Posted on 07/19/2013 12:50:29 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
I believe the George Zimmerman verdict will be of greater racial and civil significance for blacks than the O.J. Simpson trial.
First of all, there is no epidemic of old black ex-football player movie stars (allegedly) killing their young white wives and their friends.
But there has been a dramatic increase in the number of black males killed by whites under "stand your ground" laws. Defendants claiming "stand your ground" as a justification for their acts of violence are more likely to prevail if the victim is black. Seventy-three percent of those who killed a black person faced no penalty compared to 59% of those who killed a white, according to the Tampa Bay Times.
It's not so hard to imagine that this not guilty verdict might just give any white man the ammunition (pun intended) or gumption to approach any black man on the street and ask them anything they want, such as: "What are you doing? Where are you going? Why are you here?"
And what if the black man tells his white inquisitor to back off, and the white man responds in a menacing way or tries to detain him or attempts to lay hands on him? And what if the black fellow refuses to surrender to the stranger, how is it that he becomes the criminal and the white man has the right to kill him?
We may be returning to a practice that was common in past times when, if a white man was walking on a sidewalk and a black person was walking towards him on the same sidewalk, the black person had to step into the ditch or road and give the white man the whole sidewalk to pass.
One other thing that makes the Zimmerman case far more significant than the Simpson case is that what Zimmerman was accused of, and what the police are often guilty of, is denying people of color due process and equal treatment with their disparate use of official violence. And they are often willing to use deadly force even when their lives are not in danger and their victims are unarmed.
According to the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, a black man, woman or child died at the trigger of law enforcement every 28 hours in America last year.
It's easy to kill, but to be civilized is to help people live and to seek ways to end animosity and needless death. You can't fall into the trap of criminalizing youth or using blanket stereotypes or fearing and wanting to kill someone because they don't look like you.
That's why the verdict in the Zimmerman case was so uncivilized, and why it will leave a deep scar for many years to come.
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Regular columns in The Progressive and Counterpunch and is a writer for Progressive Media Project, based in Madison.
Do I get a prize?
And how many of those who killed a black person were black people?
And how many of those black persons (and white persons) shot were committing criminal acts at the time?
Uh, OJ gets away with murder.
Zimmerman gets away with keeping himself alive.
So in this polarized world, the latter is more important. ? !
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe racism of any kind is a good thing, but black america needs to consider that given their decline since 65, maybe the days of Jim Crow were not all that bad.
An increase since when?
Citing other news sources and remaining ambiguous is poor form.
Perhaps males (including blacks) should not assault or rob anyone (including whites), then that pesky "self defense" stuff wouldn't be a problem.
The OJ trial and GZ trial do have one thing in common. In both cases, the crimes had nothing to do with race, but the trials, the aftermath and the analysis were entirely about race.
My memory fails me....did white people riot when the OJ verdict was announced?
Imagine if GZ did not have a gun- how would this have ended?
Trayvon must have heard a neighbor and knew the cops were on the way- a few more punches and maybe a kick in the face or two and GZ would probably have ended up in the hospital OR WORSE
How was TRAYVON planning on ending this?
Who needs OJ?
We have “Trayvon Martin Luther King” and his bloody hoodie now!
I know what you’re getting at, but I’d rephrase:
Maybe the days before Johnson’s Great Society/Civil Rights Act were not all that bad.
Mostly intact black families. Mostly in-wedlock black births. Mostly WORKING black dads and moms who were largely proud of their work. No hate rap with vulgarities, looking at women like whores, killing anyone for looking at you wrong. And not blaming everyone and everything else for your own self-inflicted problems as individuals and as a race.
It’s becoming more clear each day that we can NEVER have a rational, reasonable discussion about race. There are Two Americas and never the tween shall meet. It is to the benefit of those who grind the grievance axe both in power and in monetary increases.
‘It’s a black thang. You’ll never understand.’
Just Move ON.
And I should add, No black babies being aborted at a higher rate than they’re given birth to.
I stand gracefully corrected... thanks!
Rebuilding America's industries and having jobs would give them a sense of self worth and do a lot more for their race than laws that prosecute self defense victims.
Rebuilding America's industries and having jobs would give them a sense of self worth and do a lot more for their race than laws that prosecute self defense victims.
Fantasy author !
Projection and the Race Card are the only tools in the Liberals Playbook these days. This is why the Zimmerman Verdict is so huge for them, and the 10,543 blacks killed by blacks in the 503 days between the shooting and the verdict need not get any attention whatsoever.
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