George Zimmerman needs a damned hug
Where are George Zimmerman’s supporters? He needs you now more than ever!
After he was acquitted of murder, I couldn’t swing a dead cat without hitting some dude telling me how much Trayvon Martin deserved to die. Telling me that they would have done precisely the same thing.
For months afterwards, every time a Black kid committed a violent crime against a good white citizen, someone put his mug on Facebook as further evidence that Trayvon had it coming. Because, one violent Black kid automatically means that all Black kids before him, and all Black kids thereafter are also violent. The young Black hive mind.
The Knockout Game is a perfect example. It’s also a crystal clear case of media hype on a slow news day. Reporters take one incident, mix in an urban legend and a bunch of footage from all over the space time continuum via Youtube. Then, for a taste of authenticity they drop in a bunch of scary blurred images of Black kids and one other dude, who looks like an expert on something but really just wants to talk on camera. That shit is Internet gold. It had Black people lowering their heads in shame… Wringing hands; gnashing teeth… Something had to be done!
Are young Black boys the only ones sucker punching people? Youtube says no. White boys are violent assholes sometimes, too. Google can give you a handful of incidents where white men sucker punch strangers with virtually no provocation. It will take about 30 seconds. The only difference is, they are isolated incidents while the Black kids who do the same things are part of a phenomena that has a name scary name and is “sweeping the nation.”
That same hype machine was working hard on Zimmerman’s behalf. In their hands, Trayvon went from murder victim to violent drug dealer. They beseeched us to wait until the verdict, while they waged a public smear campaign on a dead boy. He was a pot smoker… but so are a lot of people. He was a drug dealer… yeah, well he was never convicted, or even charged with anything. Shouldn’t the courts decide things like that?
You guys did a great job. You had rational people believing that Iced Tea and skittles were as dangerous as a Kel-Tec Nine Millimeter. Where the hell are you now that your boy has been accused of aiming a pistol at his girlfriend? I’m interested in hearing how she had it coming. You know, because women are so hormonal. Tell me to reserve judgement until he’s had his day in court. Tell me that she lied. Because, like, 50 percent of all of the liars in the U.S. are women. Look it up.
At least tell me that I wasn’t there, so I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. That’s what you said about Trayvon. It’s also what you said about 19 year old Renisha McBride, when she was shot dead on 54 year old Theodore Paul Wafer’s front porch. She had crashed her car and knocked on his door for help. She was drunk, and high, and I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. You know, because assumptions are dangerous.
Renisha McBride. Unarmed but dangerous, she was shot in the face while looking for help.
By the way, there were legions of 19 year olds out that night who were both high and drunk. It’s pretty common. It’s called being young. But for her, it was evidence that she was a threat, to be dealt with through lethal force.
Come on guys, in July George Zimmerman was your cause celeb. You were raising money for him. Giving him tours of gun facilities. What’s the difference between then and now? Is it because the alleged victim is white? Maybe. Or maybe you never gave a shit about GZ in the first place. But while thousands of white people were out there looking at hip hop videos and the news stories like “The Knockout Game”, and thinking about what they would do if… he actually did it. He went ahead and killed a Black kid. For that he was afforded support, money and honorary whiteness in the eyes of the jury and nation. (Never hurts to have a daddy who is a judge.)
Zimmerman’s ex girlfriend
He should have hung up his spurs then. Been quiet. Disappeared. But they didn’t bank on how much he liked resolving conflicts with his gun.
But I’m probably wrong. Zimmerman supporters are patiently scouring his girlfriends Facebook feed to justify that sometimes you just have to aim a gun at a chick. You know, because she had pot in her system, or had, within her cabinets, the ingredients for a pipe bomb or something. Soon, women who kill their boyfriends will begin to litter Facebook as justification. They’ll prove that she wasn’t so innocent.
Don’t let me down. Show me that you really believed that he wasn’t a sack of shit. Because right now it seems like you only want to defend him when he’s gunning down a Black person, and that’s fucking racist. We should be able to gun down every motherfucker that even looks at us cross, regardless of their age, sex or willingness to do harm. Including this chick, right? I mean, what makes her think she’s good enough not to almost get shot? Drag this woman through the mud and show me that real men draw on their women sometimes.
“Are young Black boys the only ones sucker punching people? Youtube says no. White boys are violent assholes sometimes, too”
Well, you see, the key issue is how often this “sometimes” happens. I don’t think it takes a criminal expert to say that black boys participate in street crime and do things like these waaaaaaay out of their proportion in the population.
Hmmm. I’m no criminal expert but I think your wrong.
I do know that Black males are more likely to be handed stiffer charges and penalties when they commit the exact same crimes as their white criminal counterparts.
I also know that Black males are more likely to be stopped and shaken down by the police than their white suspect counterparts, even when evidence suggests that whites are just as if not more likely to be guilty of a crime. Which leads to the above.
All of that impacts the statistics.
I also know that almost all crime violent crime takes place within one’s race. In other words, white people are more likely to be stabbed, shot or sucker punched by white people. Blacks, by Black people.
I can post a link to a few articles that shoot holes in New York’s stop and frisk policy, but I won’t. I suspect you firmly believe what you said, and you are entitled to that.
Anyway, that doesn’t address Zimmerman’s Yosimite Sam impulse. Since he murdered Trayvon he has put up targets in his wife’s house and leveled a shotgun at his girlfriend.
There are people who kill other people in genuine self defense. It happens. There are people who kill other people because they thought they were in danger but really weren’t. That guy who recently shot the senile old man in his yard is a perfect example.
And then there are people who kill people, because they kind of feel like the other person is below them and so it doesn’t matter if they live or die. I think George Z is the latter.
> I do know that Black males are more likely to be handed stiffer charges and penalties when they commit the exact same crimes
I do know that as well. Are you implying that whites accused of violent crimes are acquitted so much more often than blacks that it skews the statistics? If acquittal happening more often doesn’t skew crime rate statistics, I don’t see the impact.
> I also know that almost all crime violent crime takes place within one’s race. In other words, white people are more likely to be stabbed, shot or sucker punched by white people. Blacks, by Black people.
Well, that comes as no surprise. Now, I think, we should consider the fact that blacks comprise about 12% of the US population, while whites are the majority. I guess that the implications of this are obvious and asserting that black-on-white crime should become a special concern only when blacks would kill whites more that whites kill themselves is kinda controversial. Possibly multiplying black-on-white figures by 5 (or dividing white-on-white) would give a better picture of what’s going on. Even then, black-on-white crime being a considerable fraction of that committed by whites themselves should be an alarming sign, if you bear in mind that proximity is a factor and that blacks tend to live with blacks, and whites, you know, with whites. I don’t even mention the fairly small figures (comparing to white-on-white and black-on-white) of crime white majority commits against the black 12%, partly, I think, due to this exact proximity factor. So, crime being mostly intraracial is of little consolation, and I am not even sure it’s as relevant in the context of debate as per-capita figures and comparative statistics
>I can post a link to a few articles that shoot holes in New York’s stop and frisk policy, but I won’t
Actually I’m quite interested to read those, so if you don’t mind posting the links, that would be great.
> Anyway, that doesn’t address Zimmerman’s Yosimite Sam impulse. Since he murdered Trayvon he has put up targets in his wife’s house and leveled a shotgun at his girlfriend.
And then there are people who kill people, because they kind of feel like the other person is below them and so it doesn’t matter if they live or die. I think George Z is the latter.
I’m sorry, but I don’t quite see how Zimmeran’s turning out to be a monster (based on what he has done after Trayvon) makes the case for Zimmeran’s self-defence in Trayvon’s case less valid. For me it’s no better than judging Trayvon on the basis of him “being a thug” (as many claimed) rather than on what he did in the night of shooting. So, please, tell me, was it Trayvon punching Zimmerman in the face (regardless of the motives. I don’t think the fact somebody is following you gives you the right to punch somebody in the face) and Zimmerman shooting only after this? If yes, I can’t see what’s so unfair here. If a 1.80 man came up to me and punched me in the face, I too would consider that it’s, you know, high time to defend myself.
We see almost everything about this differently.
I don’t believe George’s account of an epic struggle in which he only escaped with his life by using his trusty sidearm.
I think he was operating out of bigotry when he looked at Trayvon and assumed that he was a criminal.
I think he should have stayed in the car.
I think he should have listened to the police and stopped following Trayvon Martin.
And for the record, if I was walking at night and someone began following me, I might confront them. How would it have gone down if this were two armed adults? GZ isn’t the only one who exercises his right to carry.
The fact that he was acquitted doesn’t clean the blood off of his hands. He had a lot of opportunities to turn back. If he had, a young man who hadn’t done anything wrong, would still be alive.
That said, I was actually far more disgusted by the smear campaign against a dead boy than I was about the verdict. That was the point of this post. Regardless of the verdict, There was a deliberate smear campaign launched at Trayvon Martin. My question was, where is his PR machine? Why aren’t they coming to his defense now?
I ask you, how are you going to justify him aiming a shotgun at his girlfriend? Is it a lie? Could be. Self defense? I guess that isn’t absolutely out of the question. I’m not trying to re argue the case. It’s over. I want to know where his support base went.
>I don’t believe George’s account of an epic struggle in which he only escaped with his life by using his trusty sidearm.
Do I understand correctly that you believe that the chronology presented in the court (meaning the one where Z. followed T., T. didn’t like that and started punching Z., Z. shoot T. in response) is false? If yes, what’s your version?
>I think he was operating out of bigotry when he looked at Trayvon and assumed that he was a criminal.
I think he should have stayed in the car.
I think he should have listened to the police and stopped following Trayvon Martin.
I totally agree that might be the case. Yes, most probably Z. has been acting out of bigotry. Sure, he’d better stay in the car and listen to what was said about not following him. But, I am sorry, how exactly does this pardon what Trayvon did after this, i.e. punched Zimmerman? Zimmerman wasn’t legally obliged not to act out of bigotry, neither he was under obligation to stay in the car and listen to what he was said. Thus, I don’t see how it makes difference in the context of what has happened next.
>And for the record, if I was walking at night and someone began following me, I might confront them.
Cool, but then, how do you define ‘confront’? Clearly, the way civilized human beings are expected to behave in this kind of situations is as follows: 1. You see somebody following you 2. When he comes up to you, you indeed confront him, and by confronting I mean that you ask him why is he following you 3. After this, you do your best to resolve the problem/misunderstanding using words. Like “you’re ward? Cool. And I’m just walking here, not causing any trouble. Bought some skittles and ice tea, you know”
That’d probably be the way I would behave in situations like these.
Do you see “punching somebody in the face” here? I don’t, and I can’t imagine any line of reasoning that condones it, especially when everything starts as a conversation. Honestly, I don’t see why should I behave otherwise, for me not being the first to punch somebody is a no-brainer, precisely because 1. that’s not a good thing to do (in legal terms) 2. Somebody might have means for self-defence (knife, gun, etc.). Stressing this once again: I don’t get how Zimmerman’s being wrong in following Trayvon gave the latter a right to start a fight with Zimmerman.
>He had a lot of opportunities to turn back.
Beg your pardon, did Trayvon had an opportunity NOT to punch Zimmerman? Certainly, he did.
>I ask you, how are you going to justify him aiming a shotgun at his girlfriend? Is it a lie?
You probably got me wrong. I am not even trying to justify him aiming a shotgun at his girlfriend, and I don’t see why I (and ‘his support base’) have to do this in the case where Zimmerman certainly did everything wrong (aiming a shotgun at his girlfriend). Why on earth the support for somebody has to be unconditional at all???
So far you haven’t said one negative word about Trayvon. You’ve talked about his actions, but you haven’t tried to ruin his character.
I respect that.
We clearly disagree about almost everything else, but on this I think we have reached an accord. There was no need to compare Trayvon to a monkey, or make jokes about his parents; no need to make him into a Halloween costume or a fucking meme – Trayvonning. However you feel about the case, there was no need to veer from the events that night.
I’m not talking about the night or the verdict or the outcome. That case has been tried. The verdict was reached. I don’t agree with it, but universal agreement is not a feature of our criminal justice process.
In this post I’m speaking only on the need for people to paint Trayvon Martin and Renisha McBride and other victims of violence as savages who deserved to die. That’s it.
Yes, if you roll up on me at night, after following me for no reason, I can’t guarantee that you won’t end up in the hospital. If you follow me at night, I will assume that you mean to harm me. I will do whatever I have to do to keep that from happening.
It’s also one of many reasons I wouldn’t follow anyone at night (or at any time for that reason.) Because following someone for no apparent reason is a threatening act. It makes people fear for their lives. And when people fear for their lives, they take action.
If you believe his account, George shot Trayvon because he feared for his life. Is it really so hard to believe that Trayvon punched George (again, according to GZ) for the same reason?
“Are young Black boys the only ones sucker punching people? Youtube says no. White boys are violent assholes sometimes, too”
Well, you see, the key issue is how often this “sometimes” happens. I don’t think it takes a criminal expert to say that black boys participate in street crime and do things like these waaaaaaay out of their proportion in the population.
Hmmm. I’m no criminal expert but I think your wrong.
I do know that Black males are more likely to be handed stiffer charges and penalties when they commit the exact same crimes as their white criminal counterparts.
I also know that Black males are more likely to be stopped and shaken down by the police than their white suspect counterparts, even when evidence suggests that whites are just as if not more likely to be guilty of a crime. Which leads to the above.
All of that impacts the statistics.
I also know that almost all crime violent crime takes place within one’s race. In other words, white people are more likely to be stabbed, shot or sucker punched by white people. Blacks, by Black people.
I can post a link to a few articles that shoot holes in New York’s stop and frisk policy, but I won’t. I suspect you firmly believe what you said, and you are entitled to that.
Anyway, that doesn’t address Zimmerman’s Yosimite Sam impulse. Since he murdered Trayvon he has put up targets in his wife’s house and leveled a shotgun at his girlfriend.
There are people who kill other people in genuine self defense. It happens. There are people who kill other people because they thought they were in danger but really weren’t. That guy who recently shot the senile old man in his yard is a perfect example.
And then there are people who kill people, because they kind of feel like the other person is below them and so it doesn’t matter if they live or die. I think George Z is the latter.
> I do know that Black males are more likely to be handed stiffer charges and penalties when they commit the exact same crimes
I do know that as well. Are you implying that whites accused of violent crimes are acquitted so much more often than blacks that it skews the statistics? If acquittal happening more often doesn’t skew crime rate statistics, I don’t see the impact.
> I also know that almost all crime violent crime takes place within one’s race. In other words, white people are more likely to be stabbed, shot or sucker punched by white people. Blacks, by Black people.
Well, that comes as no surprise. Now, I think, we should consider the fact that blacks comprise about 12% of the US population, while whites are the majority. I guess that the implications of this are obvious and asserting that black-on-white crime should become a special concern only when blacks would kill whites more that whites kill themselves is kinda controversial. Possibly multiplying black-on-white figures by 5 (or dividing white-on-white) would give a better picture of what’s going on. Even then, black-on-white crime being a considerable fraction of that committed by whites themselves should be an alarming sign, if you bear in mind that proximity is a factor and that blacks tend to live with blacks, and whites, you know, with whites. I don’t even mention the fairly small figures (comparing to white-on-white and black-on-white) of crime white majority commits against the black 12%, partly, I think, due to this exact proximity factor. So, crime being mostly intraracial is of little consolation, and I am not even sure it’s as relevant in the context of debate as per-capita figures and comparative statistics
>I can post a link to a few articles that shoot holes in New York’s stop and frisk policy, but I won’t
Actually I’m quite interested to read those, so if you don’t mind posting the links, that would be great.
> Anyway, that doesn’t address Zimmerman’s Yosimite Sam impulse. Since he murdered Trayvon he has put up targets in his wife’s house and leveled a shotgun at his girlfriend.
And then there are people who kill people, because they kind of feel like the other person is below them and so it doesn’t matter if they live or die. I think George Z is the latter.
I’m sorry, but I don’t quite see how Zimmeran’s turning out to be a monster (based on what he has done after Trayvon) makes the case for Zimmeran’s self-defence in Trayvon’s case less valid. For me it’s no better than judging Trayvon on the basis of him “being a thug” (as many claimed) rather than on what he did in the night of shooting. So, please, tell me, was it Trayvon punching Zimmerman in the face (regardless of the motives. I don’t think the fact somebody is following you gives you the right to punch somebody in the face) and Zimmerman shooting only after this? If yes, I can’t see what’s so unfair here. If a 1.80 man came up to me and punched me in the face, I too would consider that it’s, you know, high time to defend myself.
>I don’t believe George’s account of an epic struggle in which he only escaped with his life by using his trusty sidearm.
Do I understand correctly that you believe that the chronology presented in the court (meaning the one where Z. followed T., T. didn’t like that and started punching Z., Z. shoot T. in response) is false? If yes, what’s your version?
>I think he was operating out of bigotry when he looked at Trayvon and assumed that he was a criminal.
I think he should have stayed in the car.
I think he should have listened to the police and stopped following Trayvon Martin.
I totally agree that might be the case. Yes, most probably Z. has been acting out of bigotry. Sure, he’d better stay in the car and listen to what was said about not following him. But, I am sorry, how exactly does this pardon what Trayvon did after this, i.e. punched Zimmerman? Zimmerman wasn’t legally obliged not to act out of bigotry, neither he was under obligation to stay in the car and listen to what he was said. Thus, I don’t see how it makes difference in the context of what has happened next.
>And for the record, if I was walking at night and someone began following me, I might confront them.
Cool, but then, how do you define ‘confront’? Clearly, the way civilized human beings are expected to behave in this kind of situations is as follows: 1. You see somebody following you 2. When he comes up to you, you indeed confront him, and by confronting I mean that you ask him why is he following you 3. After this, you do your best to resolve the problem/misunderstanding using words. Like “you’re ward? Cool. And I’m just walking here, not causing any trouble. Bought some skittles and ice tea, you know”
That’d probably be the way I would behave in situations like these.
Do you see “punching somebody in the face” here? I don’t, and I can’t imagine any line of reasoning that condones it, especially when everything starts as a conversation. Honestly, I don’t see why should I behave otherwise, for me not being the first to punch somebody is a no-brainer, precisely because 1. that’s not a good thing to do (in legal terms) 2. Somebody might have means for self-defence (knife, gun, etc.). Stressing this once again: I don’t get how Zimmerman’s being wrong in following Trayvon gave the latter a right to start a fight with Zimmerman.
>He had a lot of opportunities to turn back.
Beg your pardon, did Trayvon had an opportunity NOT to punch Zimmerman? Certainly, he did.
>I ask you, how are you going to justify him aiming a shotgun at his girlfriend? Is it a lie?
You probably got me wrong. I am not even trying to justify him aiming a shotgun at his girlfriend, and I don’t see why I (and ‘his support base’) have to do this in the case where Zimmerman certainly did everything wrong (aiming a shotgun at his girlfriend). Why on earth the support for somebody has to be unconditional at all???
So far you haven’t said one negative word about Trayvon. You’ve talked about his actions, but you haven’t tried to ruin his character.
I respect that.
We clearly disagree about almost everything else, but on this I think we have reached an accord. There was no need to compare Trayvon to a monkey, or make jokes about his parents; no need to make him into a Halloween costume or a fucking meme – Trayvonning. However you feel about the case, there was no need to veer from the events that night.
I’m not talking about the night or the verdict or the outcome. That case has been tried. The verdict was reached. I don’t agree with it, but universal agreement is not a feature of our criminal justice process.
In this post I’m speaking only on the need for people to paint Trayvon Martin and Renisha McBride and other victims of violence as savages who deserved to die. That’s it.
Yes, if you roll up on me at night, after following me for no reason, I can’t guarantee that you won’t end up in the hospital. If you follow me at night, I will assume that you mean to harm me. I will do whatever I have to do to keep that from happening.
It’s also one of many reasons I wouldn’t follow anyone at night (or at any time for that reason.) Because following someone for no apparent reason is a threatening act. It makes people fear for their lives. And when people fear for their lives, they take action.
If you believe his account, George shot Trayvon because he feared for his life. Is it really so hard to believe that Trayvon punched George (again, according to GZ) for the same reason?