This past Saturday, George Zimmerman was found not guilty in the death of Trayvon Martin.
Here a few thoughts
1) Massive Urban Racial Riots is a Thing of the Past
This was a racially-divisive trial and our default reaction to these types of trials is to expect a riot if there's a certain verdict.
That's because many of us had memories of the April 29, 1992. On that date, the verdict for the 4 European-American police officers who brutally beat Rodney King was announced. Three had Not Guilty, one had a hung jury verdict. Chaos reigned the streets of Los Angeles the next few days.
Learn more at
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2012/04/2-decades-since-la-riots.html
But this time , no massive urban riots. Just a few reports a few knuckleheads vandalizing police cars in Oakland. But nothing even coming close to the scale of the 1992 LA Riots.
This is a major sign that American society has matured a great deal in the last 2 decades.
This is also a major sign that racial riots might just be a thing of the past. And that anyone who expects future racial riots in response to trials could be seen as "someone whose mindset is stuck in the past."
The reasons are plentiful.
It's hard to rebel against "white society" when we have a man with African ancestry as our President. And even if the next few presidents are European-Americans, it will still be hard to say "
the system is rigged against us" when a man with a Kenyan father has been elected TWICE as US president.
Also, a whole generation of Americans of all races have grown up under the supervision of non-white teachers, security guards, principals and bosses.
Inter-racial dating and marriages have increased nationwide, and the US is becoming a much more diverse society with more Latinos, Asians, Middle Easterners, and others being part of the social fabric.
There are still anti-immigration fanatics making noise. But they are on the losing side of history. The movement is towards a more lenient immigration policy. It may or may not be official this year, but I can see it coming before the end of this decade.
Also, looters have learned a hard lesson from the LA riots --- store owners are armed and ready to fight back. And being that George Zimmerman was officially found Not Guilty due to self-defense, the street thugs know that property owners WILL stand their ground.
At this point, the only time massive looting will probably happen again in the US will probably be a Hurricane Katrina-like situation has happened and most property owners have evacuated and not be around to defend their property.
For futher reading on this issue
"The Riots That Didn't Happen: Racial progress and the Zimmerman verdict."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323848804578607712534481472.html?mod=djemEditorialPage_h
2) "Standing Your Ground" against the "suspicious"
Despite the verdict of Not Guilty due to "self-defense", I still don't think this case was a "Stand Your Ground" situation.
"Stand Your Ground" is supposed to refer to defending yourself from un-provoked attacks.
George Zimmerman, however, did provoke a reaction from Trayvon Martin.
Zimmerman was an amateur security person who thought Martin "looked suspicious". Zimmerman called 911, and the dispatcher advised him to not follow nor confront Martin. Yet, Zimmerman kept following and then confronted Martin. Trayvon Martin felt threatened by what he felt was some random dude who wanted to start a fight. A fight happened, and Zimmerman shot him.
This could have been prevented had Zimmerman just followed the dispatcher's advice and not confront Trayvon Martin. .
So no, I don't think "stand your ground" applied to Zimmerman in this case.
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Martin wasn't out for trouble that night. He was just going to a store in his relative's neighborhood and was going back to his relative's house to catch the rest of the televised basketball game.
But he "looked suspicious".
What the hell is that supposed to mean anyways?
Even if you think that person may be "up to no good",
if you don't have evidence, JUST LEAVE THAT PERSON ALONE! Sometimes, a person is just lost!
However, some people are so paranoid about "people up to no good", that they think any stranger is "up to no good" and "needs to be confronted".
I like to walk (or bike) around different neighborhoods just to explore. I sometimes ride a bike through Kalihi or walk around the back streets of Manoa. I shouldn't be made to feel like an intruder if I'm just passing by, even though I don't look like their average neighbor. And I don't really care if someone new is walking around my neighborhood either. Just let it go already.
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However, if you're someone in authority, it's easy to become paranoid. While being in authority sounds like "being in control", you are constantly worried about losing control.
However,
it's easy to take that anxiety too far. I still remember working at Kahala
Macy's when one day there was a guy running out of the store with unpaid items. The next day, another guy walked out carrying a pair of pants ......oh, oh.........but he walked back into the store. I told him
" hey, we can hold that pants for you if you need to go outside". He then showed me the pants ..............it was a brand that our store didn't sell..............oops............... on my part. I then apologized to that guy.
I also remember, as a substitute teacher, I heard what I thought was a racial slur. I was ready to intervene and be the "anti-racist warrior". It turned out someone said student's last name, which just happened to sound like an infamous racial slur. That student confirmed that she wasn't being called that slur, her last name just happened to sound like it! Very awkward on all sides. Yep,
my anxiety as an authority figure led to that awkward situation.
But yeah, easy to get paranoid about suspicious situations. But you still have to control your suspicions and tread carefully.
After all, you wouldn't like it if you were treated like a "suspicious person" when you're just minding your own business.
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The gun control activists pimped this case to spread their anti-gun propaganda.
It didn't work!
In real life, people have used guns to protect themselves against real danger. Some of them are the racial minorities.
http://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2012/03/what-stand-your-ground-really-is.html
Those Radical Left gun-control fanatics will shut their ears and yell "we can't hear you" when I'll tell this story I just saw online.
It's about an African-American male who "stood his ground" and shot a home invader!
http://www.clickondetroit.com/news/news/75-year-old-Detroit-man-who-shot-intruder-won-t-be-charged/-/4714498/9830764/-/6bgab2z/-/index.html
Willie White said he was only trying to protect his wife when he shot and killed an 18-year-old man who was trying to break into his home on city's west side Tuesday morning.
White said his side door was kicked in at about 1 a.m.
That is a true case of "Stand Your Ground".
3) Racial (and other )Biases on All Sides
George Zimmerman had a reputation for treating African-Americans in his community as "suspicious"
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2012-03-20/news/os-trayvon-martin-george-zimmerman-20120320_1_robert-zimmerman-domestic-violence-online-petition
Teontae Ami, who also lives in the Retreat at Twin Lakes community, said very few black teenagers like himself live in the neighborhood.
Teontae, 17, said he and a close friend who is black would sit at the end of a driveway in the evening and felt uncomfortable when Zimmerman would pass them on a neighborhood patrol.
They used to greet him, but he never responded, Teontae said.
"I think he took his job too seriously," Teontae said, referring to Zimmerman's watch patrols. A student, Teontae said his friend was once confronted by Zimmerman, who accused him of stealing a bike.
"I don't want to call it a black thing, but it sure seemed like it," said Teontae, who said the bike was never stolen.
Another neighbor, 55-year-old Frank Taaffe, defended Zimmerman as "not a racist."
Taaffe, a marketing specialist who had been a watch captain with Zimmerman until December, said he may have been "overzealous, maybe," but "his main concern is the safety and welfare of the community."
Others who knew George Zimmerman have said he's not racist,
http://www.chattanoogan.com/2013/7/15/255110/What-We-Talk-About-When-We-Talk-About.aspx
There is so much intellectual laziness and dishonesty afoot these days, it can all get a little confusing. So here is a handy little “Field Guide To Ignorant Things Ignorant People Say” that covers the low-lights of what is being texted, tweeted, and shouted in the streets after the not guilty verdict was announced Saturday night.
1. George Zimmerman Is A Racist
This one is a real head-scratcher if you know even a teeny-tiny bit about George Zimmerman. Zimmerman’s high school prom date- black. Zimmerman’s business partner- black. Zimmerman’s wife’s best friend- black. Kids Zimmerman tutors after school for free- black. Neighbor Zimmerman invited to stay at his house as long as she needed after being rattled by a break in to her house, black. Homeless man killed that Zimmerman fought for justice for- black. Fifty-one percent of the neighborhood where Zimmerman rents a house- black/brown. Seriously, if you have spouted this nonsense, shame on you. Nobody who actually knows Zimmerman labelled him a racist, but you can spot that sort of thing from your couch in Kalamazoo.
But having an over-zealous attitude as an authority figure (even an amateur one) can easily land you charges of racism. Especially if you have the authority to use violent force. And especially when you are dealing with groups of people whose ancestral history included violent racist oppression.
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But it's not only George Zimmerman that is guilty of having racial biases.
Admit it, when most of us heard the name George Zimmerman, we were thinking of a person who would have white skin, and blond/brown hair. Some of us were thinking it would be a Jewish guy.
Easy to think ...........oh,oh, white man killed killed black boy.
Until we say George Zimmerman's face and noticed he "looked Hispanic". And it turns out, his mom was from Peru.
The newspapers started to call Zimmerman a "white Hispanic" even though they don't even use that word to refer to well-known white-skinned Hispanics like Pitbull, Gloria Estefan, Marc Anthony, or Christina Aguillera.
ABC News
George Zimmerman
CNN
Pitbull
Guess which one is usually called the "white Hispanic"?
But yeah, it's easier to sell a story of "
racist white Anglo man killed black boy"
than to sell a true story of "part-Latino, part-Jewish guy confronted a taller African-American teen, both got into a fight, and the part-Latino, part-Jewish was losing the fight so he shot the taller African-American teen"
That story of "white racist Anglo man killed black boy" was also made easier to sell since Trayvon Martin's family released an outdated photo from when Martin was younger.
Reuters
A commonly seen photo of Trayvon Martin
But that photo neglected to show that by the time Trayvon Martin was confronted by George Zimmerman, Martin already grew to be taller (but still lighter) than the shorter, fatter George Zimmerman.
TheGrio.Com
A more recent photo of Trayvon Martin
I know neither photos prove anything about anyone's character. But being that everyone saw the top photo but very few saw the bottom photo, people got the impression that Trayvon Martin was too small a kid to fight back when confronted by George Zimmerman. But the taller Martin wasn't going to take crap from Zimmerman and fought back. Zimmerman was losing the fight he started and shot Martin.
This isn't about "making Trayvon Martin look like a thug", it's just that sugar-coating things about a gunshot victim was never really necessary to begin with.
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Rachel Jentel was last person Trayvon Martin was talking to, on the phone, before he was confronted by George Zimmerman.
Because she didn't speak "proper English" and because she wasn't mentally prepared to deal with aggressive defense lawyers, she took a whole bunch of abuse from social media.
There were taunts of "not proper English", nevermind that if YOU were growing up in her environment, speaking ebonics is a matter of survival. Just like speaking pidgin in rural Hawaii, or "speaking Southern" in rural areas of the South, you communicate in the way the people around you will understand you. So you shouldn't hold it against Rachel Jentel for speaking in ebonics.
Plus, some people do have serious speech impediments. Some people struggle with stuttering or mumbling. Some people naturally speak too soft or speak too fast. You can't hold that against them in a trial testimony. How would like it if that was YOUR situation, when YOUR friend got killed and YOU have to testify about the issue in court? Not fun, is it?
This is why defendants are not required to testify in court. This is to protect those with speech impediments from being verbally trampled by slick, articulate lawyers. This is so that defendants have their own slick, articulate lawyer to defend them against slick, articulate prosecutors.
But the worst abuse from social media that I know of was from Olympic athlete Lolo Jones with this
This is sick and disgusting!
Lolo Jones think she's so slick and funny to compare a real life woman (whose in the public eye
ONLY because her friend got killed) to a movie character that is a "man dressed like a woman"!
Imagine if you were made mocked that way by a celebrity who only knows of you because your friend got killed!
Lolo Jeans could delete whatever Tweets she wants, but we all have seen screenshots of that one! Karma will bite her big time in the future.
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Rachel Jentel did made a serious error after she mentioned that Trayvon Martin told her he was followed by a "creepy-ass cracker". Jentel was asked the word "cracker" was a racist slur. Jentel said it wasn't.
Yes it is! Sure, some European-Americans might jokingly call themselves a "cracker" in the same way some African-Americans might jokingly call themselves the N-word! But that still doesn't erase the fact that the word "cracker" is usually used in a negative way about "white people"!
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And of course, Trayvon Martin was portrayed by some right-wingers as some "super-thug" all because (like other teenagers of all races), he had images of himself smoking weed and sticking middle fingers on his social network sites.
But like I said in a previous blog post, that seemed to be more "image and acting" than being a serious gangsta.
Yeah, Martin had photos showing a tough-guy side of him.
In other words, pretty much acting like about 90% of teenagers out there!
I mean, most teenagers (black, white, brown, yellow, rich, poor, whatever) want to impress through their peers with social network pages with pictures of them sticking middle fingers, flexing their biceps, holding fake weapons, and imitating the fashion of hardcore rock or rap artists!
Most of it is Just Image and Acting!
Most of them are smart enough to know NOT to act like that at a job interview, or at a church! And they sure are NOT acting like that in front of their grandparents!
Most of them will just grow out of it, and go on to lead 90% honorable lives as adults.
When European-American kids act like that, it's usually seen as "just a phase".
But so many people see an African-American kid acting like that, and have an emotional image of "omg........that kid will become a super-gangsta and there's no hope for him, he's dangerous forever".
When in reality, many African-American (and other minority youth) who live in the ghetto might experiment with having a thug image during their early teen years, but fade away from that as they reach late adolescence. In other words, for most of them, "it's just a phase"
Read this from a real expert on street gangs, USC researcher Alex Alonso.
I often hear from naive outsiders regarding gangs, that one can never leave the gang safely without living in constant and perpetual danger. This is a Hollywood movie myth, fueled through nightly news reports and irresponsible journalism capped off with exaggerated law enforcement reports based on their anecdotal experiences.
Leaving a gang is not a treasonous act and teenagers walk away from the gang often. Some teens have a difficult time finding their position within the neighborhood gang, while others are quickly turned off from the culture. Some new recruits may not get along with individual members that have seniority, while they are best friends with other members. Also when many teens join a gang, they are actually escaping from other problems in their lives and in many instances, a strong family can steer that youth away from the gang. Several studies have also found that one-half to two-thirds of teen gang members leave the gang by the end of their first year of membership (Battin-Pearson et al., 1997; Esbensen and Huizinga, 1993; Thornberry, 1998).
Older teens and members in their early twenties have the option of getting “jump out” the gang, a brief assault to serve as a penalty. This process does not carry with it any additional consequences and it is extremely common within the Hispanic gang culture of Southern California.
For gang members that are in their 20s and 30s, that have spent significant time with the gang, but have taken on other activities such as starting a family, attending school, or finding a stable job, will do what is known as “mature out” the gang, a gradual disaffiliation with the gang while adapting to changes in ones life (Matza, 1964, Vigil, 1988). These are all non-threatening methods that individuals have left gangs, but indeed for some, leaving the gang can be dangerous.
Alonso goes on to mention that those who leave the gang who do end up in danger are the ones who inform the police about gang activities. Those who leave quietly tend to be left alone.
For those gang members that created conflict within the neighborhood by either testifying against a former associate or debriefing about the gang to prison officials can lead to an individual leaving the gang under hazardous circumstances. It is considered an act of betrayal when one person decides to expose and provide information on another person who was at one time considered a friend. Even within law enforcement circles, to expose another cop of corruption, is considered an act of betrayal, and a violation of the “code of silence” or as former New York detective Frank Serpico calls it, “the blue wall of silence.”
There was no evidence that Trayvon Martin was ever in a real gang. He might've got into some trouble for marijuana and fights, but so do many upper-class teens in suburban communities. But very rarely are they feared as "real gangstas".
But the point is, that even most kids (of all races and income-levels) who experiment with the bad-boy image
actually grow out that phase and move on to more productive attitudes and lifestyles.
4) Confirming Fears
Cases like these, which have tons of nuances and "grey areas", tend to be talked about in "black/white, either/or" terms.
Part of it is due to the "good versus evil" narratives that is the staple of liberal and conservative media outlets.
Part of it is that those media outlets are merchants of fear.
This is one e-mail I gotten from a friend that best describes the issue.
I have to admit to somewhat regretting seeing my Facebook news feed today, because I keep seeing commentary on the Zimmerman verdict. And, of course, there is no nuance to what the people are saying at all. Predictably, they think there are only two positions on the issue, both extreme. I find it worrisome that so many people on both the Left and Right are trying to make Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin into symbols of their own causes and fears.
Of course, the people on the Left are trying to make it sound like Trayvon Martin was a completely innocent angel who was killed by Zimmerman for no reason other than that Zimmerman is a white supremacist.
And then there are people on the Right trying to make it sound like Trayvon Martin was some inhumanly evil criminal thug. I hear the usual insinuations that everyone the Left is soft on crime and will let criminals, especially black criminals, get away with everything, particularly terrorizing middle-class whites. And then they try to prop up Zimmerman as some kind of defender of middle-class (white) safety against a black criminal underclass that has run amok due to the permissiveness of politically-correct liberals.
I find the stereotypes from both sides really troublesome, because each side dehumanizes both Martin and Zimmerman; each side even dehumanizes the person it claims to side with. They are trying to make Zimmerman and Martin into symbols when neither of them ever intended to be any sort of symbol -- definitely not symbols for other people's political causes. They are not symbols; they are human beings just trying to live their lives, and they made certain choices.
I do think that Zimmerman was an overly-worried busybody who often called the police about things that turned out to be nothing. I do think that he was suspicious of Martin for insufficient reasons and that he showed very poor judgment going after Trayvon Martin like that.
I also believe that Trayvon Martin did overreact and get violent toward Zimmerman.
I think that if both of them had chosen differently, this whole tragedy could have been avoided. I think the tragedy is compounded when people try to make them into political symbols. I don't agree with their assumptions that Zimmerman represents "white America in general" and that Trayvon Martin represents 'black America in general." They don't represent anyone else; they were individuals just trying to get by. :-(
AMEN TO THAT!
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