanks in advance.
No one in their right mind would describe the end of the yelling coinciding with the gunshot as a coincidence. No one has.
Although you are probably correct that there are those who are inclined to abandon common sense in their efforts to justify a conclusion at which they have already arrived.
Put it this way - suppose someone is sitting on top of you beating you, and you are screaming as a result. That person is then shot, and dies.
What happens to your motivation to continue screaming? Are you suggesting that the commonsensical thing to do would have been for Zimmerman to continue to scream indefinitely?
I don’t have any cites available, but I expect that most people who are screaming in fear of their lives stop shortly after it is clear that their lives are no longer in danger.
Regards,
Shodan
Actually I became aware of the problem with Black teenagers with learning standard English was when I was reading up on ESL programs in California. It was mentioned that a lot of black students were in ESL programs even though they had never used any language except English, because they couldn’t use Standard English well enough to pass their courses. In effect, Standard English is a prerequisite for graduation from high school.
Note that this article is concerned about blacks dropping out of California schools at a 37% rate.
http://www.good.is/post/dropout-rate-increases-for-california-s-minority-students/
When you look at the graduation rate for Miami-Dade county, where Trayvon was, is 34% for Black males. That is 2 out of 3 chances of dropping out.
http://www.miamiurbanleague.org/2009/12/07/drop-out-rates-endanger-young-black-men/
When I see Trayvon’s 3 suspensions, I don’t see a punk, I see someone frustrated by school work he doesn’t understand and he wasn’t going to be in the 1/3 that graduated.
If you have actual data that refutes my ‘retarded claim’, then I will be glad discuss it. I already linked to the studies. I just need to change the totals from Hispanic to Black.
BTW my analysis of Hispanic students was fairly positive. Hispanic students that transition from ESL to mainsteam by the time they get to high school, graduate at the same rate as most students.
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I liked your act better when Kreskin was doing it.
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What do these statistics have to do with how TM talks?
As someone who has supported this line of reasoning to a limited extent, I’d like to be clear that I think it’s ludicrous to assume that TM couldn’t speak standard English well enough to say “I am begging you”. There is no doubt that he could. The issue is whether he would, i.e. whether this is the type of phrase a person from his background would say in that situation (& in his apparent mindset). I think it’s highly unlikely. YMMV.
You are aware that these aren’t the only two scenarios that are possible, right? It’s also possible that no one was getting beaten at all in the moments before the gun went off.
If no one was getting beaten, one person had a gun, and the other person did not have a gun…between the two, who is most likely the one screaming for help?
We’ll have to see what you say when Zimmerman’s statement is released. If he maintained he was getting his head banged until the very end, what will be your position then? Will you be willing to concede that maybe–just maybe–something is very “off” about that claim when you reconcile it with the yelling?
Or will you surprise me and say that it seems unlikely that Zimmerman would have been capable of screaming like that while taking head blows at the same time.
If you say this, then what does it matter what is contained in Zimmerman’s statement? It’s obvious now you’ll find a way to make it fit regardless of what he claims.
Sure, Shodan, I’d love to play this game. Ready. Set. Go. There are discrete differences between brains of a fully-formed adults compared to teenagers. I strongly urge you to take a gander of this article published in one of the most prestigious scientific journals. If you look at Figure 3, you’ll see that cortical areas mature from white matter to gray matter over the expanse of 15 years. To note, the brain (prefrontal cortex) is fully matured at 25.
- Honesty
ISTM that the nature of Zimmerman’s injuries, and the lack of injury to Martin, make it rather clear that someone was beating Zimmerman, and no one was beating Martin.
Zimmerman says Martin struck him in the face. This is backed up by the mark on Martin’s knuckle, and the injury to Zimmerman’s nose. Zimmerman says Martin bashed his head against the ground. This is backed up by the cuts to the back of Zimmerman’s head.
So we know that someone was being beaten, and we know that that someone was Zimmerman.
No, I will not surprise you. It is not at all unlikely that someone who is being beaten would scream. It is unlikely that the person who was doing the beating would scream for help, or say “I’m begging you” to the person he is beating.
It matters, because I am waiting to see if he says anything that is contradicted by the hard evidence.
Unlike some, I don’t choose to base my analysis on ridiculous notions like “it is impossible to utter a peep while being beaten” or “whenever you bang someone’s head into the sidewalk, be sure you keep saying ‘I’m begging you’” or “the first reaction upon being threatened with a gun is to rush towards it” or “Of course I beat the shit out of him! He asked me what I was doing!”
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That’s nice. What the fuck does it have to do with anything?
Regards,
Shodan
I said he is semi-illiterate because writes like one. Have you actually looked at what he wrote? If you can some other examples of what he wrote or said, then please post them. I looked at Zimmerman’s web page when it was up. His thought processes are obliviously idiotic, but he actually had sentences. Probably about typical for someone who almost completed community college.
You actually read what Sarah Palin writes? I’m a Republican and it never occurred to me that she would say anything I would find interesting. Most of my exposure to her is from watching the Daily Show.
C’mon, Shodan, I think you’re smarter than that. If you’re not, too bad. I’m not going to hold your hand and explain to you age-related changes to cognitive function and how it relates to the matter at hand - Zimmerman (28 years old) and Martin (just turned 17, three weeks before he was shot).
- Honesty
IOW, you’ve got nothing, and are trying to cover that by preening.