It appears to be an article of faith on the right that members of the black community will riot if George Zimmerman is acquitted. Some right-wingers are going further than that and predicting that the jurors will be murdered and that Zimmerman will be murdered regardless of the verdict.
The fix is in. Zimmerman will get convicted of something. The six jury members by now surely realize that their lives are at risk if they return an acquittal. As for Zimmerman (whom I do not find an admirable character, btw), this is a capital trial for whom the death sentence will be carried out whether he is convicted (won’t live two years, if that, in prison) or acquitted (not even two years).
And who will suffer if he is acquitted and the post-verdict riots begin?
I hate that one of the more likely outcomes of the Zimmerman trial is that, like the Rodney King affair, black neighborhoods will end up getting torched and looted – by blacks.
But there will be no acquittal. This is the closest thing to Stalinist show trials America has ever had and like all show trials, the defendant, lawyers and judge are actors playing parts for which the script has already been written.
I have followed this trial, and I actually think an acquittal is more likely than not. I don’t think that either the defense or the prosecutors did anything but try to win the case. I don’t think the judge was biased, although she clearly did not care for one of Zimmerman’s two lawyers.
I’ve also followed what people are saying in the black community, and there has been no incitement to violence. It’s true that most people in the black community want and expect a conviction, but there is also a recognition that this is a difficult case to prove in court. If I’ve noticed an article of faith in the black community, it is that the case would not be so difficult if the victim were white and the defendant were black. In other words, there’s a skepticism about the fairness of the justice system in general, but not really about how this trial has been handled (once it actually got to trial).
I can’t predict what will happen if there is a blanket acquittal. I expect that there will be demonstrations of protest. But rioting? I know that all responsible parties will do everything they can to prevent that from happening. It’s not 1992, and this isn’t the Rodney King case.
Conservatives WANT there to be riots, so that they justify their fear and hatred of black people.
And then, they can feel better about referring to them, as little better than sub-humans – oranimals.
They demonized the victim of this crime, just because he was a black youth.
They have thrown every one of their prejudices at Martin, like he was a Velcro target.
Because he was a black youth, and wearing a hoodie, he was called a “thug,” a “gang-member,” a drug user/dealer” – that his Skittles might have been a gun, and even if it wasn’t, a young black thug like him could kill, or at least knock a man senseless, with that candy.
And then everything else they’ve ever heard that derogatory about young black males.
They have pulled out ALL stops in this trial, to make this kid what they wanted him to be – a violent thug.
So why shouldn’t they want black people all around the country to riot?
After all, isn’t that what sub-humans and/or animals, would do?
Thankfully, though there are some younger replacements, most of these people will soon be dead, buried, and un-mourned.
Exactly.
It’s not paranoia, it’s a fetish.
On the hoodie.
Growing up in and around DC during the 80s/90s I was a hell raiser. Me and my friends shop lifted, created street art (graffiti), and jumped people in (massive beat downs that often left the victims bloody), we also destroyed property for fun and while skating and were pyro’s. Some of the more aggressive ones mugged people at gun point.
We always wore hoodies. Hoodies are great, they hide your face from security cameras, make it hard for people to identify you. Hoodies are just as good as a ski mask in most cases. Best of all you can pull it down and idiots don’t see the warning coming.
Is everyone in a hoodie up to this, nope. But to this day I still realize a hoodie is a part of any young or adult male criminals kit as long as he is remotely intelligent. Even to this day here in DC the security footage of robberies, sketches of rapists, muggers, and other crimes… almost always there is a hoodie involved.
Next a teenage male can cause a lot of damage fast. All it takes is one lucky blow to do a ton of damage that often can’t be reversed. We were vicious, on or own or in a group. One of my friends landed in juvie because he hit someone in the head, happened to connect to the temple, the dude fell down and cracked his skull. Lucky shot, non intentional, over in an instant.
Race has nothing to do with this either, we were a rainbow group of hell raisers when it came to race. Classifying us could have been punks, skaters, thugs, some were just misfits. We all did drugs as well.
None of this is to defend Zimmerman who should have just backed off when the cops fucking told him to back off. What he did was stupid and reckless and now a kid is dead.
However let’s not pretended that you and adult males don’t often wear hoodies specifically because they allow you to get away with all sorts of criminal activities. That’s a giant “no shit Sherlock, the sky is also blue” fact.
I use a hoodie when it’s raining.
are all people in hoodies criminals, no. do criminals use hoodies to help commit crimes, yes.
or… to pick a target you might like better
are all gun owners murders, no. do murders use guns to kill people, yes.
Failing to realize either of these things means you’ve lived such a sheltered life you’re not even close to grounded in reality.
To make more of my point, if I see a male with a weapon or method of concealing their face, I’m going to make a mental note of it till I’m out of the area and then fucking forget it. I’ve been around the block a few times and I’m no fucking fool.
Do I wear hoodies to commit crimes now, nope, I wear them to jog in the rain. Did I before, you bet your fucking ass I did.
When you have to spend time in area with a high amount of violent crime, or commit crimes (in my case both) you learn these things.
So, we both wear hoodies in the rain. Trayvon did too. He dead.
In California, where the winters are mild, everyone wears hoodies. Middle aged moms, businessmen out jogging, every child has one with his school or team name on it. It isn’t associated with crime at all. But I know this, there are huge portions of the country where I will not travel with my kids, because there are monsters there who consider an article of clothing to be an admission of guilt.
When you have to spend time in area with a high amount of violent crime, or commit crimes (in my case both) you learn these things.
You also learn not to let something like a hoodie blind you to the rest of the little details about someone, as you go about making judgements about individual strangers on the street.
Are you sure it wasn’t that he was asking for it because his skirt was too short?
I never said he was asking for it or that he should have been shot.
But where I grew up and the circles I ran in a hoodie was just as much a clue shit was about to go down as a ski mask, gun, or crowbar. These all have other uses as well. But hoodies well, we all wore them to get away with crimes.
Pretending that people don’t is beyond stupid.
So hoodies, like pants, are worn by people who are both criminals and not criminals. Good to know.
But where I grew up and the circles I ran in a hoodie was just as much a clue shit was about to go down as a ski mask, gun, or crowbar.
Bull.
Shit.
You know that the vast majority of people wearing hoodies are not about to commit a crime.
If you live your life thinking a crime is about to go down whenever you see a hoodie, I’m pointing and laughing at you.
This whole trial, and oh yeah the dead kid, happened because of a right-winger overestimating the threat of skeery black people, and now these loons are doubling down?
Well. We certainly didn’t have to wait very long to find out what the Republicans’ new all-white people strategy was going to look like.
When do Black people ‘riot’ and there’s not Police involved.
Rodney King got his ass beat ON VIDEOTAPE by the police
and they were acquitted.
it was the POLICE AND VIDEOTAPE THAT brought the riots.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind that if Trayvon were a Black 24 YEAR OLD MAN
who had STALKED
HUNTED
MURDERED
A 17 year old WHITE CHILD
that his ass woulda been put in jail from the get go.
Watts, Newark — police involved.
Assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King — Were there police involved? Lots of unanswered questions on that one.
Sanford, Florida — police sit on their hands.
We know already what Stand Your Ground in Florida means if you are black and standing your ground. You don’t even have to speculate about stalking, hunting, and murdering.
Lots of police murders in lots of cities for “resisting arrest”. Remember Oscar Grant. Likely, had the situation been reversed, Trayvon Martin would not have made it to the police station for booking. The fraternity is like that.
Those black people, always itching to get into criminal activity, into some looting and robbing. Why I can’t imagine what that mindset has to do with this case.
“If I’ve noticed an article of faith in the black community, it is that the case would not be so difficult if the victim were white and the defendant were black.”
Maybe they should read Ann Coulter, who claims to have unearthed a New York case in which white demonstrators on the street outside a black man’s house were confronted with the man himself.
He was perfectly safe inside but got a gun and went out to confront them at the end of his driveway.
He shot one dead.
No charges were filed, I think she said.
Whites rioted all over the country, led by Al Sharpton and Attorney General Holder.
(Just kidding.)
Yeah, but Ann Coulter is full of it. Not just in her ideas, but in her presentation of facts. Even a precise Coulter quote would have zero evidentiary value, and you seem vague on what she even claimed. Find a real source for something please.
There wouldn’t be a case if if the victim were white and the defendant were black.
Nobody–not the defendant, not his lawyers, not the crazy scary blacks–would be claiming self-defense except as a thought experiment.
someone in the comments section at Huffington Post was upset that the Defense didn’t bring up the fact Trayvon Martin tried to purchase a gun because that would prove he was a criminal.
Think about that for a second…
First, I can only imagine how the outcome of that night would have been different if TM had exercised his 2nd Amendment rights instead of GZ (chances are, TM would be in jail and no one would have heard of this case).
But secondly, it amazes me that there are people in this day-and-age who can honestly rationalize in their minds that George Zimmerman owning and using a firearm is perfectly acceptable, but a black kid owning a gun means that he must be a criminal.
So where’s the NRA when you need them? Oops, I forgot: some folks have more equal “rights” than others.
What we’ve done, it seems to me, is to write fear of black men into the legal system. If I (as a white person) genuinely fear for my life, I can shoot someone to death; if the other party is a black male, then fearing for my life is widely considered perfectly reasonable.
Frankly, if Martin had been 28 years old and 200 pounds, this wouldn’t be a case. It’s perfectly fine to kill an overtly scary black man, even if he’s peacefully going about his business and armed with nothing more dangerous than Skittles. If he’d had a criminal record, forget about it. Killing a black man with a criminal record? Who could object?
What’s interesting about this (I mean, if you set aside the tragedy) is that it’s a boundary case. Martin was not 100% legitimately a target. He was only 50% a legitimate target, which is why it’s difficult to tell how the jury will decide.
If you can’t get the murderer off with a Stand Your Ground defense, you can still get him off with reasonable doubt.
Zimmerman’s behavior was not of a guy who feared for his life but a guy who was going hunting. The South has seen before what happens when this is done with impunity.
Yes, indeed, Stand Your Ground was indeed the GOP writing the fear of black men into the legal system. And upping the fear by the “necessity” of writing it into the legal system. It’s the old Nixonian “crime in the streets” writ its most transparent.
Was Marin only 50% a legitimate target because Martin stood his ground being afraid of a creepy and scary white guy?
The defense, it seems to me, is that Zimmerman went hunting and then got scared–and that, legally, getting scared trumps going hunting.
Aaah, the giant pretzel that is the right-wing mind.
No Zimmerman will be found guilty, because he looks like dork (kindest word possible) with a gun. He will probably be guilty of voluntary manslaughter or he will take a last minute plea.
If Zimmerman gets off, I’m positive there will be a wrongful death civil trial. Zimmerman will be forced to take the stand and shown to be the liar he has avoided in the criminal case.
In the black community? No intelligent person could possibly think otherwise. In fact the case would not be so difficult even if the shooter and the victim were both white. If Zimmrman is acquitted, it will be because the jury couldn’t help feeling his pain at being up against a scary black kid.
Reading the quotes in the article, you have to wonder how this country survives at all with maggots like these in it. The open assumption is that black people are too stupid to see nuance or make comparisons. The reaction to Rodney King, if not the runaway looting, was totally justified. A duty, in fact, to revolt against an inexcusable government-committed atrocity.
If there is a conviction, there will be entirely justified disgust, but not rioting, not revenge. African-Americans are way too smart, way too aware for that. The quotes simply project the writers’ limitations upon their betters.
I wouldn’t be surprised if some people get upset, and if a few small incidents are branded “rioting” in the media. In fact, if there aren’t any incidents, Fox News will probably start following black people to the supermarket to see if they accidentally drop any tomatoes. There’s your riot, right there.
It should also be noted that Zimmerman isn’t exactly white either.
Though the point stands. In America the person who is closer to white gets the benefit of the doubt. That’s racial privilege.
I haven’t followed the trial on television. I can’t stomach it. I have mainly been following reports and liveblogs form mostly like-minded and not like-minded blogs I frequent.
My plan is to keep as far away from the trial as I can until judgement day. So far it has worked, but today at work, I was checking my twitter feed and saw that apparently MSNBC showed a crime scene photo of Trayvon Martin’s body at the crime scene. The tweet I saw was from an online blog account and I clicked on it not knowing that the pic was actually the first thing you see once you go to the page.
It was jarring, to say the least. I couldn’t even stay on the page. As soon as I saw the pic, I click off the website. Just the brief glimpse I got made me so sick to my stomach and made me so mad, that I admit, I’ve thought about it all day.
Seeing the picture of the body of Trayvon Martin, really brings home the fact that the image perpetrated on the right of a menacing black man-child is just crap. All you see is the kid-faced, slim young man on the ground dead, and it just pissed me off.
I’m NOT a violent person, but after the glimpse of the photo I saw, riots in reaction to an acquittal of Zimmerman would not be condemned by me at all.
I saw that picture too. It just reinforced for me the fact that Trayvon Martin was not – on visual inspection – a thug or banger or criminal and Zimmermann knew it. He followed Trayvon, eyeballing him for a while from his car, long enough to convince himself that he could “take” that kid. Then (and only then) he gets out and stalks the kid.
When the overweight idiot figures out that he can’t “take” the kid, he kills him – in full knowledge that the cops he had called were minutes away. It’s totally outrageous and if Trayvon Martin had fit the profile of “dangerous black man,” Zimmermann would have kept his racist, cowardly a$$ in his car.
I had a good look at the image of dead Trayvon Martin over at Gawker and I really don’t understand the fuss about posting it.
Of all the commentary and opinion presented on this incident I found the image of that unfortunate dead teenager the most compelling. It is what the cops and coroners deal with all the time; the grounded reality of the consequences of somebody’s action. It didn’t change my opinion but it deflated my outrage and reminded me that some human behaviour, largely based in fear, as manifested by Zimmerman but also many other less culpable actors, is often dangerous and potentially tragic though completely unnecessary. It is a sad picture.
The gun lobby, the demagogues of the Right, the media and the popular culture which both mythologises and demonises the stereotypes which feed this fear have much to answer for. Where is that account settled? Certainly not in a courtroom in Florida.
Um, in a “Stalinist show trial”, the defendant publicly confesses in the tribunal even greater offenses than those charged. Zimmerturd didn’t even testify, right? Kept silent, as is his right. So how is he “playing his part” in the Greatest Show Trial in Murican History? I guess his “part” is Standard Defendant in murder/manslaughter trial.
Do these “conservative” white males know anything?
Watching the final arguments, where the Defense tore down and rebuilt the Prosecution’s witnesses and accusations; where John Guy’s Prosecution rebuttal took the Defense point by point and gave us all a sermon on ‘heart’ there was a moment where I looked at Trayvon’s parents’ faces and saw their look of satisfaction that their son had received a measure of justice in the final arguments. Likewise, when I saw Zimmerman wipe the sweat from his brow and squint I knew he felt the onslaught of what may not be final justice but an accounting, publically, for what wasn’t “God’s will” but his own evil.
So the system was working today; no matter the outcome of the verdict, Trayvon Martin was represented and represented well.
Zimmerman’s hatred toward these “fucking assholes” was his mindset. He was getting ready for a year by taking MMA, boxing and grappling classes. Then graduates to following black teenagers at night while carrying a concealed weapon. He wanted to kill and then he killed Trayvon Martin.
Should be 2nd degree conviction. Prosecutors tried to throw the child abuse 3rd degree in just to remind the jurors Trayvon was only three weeks after his 17th birthday.
I say the act was premeditated the victim was chosen at random.
I’m shocked this man didn’t have a heart attack while saying this.
damn.
Keepin It Real!? Old Man Going Nuts On Trayvon/Zimmerman Case Speaking The Realness’
http://youtu.be/rwg4WuOno88