One of the 46 calls.
Wow.
OK, point taken.
That’s a poster I don’t recognize off the top of my head, but I agree with you: repulsive and disturbing.
Why do you not also count the disturbance calls?
Even your way, there’s 17 suspicious activity calls, and only seven involve black males. How is that “most?”
Well?
No, George Zimmerman stepped out of his car in the presence of a human being. This should not be a difficult concept to grasp.
Anyone who calls to report a suspicious black 7 year old just might be holding some biases…
Ok. And he didn’t know if the human being was dangerous or not. The human being was.
I was using an analogy to show how I thought Zimmerman was not thinking. You wouldn’t step into a cage with an unknown animal or an aquarium with an unknown fish. I shouldn’t have to explain what an analogy is.
Everyone understands what an analogy is.
They also understand that your analogy is racist.
No, I think it’s dehumanization whenever human being are compared to animals (ignoring the scientific accuracy of it, particularly when it’s not used in an, even vaguely, scientific way).
Sadly, being a ~50 year old, American, Caucasian my racism is assumed.
Sadly, being an educated, ~50 year old, American, Caucasian I fully understand why my racism is assumed.
It’s every bit as dehumanizing if Trayvon had been White, Asian, Hispanic, or Vulcan.
I think this paragraph of Bobo’s addresses your analogy,
That word. I do not think [del][COLOR=Black]it means what you think it means[/del][/COLOR] you know what it means.
CMC fnord!
Agreed.
+1. Zimmerman doesn’t hate black people, he hates young people. Zimmerman started following someone in the dark, in the rain, with a hoodie on way before he could have reasonably ascertained the race.
Well, I’m not Bricker and wouldn’t go so far as to call myself “pro-Zimmerman” but there’s a difference in saying “I don’t think he’s guilty” and “I think what he did was OK.” I think of the people you call “pro-Zimmerman” a lot more belong to the former than the latter.
This would be a key point in the difference between “I think he’s guilty” and “I approve of what GZ did.” The law, as it is, makes it reasonable that he would have been found not guilty. Between the self defense angle, the cc permit, the evidence presented, and no preconceived notions of racial motivation or other irrationalities I thought that Zimmerman had a good shot of beating the charges.
What gets people’s goat would be the existence of these self defense laws, gun control issues, etc. It just doesn’t jibe with their (and my) preconceived notions of justice and morality. I don’t think the people who are rioting are directing their frustration properly. They shouldn’t be outraged at the verdict, or outraged at the state of racial affairs in America. They should be outraged at the state of the laws in America that would allow a situation like this to arise in the first place - specifically the gun situation
It shouldn’t be, but for some, it is. America has made some progress, but the sad reality is, the lives of black people are often not held on the same value as whites, and their lives are not afforded the same regard under the law. I am not the same as I was before yesterday evening when I heard the news. I knew it was a distant hope that justice would apply to tm, but still, I had hoped.
You are correct, and there is a maddening inability from many here to understand that difference.
Perhaps even more irritating is the idea that a reasoned conclusion that Zimmerman can’t be proven guilty means believing Zimmerman’s story to be perfectly accurate, and believing only that, as though Zimmerman’s story were the subject of the trial, rather than the state’s (failed, as it turns out) attempt to prove him guilty of the elements of the crime he was charged with.
Martin’s alleged murderer was charged and tried by the state. It was, by any rational measure, a fair and thorough trial in which the state did their best to persuade the jury of the alleged murderer’s guilt.
That is what it means for justice to apply to someone.
No, Mr. Bobo is wildly wrong. A not guilty verdict in this case did not require the jury to be “immers[ed] in a culture of contempt, derision and at bottom, profound dehumanization of African Americans, particularly black men”. It requires a jury that has a reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the accused. Which was available in spades, due the lack of evidence that indicated guilt without first being processed through the assumption of guilt.
I quoted the article. They said 911 dispatcher. There is tape of their conversation where he clearly says we don’t need you to do that [follow him]. These semantic quibbling you are hung up on are meaningless. I never contended this operator’s instructions/suggestions/whatever are legally binding. Just that a disinterested person given similar facts at the time thought it was likely a bad idea for Zimmerman to pursue someone at night.
No one has alleged that was against the law. What I am saying is that it was stupid and likely motivated by racial profiling.
Learn how to read. I explicitely said that such laws do not apply in this case. My point was that you contention that you can follow someone anytime any where is not true.
There is a reason people who feel threatened have a fight or flight reaction. If you follow someone at night at night with a gun, with the sole intent to confront this person you think is a criminal, there is a fairly high chance something bad is gonna happen.
I don’t think he was attacked. At least, I highly doubt he didn’t start the fight, and/or fight back. I don’t think picking a fight you end up losing should be grounds to shoot someone.
How about before you start making ridiculous assumptions about what I was referring to, you give me a chance to answer. The comments I am talking about can be found here:
Other evidence of his possible feelings on race are here:
Those are the types of things I was talking about. Not what you alleged in latter posts.
You generally should not do that unless there is some evidence that they share the same feelings. There is evidence that is the case, and given that both the brother and father were acting as unofficial spokespeople for him, the fact they couldn’t do so without outing themselves as unabashed racists is fairly incriminating. Either way, feel free to throw out their behavior. There is plenty of his own actions and comments that are questionable.
No. See above. And try to not make unfounded assumptions.
How exactly has the verdict flown over my head?
Like I said in another thread, things do not happen in a vacuum. History is interred in the shallowest of graves. And while the state may not have proved their case in this specific instance, there is a long history in the south of all white juries denying justice to black people.
Since it’s obvious from the dispatcher call that Trayvon had a four minute head start ,after the dispatcher suggested that Zimmerman not follow, Zimmerman’s breathing was normal, no wind noise, just a regular conversation, (Omara’s four minute silence at the trial) Trayvon certainly couldn’t have known that Zimmerman had a gun, since there would have been no confrontation. Logically, Trayvon would have been long gone.
That article is a little more even-handed, but only just.
No, we can’t understand the verdict to mean that. This appears to be yet another commentator who fails to understand the difference between someone being proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, and wholesale endorsement of every aspect of their conduct. The jury didn’t find that Zimmerman acted out of reasonable fear, but rather that the state couldn’t prove that he didn’t (assuming that was the basis for their verdict, we can’t be certain, of course). Likewise, there was no validation of Zimmerman’s suspicion of Martin, because he wasn’t on trial for being suspicious of Martin. As for black teenagers being considered armed…that’s a grotesque mischaracterization of the defense’s argument.
I understand that this what writers do: they try to frame the events of a chaotic and uncertain universe as simple, appealing narratives, which creates the comforting illusion of some grand meaning behind the events. But this should be done responsibly.
Which does not mean that every acquittal of the killer of a black person is the denial of justice. This case, for example, was not.
Also, this jury was not all white.
Like yours and Zimmerman’s? Oh wait.
Next.
So? You can be a bigot and hate the race you are an ancestor from. Or did you seriously not know that?
Yes, someone was obviously dangerous. That someone was Zimmerman. You know, the killer.