Posted on 08/17/2013 3:24:17 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
There is no question that George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. There is no question that things would have ended better if Zimmerman had heeded counsel from 911 personnel and restrained himself from following Martin into the bowels of the residential complex. There is no question that Zimmerman had juiced himself into fear and hysteria on the speculation that Martin was “on something” and was necessarily “up to no good,” but a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona iced tea is hardly loot from a terminating burglary.
However, there is big contention about what happened when Zimmerman caught up with Martin. Martin was dead from a single gunshot wound, and Zimmerman had a bloody nose and a bashed head back when the melee was over.
Did Martin mouth off to Zimmerman and Zimmerman collar him? Did Martin respond to the contact by coming out swinging and taking Zimmerman down, a position from which Zimmerman believed he had to shoot to survive? Like so many things, we will never know the answer to these questions.
Of course, because of Stand Your Ground and the instructions to the jury – that if Zimmerman even believed that his own life was in danger he was fully authorized, under SYG, to take Martin out. One busted nose and a bashed in head back later, Martin is dead on the ground, and there was nothing the jury, the judge, the prosecutors, the governor or riled up, disgusted and frustrated middle-class people could do about it. Zimmerman could not be convicted of even illegal parking. This is the reality – racial patronage, platitudes, sentiments, appearances, and opinions be damned.
In fact, we know now why Zimmerman was not even arrested that squally night in April 2012, and less sentimental and platitudinous thinkers are also realizing that the trial was the saber-rattling product of a voyeuristic media yearning for the days of OJ, Rodney King and a racial judicial showdown that makes good main course for Court TV and riveting courtroom drama. Newspapers must sell, and the Nielsen ratings cannot wait until tomorrow.
Trayvon was not killed because Zimmerman hates black people. Fact is that Zimmerman is just as white as Barack Obama. Zimmerman cannot claim privileges for his whiteness anywhere in America. White people have made sure that you are not white in America until both your parents are born white. In fact there was a time when you were only three-fifths of a person if you were not white. Zimmerman would have been a three-fifther – hands down.
So, without a race-based murder or a hate crime, it could well have been self-defense. Where does that leave us?
It leaves us with context. The context that Zimmerman, like millions of other Americans, might have been terrified of a young black man he met up in the dark, even as he carried the responsibility of a neighborhood watchman to find out who Martin was and why he was in the complex. If you have ever been burglarized, you would want Trayvon Martin stopped and frisked, and you would not take kindly to Zimmerman’s cowardice.
Some have pointed out that Zimmerman profiled Trayvon, but that is not news. Everyone profiles young black men because if you do not, one could make you real dead. It is how you decide if you should call the police when a battery of them loiter in your neighborhood. It is how you determine if you should hustle to your car and get out of Dodge when one with menacing countenance, disorganized dreadlocks, and gravity-controlled trousers is friend or foe.
We are left with the context that neither was Trayvon a buttoned-down A student, or at 17 years was he free of all the prerequisite calling cards of young black men who are headed to their first armed robbery.
It has become clear that Trayvon’s parents were failing to sensitize him to the dead-end life of thugism, multiple school suspensions, ganja chic, pornography, gun-modeling rabble-rousing, racist diatribes and all the other stuff that the society depends on parents to stop and stop cold – no pun.
These two parents were failing Trayvon. That is a fact. Love and parenting do not end with hugs and facilitative visits. Those are important, but surely not the whole story of child raising. Every African-American knows Trayvon Martin before he committed his first serious felony. So, why do we pretend that in America, today, the die had not been cast for Zimmerman to have serious misgiving about Trayvon’s presence in the community – even withstanding the instructions from 911?
Do not forget that the backdrop to Zimmerman’s intensity was a rash of community burglaries, from which young black men were seen running away.
Do we chalk it up as bad luck if we go out to march for Trayvon Martin and come back home to find that young black men, like Trayvon Martin, have ransacked our homes looking for flat screens, jewelry, cash, and Xboxes?
Do we say “this is different,” if we go out and march for Trayvon Martin’s memory but are carjacked by young black men, like Trayvon Martin, as we pump gas?
The answer lies in getting real about the context of Trayvon Martin’s death.
There will be more Trayvon Martins as long as we continue to avoid these contexts.
The author
Zimmerman was on his way back to his truck so it was the other way around.......He was the prey
Probably could have used a better opening line like, “It was a dark and squally night”.
Its a good article....
Truer words have not been spoken about this ENTIRE story
It all comes back to the mom and dad factor. Love it.
So, without a race-based murder or a hate crime, it could well have been self-defense. Where does that leave us?
That leaves us without a bad guy to convict under a system of identity justice. Identity justice says identify the race, ethnicity etc. of the parties and you have established good guy and bad guy, guilt and innocence.
Pity that Zimmerman's DNA is so confused
I agree, it is a good story. I even went so far as to find other articles written by Elrado Ramsay.
He’s not easy to find.
I stopped there. Immediate evidence that the guy didn't know the basics of the case.
Eight burglaries in the condo complex the month before Trayvon was shot.
Zero burglaries the month after. Of course the streets were swarming with news crews and reporters during much of that month after, but when a thug stops sucking air, it seems to make other thugs stop and think for a while.
These burglary stats were mentioned in the last few months here on FR.
Only if you keep reading past the first two paragraphs which are fraught with errors around the case and assumes Zimmerman's guilt from the get-go.
It's only when you reach @ half-way down the article the author gets into the meat of his subject where this article actually does turn into a decent read.
Same here - he lost me when he wrote that. What in the world stops people from doing research to find out the facts of a case? Why are they such puppets for the MSM?
Why doesn’t someone turn this around and ask all the what ifs about Trayvon? What if he had just gone into his dad’s girlfriend’s house and left well enough alone?
Keep reading. He is attempting to reach the bigots by establishing common ground.
All in all, good and courageous perspective from a black writer. If we can now only get a few more that will also drop the (proven in court by 911 record and phone GPS that Treyvon followed George and not the other way around) false premises that precede these types of articles, then I'd say maybe there is a change that race relations can actually be repaired. Courageous blacks must make a stand.
I was hoping the idiot parents would file a civil suit so the truth about trayvon would come out. Not the choir boy the LSM tried to run past us.
He was a bad kid thanks to the way mama & daddy raised him.
mama kicked him out of the house and sent him to daddy. daddy was too occupied with his girl friend to spend any time with the punk.
...”and you would not take kindly to Zimmerman’s cowardice”. A man sacrificing his time and taking risks to protect neighbors is now a coward? This statement I strongly disagree with and believe it shows the author’s prejudice. And once again we see “stand your ground” confused with self defense. Aside from these statements, not a bad piece but could do a lot better if it went into more detail on Martin’s sad family issues and the issues confronting black “families” in general.
Really?
That tells me more about you than the article, which is full of half-truths, racist innuendo, and inflammatory fantasy about "Stand Your Ground" laws, which were never at issue in the case.
Martin attacked Zimmerman, NOT THE REVERSE. And for that, Zimmerman was completely justified in killing the little thug. He is in the ground, and the world is better off.
You’re misinterpreting that statement. He’s saying that, if you lived in that neighborhood and Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, DIDN’T get out of his car to follow a suspected criminal, then “you would not take kindly to Zimmerman’s cowardice.” Basically he’s saying Zimmerman was in a “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t” situation. If he hadn’t gotten out, and Martin had committed a crime, then people would be calling Zimmerman a coward for not doing his job as a neighborhood watchman.
Couldn’t finish reading it... too many basic facts of the case just plain wrong.
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