One of the most popular liberal reactions to the finding that George Zimmerman was not guilty is to posit the question of how the case would have been treated differently if Trayvon Martin were white.
The question always is answered by the author that the shooting of a white person by a non-white person is treated more seriously by the police and the criminal justice system. This, the argument goes, makes the Zimmerman case all about race.
Law professor and blogger Paul Campos makes this argument at Salon.com, Zimmerman saga was all about race:
Because it happened in America, the trial of George Zimmerman for shooting and killing Trayvon Martin was all about race. And because it happened in America, the people who benefit politically from the same invidious forces that led both to Trayvon Martin’s killing, and the acquittal of his killer, will deny that race had anything to do with either the killing or the verdict.
Suppose Trayvon Martin had been a 230-pound 30-year-old black man, with a loaded gun in his jacket. Suppose Zimmerman had been a 150-pound 17-year-old white kid, who was doing nothing more threatening than walking back from a convenience store to his father’s condo….
How do you suppose the big scary black man’s claim of “self-defense” would have gone over with a jury made up almost entirely of white women? …
Trayvon Martin was stalked by George Zimmerman because he was black. Trayvon Martin is dead because he was black. George Zimmerman was acquitted of killing Trayvon Martin because the boy Zimmerman killed was black.
If you deny these things, you are either a liar or an idiot, or possibly both.
Variations of this argument are commonplace.
Putting aside the factual incorrectness of the argument that Zimmerman was motivated by race, the argument is fallacious for several reasons:
First, the argument is not an argument that the jury was wrong under the law. Indeed, later in his post Campos admits the jury was correct under Florida law:
Nothing above requires the conclusion that the jury’s verdict was wrong as a matter of law. Florida’s laws, in their majestic equality, extend to people of all races the right to engage in vigilante killing that eliminates the sole witness to that killing. To point this out is neither a defense of those laws, nor a claim that they will in fact be applied equally. In other words, to blame this jury in this situation is to miss the point.
But if the jury were correct under the law, how can the case be about race since the law is race neutral? The argument defeats itself.
Second, assuming that a white victim / black perpetrator would more like result in a guilty finding tells you nothing about this individual case. Averaged statistics don’t control individual cases, any more than the average temperature in July tells you what the temperature was on a given day at a given time. The argument as to conviction rates says nothing about George Zimmerman’s claim of self-defense and the involvement of race in this case.
Third, the argument is used to justify a conclusion that is a non-sequitur, that we need to do away with “stand your ground” laws. Put aside the fact that this was a traditional self-defense case, not a “stand your ground” case (which would have turned on whether Zimmerman had a duty to retreat). Assuming differing conviction rates simply means we need to do a better job ensuring that black victims are able to invoke self-defense and “stand your ground” principles, not that we need to take those principles away from white crime victims. The conclusion (diminish the self-defense rights of white victims) does not follow from the argument.
I will concede that there is one aspect of the case that is all about race, but it has nothing to do with the facts or law of the shooting.
There are many people who cannot admit that their pre-conceived notions about the facts and the law were incorrect, so they desperately want to talk about race to absolve themselves of the embarrassment of their own failings, and to achieve political gains logically unconnected to anything George Zimmerman or the jury did in this case.
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Comments
Angela Corey , in a CNN interview just now when asked to describe George Zimmerman in one word, answered ‘ murderer ‘.
She has no shame, and should be sanctioned by the FL bar.
The Florida Bar probably agrees with her.
Angela Corey is loathsome…
Zimmerman should sue her.
Sign the Angela Corey DOJ investigation petition.
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/civil-rights-prosecution-angela-corey-united-states-department-justice-she-deliberately-withheld/pGTglGG2
Need 150 signatures to get it posted on the website, we only need 70 more to list this on the petition page. Right now only the link allows people to view the petition.
Once 150 is reached 100K is the goal.
Please retweet, facebook ect…………..
If trayvon martin had been white, he would still be a POS thug wannabe.
It’s not the color of his skin, It’s the contents of his character.
Why is that so hard to understand.
This kind of argument depends on the false narrative that Trayvon Martin was doing nothing but walking home from the store. One may as well go back even further in time and say that he was doing nothing but eating dinner, watching TV, or attending school.
The evidence before the court indicated that Trayvon Martin was killed because he attacked and was pounding on another person.
He also wasn’t “stalked” and he was reported to the police as suspicious, not because he was “black”, but because he was loitering in the dark in the rain and matched the profile of multiple recent burglars in the neighborhood.
The “liar” and “idiot” here is Paul Campos, who obviously didn’t watch the trial but must have got his erroneous perceptions second-hand. Shame.
Apparently Paul Campos is not much of a law professor, either, if he uses such imprecise language as “stalk” to describe neighborhood watch activity.
Indeed, as well as all the padding the ntty professor had to mix in to his venom stew…
1. add 30lbs and two years to defendant’s age
2. “victims” father owned no property there, gf did
3. If we’re swapping races the the jury would be comprised of 5 blk and one wht women as GZ is hispanic etc
4. TVM was observed not stalked
5. TVM is dead because he comitted agravated assault on an armed man.
I refuse to give salon the traffic, where does this lunatic Campos “teach” law?
Campos has long been a leftist tool. On rare occasion, he does make a good point (for example about law schools recently). Keep in mind though that he teaches in a progressive echo chamber, the University of Colorado, in what a lot of Coloradoans call the “People’s Republic of Boulder”.
Our federal and state governments are lawless. Yet, six women were not swayed and stuck with the law, and the facts.
“If you deny these things, you are either a liar or an idiot, or possibly both.”
——–
If the above statement — the slinging of infantile insults — represents Campos’s best efforts at forging a coherent, well-reasoned and substantive argument in support of his opinions on the Zimmerman matter, it truly defies credulity that he has managed to become a tenured law professor.
Amazing, huh? Compare and contrast with Prof. Jacobson’s rhetorical ground and pound.
It never ceases to amaze me that those who claim Martin was killed for being black or being suspicious or having the audacity to get Skittles and iced tea or whatever the innocent reason is, always conveniently leave out the fact that Martin was severely beating the crap out of Zimmerman at the time he was killed and that the evidence that exists indicates Martin attacked Zimmerman, not the other way around. I guess race baiting doesn’t require being right on the facts.
From today’s San Diego Union-Tribune
http://news.yahoo.com/jury-instructions-center-zimmerman-verdict-210738525.html
“There is a difference between the law and what people think is fundamentally justice,” said Barbara Arnwine, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, a washington-based civil rights group.
I’ve heard and read this slander over and over, usually in press releases by insurance law firms in newspapers, and most frequently by losers.
I don’t blame non-lawyers for mouthing off about matters with which they have no acquaintance: I do blame lawyers for lying about the law.
The furor over this case has its roots in factual lies circulated by an unscrupulous media. The people who have been outraged do not know that George Zimmerman shot a full-grown man who was on top of him, beating his head into concrete.
Actually I believe that many of them do know, and are choosing to follow the newspeak of ‘ never let a good crisis go to waste’. That the media is providing a megaphone for a false and destructive doctrine is what has me livid.
Valerie, I think the situation is even more disturbing than you describe. Most of the pro-Martin supporters are fully aware of the numerous inconvenient facts which support Zimmerman’s narrative of events on that night — Trayvon Martin’s history of getting into fistfights; his casual use of racial epithets (including references to Zimmerman); the fact that the bulk of eyewitness and other evidence supports the notion that he attacked Zimmerman first in an unprovoked assault. However, they consciously CHOOSE to ignore those facts, simply because they don’t jibe with the pre-ordained narrative which they have sanctified as truth — that of Trayvon Martin as blameless, saintly “victim.”
What we are witnessing at work is the sickening elevation of blind racial solidarity above truth and evidence.
To be blunt, many black people feel that they have the right to beat up or even kill non-blacks for just about any reason, or no reason at all. Most other black people either support them outright or refuse to publicly disagree.
Of course they can’t understand why most non-black people don’t agree at all.
Hello Guy. I respectfully disagree with your very well written post. I know of a blog, Lipstickally.com, which has nothing but diehard Trayvon supporters, and they consumed the trial along with us here. So yes, you are correct about some people on the other side being fully informed on the trial as well as some of the things that were not presented. But the American people would all have to watch the entire trial AND participate in conversations with others or do research to get a firm grip on all of this stuff! And the vast majority of Americans (I believe) just don’t have the time nor the interest to do that. So they go to the television (bad idea), online news, magazines, etc… and they get pieces, many slanted to a certain opinion.
Anyway, just my thoughts, I really did not want to disagree with you, just discuss what I believe that I am seeing.
Oops, typo! lipstickalley.com If you want to see the people that COMPLETELY disagree with you, that is the place!
“Justice” without “law” is the rationale for vigilantism.
Are our Progressives seriously arguing for the establishment of vigilance committees? It’s hard to see that working out well.
Even the dullest college student learns that resorting to personal insults in order to advance one’s arguments smacks of intellectual frustration, insecurity, an inability to reason on the merits, and that it ultimately undermines one’s credibility. What is Campos thinking here?
No sadly they don’t. Appeals to emotion and ad hominum attacks are all they hear from their liberal professors. The left’s arguments here and on Facebook and other forums these last weeks have been nothing but. I vomit in my mouth a little every time I hear Martin being described as “Innocent” or a “child,” like Zimmerman deliberately shot a kid walking home with his ice cream cone.
The prosecutors in the George Zimmerman case spoke to ABC News Monday morning, continuing to doubt Zimmerman’s version of the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, and openly speculating about his reasons for not taking the stand.
“I prayed that he would have the courage to take the stand,” lead prosecuting attorney Bernie de la Rionda said. “But as we all well know, he made the decision not to.”
ABC’s Matt Gutman asked if de la Rionda thought Zimmerman was “scared” to testify.
“The proof is in the pudding,” de la Rionda said. “Did he take the stand?”
————————————-
He needs some Preparation Haaach for all that butt-hurt.
Gutman should probably be quiet. Maybe he’s shorting ABC stock…
The ABC and Guttman need to be sued by Zimmerman for their role in the whole saga.
This is more evidence of the lawlessness of the entire prosecution team. They cannot even give lip service to the validity of the jury verdict.
I was listening to the Channel 9 commentary and their legal analyst pointed out that by the state admitting the videos and audios of George’s interviews, the state let him testify without the risk of being cross-examined.
The analyst went on to say that the prosecution lost their case when they did that. And that if it were him, he would have just used the testimony of Jeantel and forced GZ to testify.
So, I think it is self-serving to perpetuate the myth that GZ was a coward when they did a horrible job of prosecuting by all accounts.
Hmmmm, wonder if “white men do poor job of prosecution so GZ can get off of a murder charge” is going to be the next meme?
I’ve already seen that.
Its amazing how contorted the spinning has become.
Face it BDLR and Corley. You and the prosecution team assaulted GZ through a legal system you thought you could control with potentially unethical and illegal tactics and the defense team kicked your butt with a virtual ground and pound before the whole world including members of your profession.
Now you want to go on TV and continue to whine that it was unfair because GZ wouldn’t go on the stand and is really a murderer.
Pompous bullies all and now whining crybabies. The proof is in the pudding.
Digusting.
The proof IS in the pudding. The prosecution did a terrible job and it showed in the verdict.
“Suppose Trayvon Martin had been a 230-pound 30-year-old black man, with a loaded gun in his jacket. Suppose Zimmerman had been a 150-pound 17-year-old white kid,”
=========
Huh? Zimmerman wasn’t 230 pounds, and Martin was at least 4 inches taller than Zimmerman. What a preposterous “what if” scenario.
Oh, and based on the fact that blacks kill whites at a rate 4 times higher than whites kill blacks, Zimmerman would likely be dead.
So there is that.
Also, blacks kill blacks 9 times greater than whites kill blacks.
Wait, sorry that was a typo…
Its actually 39x greater. Yes, thirty-nine
The latest figures that I have seen on interracial murders were for 2011, when there were 448 whites killed by blacks and 193 blacks killed by whites. In 2010, there were 447 whites killed by blacks and 218 blacks killed by whites. That’s about 2x, not 4x or 9x or 39x. Those figures appear to be fantasies.
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t31292011.pdf
http://www.albany.edu/sourcebook/pdf/t31292010.pdf
Fen’s point was black on black killing, not B/W or W/B.
Black people are only ~13% of the population.
Their rate of committing violent crimes including murder is many times higher than their proportion of the population.
Detroit: 500 black youths killed by other black youths in the last year alone.
Sharpton? Crumb? MSNBC?
[crickets chirping]
Jay,
Apparently they think it’s okay to just make stuff up. We all know that Zimmerman was a whole lot smaller then. He’s gained a lot of weight since.
This is beside the point, but in many, many comments ago and back a few days before he was found not guilty, someone asked why George has gained so much weight, or words to that effect.
So I was thinking about this, and it may be the case. Sometimes when a person is depressed, they can either not eat much or eat too much. It can go either way. If a person has a reason to be depressed, it would surely be GZ. We know that he’s been under tremendous pressure and stress for many months.
Now this is a huge speculation, but I was thinking that maybe he is taking an antidepressant. That in itself can cause a lot of weight gain. Case in point would be my daughter. She’s 30 years old now, and for about 10+ years she’s being treated for a back problem. She has some messed up discs, and has a tear near them that causes a lot of pain.
Well, her doctor had put her on an antidepressant because of her neuropathy-type pains in her legs and stuff. Some of the antidepressants actually do treat and help this. But after going on the new medicine, she gained 20 pounds in two weeks’ time.
So I was thinking that maybe Zimmerman is on antidepressants, to which I could certainly understand.
The Endep or similar does not work. She needs to be taking Lyrica for neuropathy type pain.
This is an issue for me, and I can assure you that the anti-depressant style medication makes things worse not better.
Around the same time of the Martin shooting, there was a shooting in northern Arizona. A black man, who was inside a car in a fast food line, shot an unarmed white man (another “white Hispanic” IIRC) who was walking his dog and crossed in front of the black man’s car. The black man got angry at the white man, claimed he thought the man was about to attack him, and shot him dead. Keep in mind the black man was inside a car, the white man was unarmed and outside the car. The black man claimed self defense.
Has anybody seen or heard of any riots in relation to this case? Has anybody even seen this case reported in the news? Of course not, because the shooter was black, and the victim was white.
Interesting. The case was not about race, but what about the incident itself? What does anyone think Trayvon was thinking when he had several minutes to just go on and walk to his dad’s girlfriends place? Rachael Jeantel’s testimony, awkward as it was, indicated he did reach the proximity of that place….at least she says he said he did. She also said Trayvon referred to Zimmerman, someone he didn’t know, as a “creepy ass cracker.” What does that imply about who had prejudice for whom and why?
Just asking….
It’s obvious that TM was racist. Also, according to Jeantel, or whatever her name is, creepy ass cracker isn’t a racial slur. Well, what about to us, do we think it’s a racial slur? I do. It doesn’t bother me, but it is a racial slur.
So they can dish out the racial slurs and it’s not a problem. I’m saying that someone has some mixed-up thinking and reasoning.
TM went by the name no-limit-nigga. I think that this alone is evidence that TM was the racist in the confrontation.
I do remember that some people investigated background on TM and it was very disturbing. He was a wannabe gang member and as a foot soldier of a very racist gang.
If the DoJ want to investigate the racist aspects of the case then they need to investigate the background of TM.
“What does anyone think Trayvon was thinking when he had several minutes to just go on and walk to his dad’s girlfriends place?”
That the “cracker” deserved a beat down for dissing him
First Post here – great website – The Truth Trumps All. I have been here a number of months, but have chosen to lurk rather than contribute.
At any rate.
It’s bizarre in the extreme that the WH is still playing this as a Race/Gun Control case.
That Florida Legislators are still playing this as a (deficiency) in the Stand Your Ground statutes (which THEY WROTE by the way) – when it was PLANLY NOT. Just a good old “Lawful Use of Deadly Force in Self Defense” case – which is plain in Florida Statute (especially for us long-time Florida CWP holders).
Corey is a complete sham – and The Bar should snatch her ticket immediately.
The “deeper agenda’s” of this case were pretty plain (at least to those of us that can connect the dots).
Had GZ been convicted – all legally armed/law abiding citizens would be forced to analyze a “life threatening situation” from a LAWYERS STANDPOINT. When seconds count – there’s no time to analyze. This was one of the (overall) agenda’s really. An(other) attempt to “cow” Law Abiding Citizenry (of any race or gender) towards VICTIM-HOOD, and away from claiming the most BASIC RIGHT WE ALL HAVE – that of SELF DEFENSE.
Regards To All…
The Left and many in the media have been harping about “stand your grand” since the Martin shooting occurred, unable or unwilling to acknowledge that that legal concept had nothing to with the incident, because only common law self defense claims were implicated. This didn’t come as a surprise, as we know full well that facts are anathema to the Left.
Since the Left couldn’t get basic facts and law right with respect to the simplest of issues involved in the case, why should any of its other assertions be granted weight? Those who ground their arguments in emotional appeals and histrionics, as opposed to facts, have lost all semblance of credibility.
I’ve seen obama try stuff that’s failed before.
Also, at Drudge, yesterday, he gave equal headlines to obama’s remark, as Commander-In-Chief … that anyone with a sexual assault CHARGE against them, should be tossed out of the service. And, dishonorably discharged. This, in turn, has hurt all the cases that are in the military system, because of obama’s CIC status. He wasn’t allowed to toss his opinion into ongoing cases.
It’s the summer. So the “riots” may linger awhile. I just don’t know. Because there’s an “entitlement community” that riots over everything. On the other hand, when Princess Kate gives birth … maybe, the media will run to that story? Boy? Or Girl? And, that also tamps down on this media campaign. (Where they’re terrified of coming civil lawsuits from Zimmerman.)
So the media is motivated to keep on attacking Zimmerman.
Just hope they don’t name the baby Trayvon, Barack or Muhammed.
Classical English Rhetoric. Ain’t it lovely.
Paul Campos premise, “Suppose Trayvon Martin had been a 230-pound 30-year-old black man, with a loaded gun in his jacket. Suppose Zimmerman had been a 150-pound 17-year-old white kid, who was doing nothing more threatening than walking back from a convenience store to his father’s condo…” is a false premise. It is false because it leaves out pertinent facts such as height, exaggerates the weight difference, substitutes white for Latino and reiterates the myth that Martin was not acting suspiciously. It is basically a type of straw-man argument.
What a wonderful phrase race neutral is! If we are to realize Martin Luther King’s dream we really have to give institutions a chance to behave in a race neutral way. Political pressure in an individual case
defeats everything we try to stand for.
IAs I said in an earlier thread, these pro-TM writers believe that if a black guy feels racially insulted by a white guy, even by a look or question, he has the right to attack him. The white guy has no right to self-defense, because he’s a racist. It’s a form of reparations which they think they will never have to pay personally.
If a person’s only exposure to the legal system is civil court (e.g., divorce court), what my divorce attorney called “Liar’s Court”, or they are die-hard courtroom TV fans, ala Judges Judy, Greg Mathis, Joe Brown, Glenda Hatchett, et al, it’s no wonder so many people are shocked by the evidentiary standards and legal decision(s) handed down by a criminal court.
Seems to me like what was happening in the media, was akin to a “Liar’s Court” (he said / she said), while Judge Nelson’s court was a criminal court that suffered from multiple personality disorder showing occasional flashes of a civil court.
Would it be fair to say that the TM supporters seemed to want a “civil” verdict with a “legal” sentence?
“Suppose Trayvon Martin had been a 230-pound 30-year-old black man, with a loaded gun in his jacket. Suppose Zimmerman had been a 150-pound 17-year-old white kid, who was doing nothing more threatening than walking back from a convenience store to his father’s condo…”
Actually, no one knows what would have happened. No one. The question is just an “ink-blot” test where how one answers is just a reflection of one’s assumptions and preconceptions.
I’m afraid I can no longer defend the right of these people to speak. Rights have corresponding responsibilities.
I mean, how do these people get dressed? Do they have help? Do they get a little trophy each time they get their shoes on the proper feet?
The right to engage in vigilante killing? What a reprehensible statement coming for a law professor to make. Florida’s self defense laws do no such thing. Florida law provides serve sanctions for even displaying a firearm or discharging one.
Is the race angle the qualifier “white?” Because that’s a fallacy. Zimmerman is Hispanic. And, he’s got a clean record when it comes to blacks. Because he befriended many. And, he volunteered to help fatherless black kids.
“White” and the fact that many, many blacks still assume “Zimmerman” is a Jewish name … lends its weight as to why the whole book fell on Zimmerman! Obama, and company, thought they got a Jew to lynch.
I still think Obama’s numbers plummet. And, what we will get to see is how this rioting affects outcomes in 2014’s races. Where do we have to look? At the SWING states.
While I think people will get very shy to admit to pollsters whom they’ll actually cast votes for. That’s why it always seem we have a large group of voters who say that they haven’t made up their minds.
How will these rioting scenes eventually die off? First, the media will recognize they’re out there flaying a dead horse.
A dead horse means people move on to other stuff.
And, also, in swing states … when this IS in the news … it turns more people off to Obama. Who can’t seem to get people’s opinions about him UP.
Once, while people viewed him as incompetent, they also said “he’s a nice guy.” I’m not so sure this still holds true. Let alone coupling Obama to Holder … which pulls down Obama a lot.
I should have added that pelosi has been hoping to win back her gavel. She needs some of those House seats to shift to the democratic party.
And, also in the senate, it’s possible the GOP may actually pick up 3 senate seats … which would come off of Reid’s column.
When I was young, and my parents owned a retail store, my mom told me that when you lose a customer, it’s the hardest thing to win them back.
Both parties contribute to this dilemma when they win voters over to their column. But it’s a very fragile existence. However, given that obama is now exposing the democrats as being the party of the extreme left … it may be a time for the GOP to attract people in the middle.
Mentoring black kids is just a cover. He’s actually being supported by white supremacists. Calling the police was a cover so he could stalk and kill a black child.
These statements are being presented as “truth” at various places where the case is being “discussed.” And that’s just last night…..
here’s the difference.
when dispatcher asked for description zimmerman would have said I THINK he’s white instead of I THINK he’s black.
and the key words there have always been THINK.
he did not know for sure, so he could not base any actions on race as he did now KNOW.
“White’s” the default? Surely you’re joking.
you have a comprehension issue. address that before addressing me in the future.
I my diverse family from start this would be a huge case and racially divisive. I ask myself if the actions of black “leaders” (thinking here of Sharpton, Jackson, NAACP, even Obama) is helping to bring races together or divide them further apart? There are a lot of voices calling for GZ to be effectively lynched. Over the top? Mob rule? Art of War 101: Divide and conquer. So, who is at war with us as Americans in the world’s most diverse society? Who has an interest in keeping us focused on fighting each other, so we are blinded to our real enemies?
The use of race is done as an intoxicant to influence people into activities that serve the interests of a political agenda. The core issue of this trial is man’s natural right to self defense and this right extends from the natural right of property. The Traybots are nothing but pawns for collectivists and statists who despise the liberal democratic tradition of individualism and natural rights theory. We are all in the midst of a war over the relationship between the individual and the group/ state. This event and the court case that grew out of it is used to advance statist/ collectivist policies. Already, Obama is pimping this to push for gun control.
I think there is a lot of truth in that theory. Individual vs. government rights. Government has become hostage to “groups”. I’m sure the founding fathers might have said same thing. 🙂 Juries, free elections, and a free, ethical, principled press has worked as a check so far. As far as individual rights go, the right to self defense is THE most fundamental human right of all. I think a big part of this are the groups that want to take that right away. I think Great Britian has largely done that.
If Trayvon were white, the initial decision of the police not to prosecute would have stood, and there would have been no trial. The only racial aspect of this was the decision to prosecute Zimmerman.
I would go as far to say GZ was a victim of a hate crime and was attacked for being white!
Well technically Hispanic, but I agree there is more evidence of “Ill will, hatred, and spite” as well as racism with RJ testimony from the TM side. “He’s a black male” is racist, but CAC and N… Well that’s just a cultural thing.
Your post raises a great question: “how the case would have been treated differently if Trayvon Martin were white.”
Let me suggest a couple of tweaks to your accurate observations.
First, start at the beginning. Those finding fault with the handling of the cause often falsely claim that Zimmerman wasn’t arrested at the scene. In fact, Zimmerman was taken to the police station in handcuffs (police video readily available) and was only released some hours later after another credible witness (Good) and the reports of responding officers (bloody face, black eyes, swollen/broken nose) confirmed Zimmerman’s account of self defense. Alan Dershowitz, a criminal law professor, said the treatment of Zimmerman was an arrest. Yet the claims that Zimmerman was allowed to walk away because of the skin color of the victim persist. That shows the real lack of strength of the “treated differently” argument. Those making these crazy claims see the legitimate, reasonable treatment as “treated differently.”
Second, your point about averaged statistics is on the money. However, it’s even worse than you suggest. Despite having read much on both sides of this case, I have never seen anyone advancing the “treated differently” argument offer a single, legitimate example of a similar case (similar in both circumstance and evidence) where a black shooter acting in self defense against a white assailant received a dissimilar legal outcome. One common example cited (also from Corey and Florida) is the case of Marissa Alexander, but the Alexander case isn’t similar to the Zimmerman case in either circumstance or evidence, so to use it in the “treated differently” argument isn’t appropriate. The failure of those making the “treated differently” argument to offer a single, good example shows the moral emptiness of those making these claims. They’re making a claim without evidence and they’re bright enough to know that’s exactly what they are doing (since many are lawyers, who have been trained in what is and isn’t evidence).
If a review of court records shows no cases that are similar in both circumstance and evidence, it just might be that black shooters legitimately using self defense are never taken to court. If that’s the case, there might be a legitimate “treated differently” argument, namely that white shooters reasonably using self defense against black assailants are treated more harshly than black shooters against white assailants.
I notice that so many people want to argue the ‘What if’ scenarios so often and several comment here address them here. The scenarios are often ‘What if the races were switched’ etc. I generally dislike ‘what if’ arguments because they bring on so many variables and assumed preconceptions and no proofs but just speculations based on preconceived assumptions. I would, however, like to proffer one that I posted several days ago on another thread. It offers no proof and relies upon speculations upon preconceived assumptions but I think if provides food for thought on how those speculations and assumptions are inherent in virtually any ‘What if’ scenario.
Assume all of the facts if the incident we know remain exactly the same except one specific thing. Consider everything – height, weight, race, time, weather, time of day, darkness, strength, the argument of profile or not profile, distances, ‘warrior’ attitude, softness, phone conversations, injuries, lack of injuries, screams, police investigation, lack of investigation, ground and pound, CCV, weapon, unarmed, etc. Everything. – You name it.
Now what if George Zimmerman was actually a woman who looked so similar to George in height, weight, build, hair style, etc. that she could easily be mistaken for an man on a dark rainy night particularly when viewed sitting in a car talking on the phone.
Does anyone think a case would have been brought in such a situation or that there would be such indignation at the acquittal had one been brought.
Would people still offer the ‘GZ chased him down’ type arguments? How about the ‘the injuries were insignificant’ arguments? I could go on and on but I think you get the picture.
I hadn’t thought about it from that angle, just that if George’s first name had been Jorge, or his last Mesa, the media would never have jumped on it, since it wouldn’t have fit the “All whites hate all blacks, and look what the justice system lets them get away with!” narrative.
If George had been Georgina, I think the media would have ignored the whole thing, since their poor little heads would have exploded from the difficulty of deciding which official victim group took precedence in this case, women or blacks.
I think you are close to the correct response, because of the name: George Zimmerman. To the bigots and anti-Semitic types the name suggests that he is a Jew, yet that is not the case.
A lot of the hype is in fact because the name is Zimmerman, and not for any other reason.
Someone should call Child Protective Services on Barack Obama – if his son is Trayvon, then Malia and Natasha might need an intervention.
“Suppose Trayvon Martin had been a 230-pound 30-year-old black man, with a loaded gun in his jacket. Suppose Zimmerman had been a 150-pound 17-year-old white kid, who was doing nothing more threatening than walking back from a convenience store to his father’s condo….”
Years ago, when I was 17, I probably weighed 150 pounds. So, in all honesty, if I had been getting followed by a 230 pound black man, I would have likely set a new world record in the 100 yard dash trying to get away…
Okay so what if Martin were white? So Zimmerman has a 17 year old taller and physically fit white teenager on top of him pummeling him and beating his head into the sidewalk. Are we seriously being asked to believe he would then think, “Okay, so this kid is beating me senseless and might kill me, but I’m not going to do anything to defend myself because he’s white”? Okay actually it would be different in this respect. The racialist demagogues would not have pushed so hard to charge and try Zimmerman. Yeah, I’ll give them that. Good point.
Paul Campos, like those making unreasoned arguments similar to his argument, simply ignores the fact that Trayvon Martin was administering (at least what I would consider to be) a severe beating to George Zimmerman immediately prior to Mr. Martin being shot. The beating administered by Mr. Martin to Mr. Zimmerman was the proximate cause of Mr. Martin being shot and his death. Campos makes an argument omitting this key fact. Where did Campos go to law school? How can he teach anyone when he lacks a fundamental understanding of the concept of proximate cause? As the reporters (i.e., commentators) on NPR like to say, this should be a teachable moment. Do not brutally assault a person who might defend himself.
This guy is a Law Proffesor? Please tell me which one so I can avoid sending my kids there.
Idiot: “Trayvon Martin was stalked by George Zimmerman”
No evidence that Martin was “stalked”
Idiot: “because he was black.”
When Zimmerman made the suspicous person to police, he was unsure of Martin’s race.
Idiot: “Trayvon Martin is dead because he was black.”
Trayvon Martin is dead because he was a self-described “No Limit Nigga” with a history of drug abuse, drug dealing, theft, robbery, assault of several minors. He was also a racist. Martin is dead because his last poor decision was to ambush and attempt to murder a “cracker” for looking at him wrong.
Thank God Martin picked a target that was armed. Saved Florida alot of bodybags and taxpayer dollars on what would inevitably be Martin’s life in prison at our expense.
Good Riddance.
Spot on!
Last I knew, Campos was teaching at the University of Colorado in the People’s Republic of Boulder. That should be sufficient stereotyping to understand his actions here.
Martin is dead because his last poor decision was to ambush and attempt to murder a “cracker” for looking at him wrong.
Exactly. And yet I keep hearing folks, including lawyers, say it was Zimmerman’s fault because A.) he got out of his vehicle, and B.) he had a gun. [paraphrasing Attorney Brian Tannebaum of Florida via Hot Air]
If you think about that concept for a minute, it is contrary to common sense. You may not leave you vehicle or your dwelling in your own neighborhood? You have a gun?
No worries, Big Brother and lawyers will protect you & us…except when he/she/it doesn’t….or can’t.
George Zimmerman did nothing prior to his being punched in the nose that I, and my neighbors, haven’t done regularly checking odd acting strangers. The idea I or we are required to get beaten bloody and not be under the apprehension that our lives are in danger … we are supposed to judge that if ambushed and knocked to the ground, just how bad our beating is before we act? What planet do these weenies live on…it damn sure isn’t east Dearborn or Detroit, Michigan.
We are one messed up, emasculated, nation I think. Rep. Marcia L. Fudge(D – Ohio) says:
#Zimmerman was found not guilty, he was not found innocent.
What happened to the old timey idea that you are innocent until proven guilty? When did acquittal change your status of innocent? You are not “found” innocent, that is presumed. Well maybe not in Russia, China, Vietnam, Iran et al..,,is that where we are today. Is that our equivalence?
/edit
When Zimmerman made the suspicous person CALL to police, he was unsure of Martin’s race
exactly, as I stated earlier he said he THINKS the person was black.
he did not know.
How long does this have to continue until Zimmerman can file a civil suit and a suit via the DoJ for being racially persecuted.
Basically due to his race (not being black and being thought to be white) he is being persecuted. I would think (granted Holder would do nothing) that Zimmerman can file for being threatened and harassed due to his race. Also Martin appeared to be profiling Zimmerman and attacked him in part to due to his race.
It sends chills down my spine when some of the follow up to blatant racial comments is “Oh no Zimmerman is Hispanic not white” like that should matter. Everyone should be able to defend themselves if they are being beaten up no matter what their race. If Zimmerman had been 100% white he still had the right to defend himself when his head was being beaten on the concrete.
I think suing Crump, Sharpton, and the NAACP for racial harassment would be justice.
Originally the family said they wanted an arrest (they got it even though there was no evidence), then it was they wanted the police chief fired (they got it even though he did nothing wrong), then they wanted a trial (they got it again even though there was no evidence), now they just want “justice”. Basically they just wanted Zimmerman hung or life in prison (plus all the financial goodies they could get for suing) no matter what the reality was or what the evidence said. Eventually enough has to be enough.
The moral lesion is that you cannot attack someone for following you or for looking at you in a way you do not like (especially if part of the problem is you don’t like their perceived race). Especially beating their head on concrete and threatening to kill them (granted the threat cannot be proved but there is evidence for punching and the concrete).
Obama did not help matters any. Not one mention that Zimmerman was not guilty and that his family should be considered to for their pain and suffering. With all of the issues the US is having Obama should focus on the country and not keep stirring up the racial pot.
I do feel sorry for the Martin family. No one should have to lose their child especially in such a senseless way. However, working with race baiters and destroying peoples lives when Trayvon also was at fault is just wrong.
I am hoping that James Beasley will be adding Crump, Sharpton and the NAACP to its list of people and groups etc to sue on behalf of George.
It is the only way to stop the BGI in its tracks.
Some of the commentary on this case bespeaks a lack of intelligence, but none so much as the persistent claims about the “stand your ground” law. OK, some of the commentators in their anger failed to inform themselves about this law, and I can see that, but now that the trial is over, how is it possible to miss that Zimmerman’s team never made a claim under “stand your ground”? It simply never entered the deliberations; if you had been a Martin partisan and followed every moment of the trial how did you miss that? If you were a talking head legal analyst, how did you miss that? If you did miss it, that’s good prima facie evidence of incompetence.
The other thing is that the commentators, and the public in general, make it sound as if Florida is the only state with such a “crazy” stand your ground law. In reality, it is the common law of the land, as over 30 states have the same type of law.
Let me sum this up. If a white kid was assaulting and bashing a black man’s head into the concrete, then I would expect the black man to defend himself in any manner available to him. The color of his skin does not matter, but rather the facts and circumstances at hand.
Of course, if it had been a white kid shot by a black man under these circumstances, these same people would claim the white kid was committing a hate crime and the black man was justified in shooting. Professor Campos, your bias is showing.
Despite Campos’ misleading fact pattern, it is likely that if the races were reversed, there would have been no indictment and no trial. The indictment and trial are the racist response here, and not the killing of Nartin.
Another thing that might have been different if the races had been reversed is that it is possible that there would have been an arrest report, or at least an incident report, for the jewelry that Martin was found with. Apparently, the investigators were under orders not to fully report this sort of thing because it was making blacks look bad. Something like that. This is according to an article at Atlas Shrugged. If this article is accurate, then there is a possility that a white Martin might have been tied to a burglary through a police report, and this might have been admissible. But, because he was black, there was no police report. And, a police report implicating him in a previous burglary would seemingly have been relevant as to whether Zimmerman was justiffied in thinking him suspicious, since it would make it more likely that Martin was, indeed, casing the house for burglary.
Cheese and rice! MSNBC empty-suit speculates that the laws would be different if more white children died. He says the case is ‘patently about race’. Conservatives try to shut down any conversation about race. A laugh a minute.
Oh, and the judge was in the tank for the defense.
Crap. Second person on that network today who has used the phrase ‘white supremacy’.
MSNBC seem to have forgotten that there is a current lawsuit in the wings.
If Zimmerman had been black:
Around 13% of the population is black. 80% is white and/or Hispanic.
In 09, white on white killing totaled 2,963 deaths. White on black killing totaled 209 black deaths. Black on black killing totaled 2,604 deaths. Black on white killing totaled 454 white deaths.
If the number of cross racial deaths indicate racism, blacks are absolutely the most racist people in the country. Proportionally, the rates for black on white murders is more than twice as high as white on black murders, yet, blacks account for only 13% of the population. Statistically, if the per capita white on black murders equaled black on white deaths, we would see more than 2700 black murders by whites. The gross disparity in cross racial killing indicate that blacks are far more likely to kill whites. The number of black on black killings as well show a significant trend, blacks are 600% more likely to kill a member of their own race than whites, and 1200% more likely to kill a member of a different race.
The math here is incorrect. If the interracial murder rates were equal, we would not see 2700 murders of blacks by whites. We would see 454 – exactly the same number as murders of whites by blacks. This is the transitive principle of multiplication.
As an illustration: suppose murder were colorblind and random. Then in a population that was ten percent black and ninety percent white. you would expect ninety percent of the victims of black murder to be white and only ten percent of the victims of white murder to be black. If there were 1,000 murders in that population, then 900 of the victims would be white and 90 of those white victims would be killed by blacks, and 100 of the victims would be black and 90 of those black victims would be killed by whites. The number of whites killed by blacks and blacks killed by whites would be identical.
Another way of thinking about this would be to consider the rate of murder per interracial contact. Let’s suppose that in a given year, white people and black people come into contact with each other X times. In 454 of those encounters, a black person kills a white person. If black and white propensities to commit interracial murder were identical, then those encounters would also result in 454 killings of blacks by whites. If there were 2700 killings of blacks by whites, that would mean that whites were over 5x as likely to kill a black in a given contact as a black was to kill a white.
In fact, blacks kill whites at about 2x the rate that whites kill blacks. That’s pretty bad, but nothing like the bloodbath that some people seem to imagine is taking place.
Really? REALLY?
The one variable you are leaving out though, is blacks commit 8x more murders per capita than non blacks.
So, while you are correct that if you isolate one person as the VICTIM, then a white person (non black) is only twice as likely to be killed by a black person than a black person is to be killed by a white person.
HOWEVER, if you pick one random black person as a possible murderer, a black person is 16x more likely to kill a white person than a white person is to kill a black person.
Statistics are funny that way….
Just depends how you want to spin it.
13% of the population converts to 7.6 times. So if race on race were equal in outcome, the black on white should be the white on black rate divided by 7.6%.
Ergo, 209/7.6 = 27.5. Yet the black on white was actually 454, or more than 16.5 times the predicted rate given the assumption of no difference in the killing rate of races. Obviously this well beyond two standard deviations and is a statistically significant observation, despite whatever it was you were trying to show.
Let’s try again “meddler”…I know syntax is hard for mathematicians.
What part of Fen’s orignal point don’t you still get? He was referring to BLACK on BLACK homicides. He was NOT referring to White on Black or Black on White, but BLACK/BLACK. His numbers were a bit off, but the primary point was Black on Black homicide. You keep going off on a tangent.
I live in Dearborn, on the immediately adjacent Detroit border, and Detroit is between 85 & 90% Black. Kind of stands to reason that black on black crime is more prevalent than black or white or white on black when whites are barely more than 10% of the population. Hello? Math and extrapolation again. Whoa.
And yeah, in my neighborhood, which is a mix of Arabs, Whites, Blacks, and Mexicans, we profile strangers…race or ethnicity has nothing to do with it. This is our home, our homes and families are involved, we do what we must. I am as responsible for the many children here as their parents are…we all do our part of secure our home spaces.
Know what, black mothers and fathers are also in grief when a black kid kills their child, as the odds are likely for it to be in Detroit…you just won’t read about it much in the MSM TV or print.
Real quick now, can you tell me who Darryl Green or Joshua Chellew is? When they were alive earlier this month that is.
I have a question, and it is not rhetorical.
I really don’t know the answer, so I would appreciate it if anyone answered it:
Were there protests/riots after O.J. Simpson’s acquittal?
Note: I didn’t get the link to post where I copied the above.
Apologies!
Of course this case was about race… just not in the way Mr. Campos thinks…
If Treyvon Martin was white, there never would have been a trial.
If George Zimmerman was black, there never would have been a trial.
If George Zimmerman was a woman, or LGBT, there never would have been a trial.
If George Zimmerman had a more hispanic sounding name, such as Jorge Zapata, there probably wouldn’t have been a trial.
But “white guy shoots black teenager” struck the right chords with the wrong people, and so we have this travesty. Pathetic.
“If George Zimmerman had a more hispanic sounding name, such as Jorge Zapata, there probably wouldn’t have been a trial.”
There’s no way to ever know, but I’ve often wondered if the fact that Zimmerman sounds like a Jewish name had anything to do with the initial hype of the story.
considering that the NAACP and the NBPP are in fact anti-Semitic bigots, I do believe that is a real factor.
If TM had been white and GZ black, one fact in the case that has been given little attention would have loomed very large: TM’s use of racial slurs toward GZ. If it came out at trial that a white TM had called a black GZ a N****r before attacking him and beating him up, the jurors would have stood up and said: “Can we just vote to acquit GZ now and get out of here.”
I started to think differently about the Left’s attitude toward race a couple of years ago. That was when I read that The New Yorker had written an essay about Jane Fonda. (I did not read the essay because it was not online. I only read what others had blogged about it.)
Anyway, at one point the New Yorker writer wrote about the marriage of Fonda’s son to a black woman. Now, the father of the groom is Fonda’s ex-husband, Tom Hayden, the ’60s radical leader of the New Left. Hayden proposed a toast at the wedding reception. The New Yorker reported that Hayden apparently said, that “he was especially happy about his son’s union with actress Simone Bent, who is black, because, among other things, it was ‘another step in a long-term goal of mine: the peaceful, nonviolent disappearance of the white race.'”
I think that viewpoint is shared by many pseudo-intellectuals who claim to be fighting for minority rights. It’s not so much about fighting for minorities as it is about hating and wanting to punish whites for what they perceive are historical injustices.
It’s why whites with higher test scores and far better credentials are routinely rejected for admission into elite universities in favor of lesser qualified non-whites. It’s why they are so dead set on legalizing several million non-whites who illegally invaded the country. Many of these pseudo-intellectuals are self-loathing whites who don’t want the country to be a white majority country. So turn the illegal invaders into citizens and make it easy for them to import their extended families from abroad and within a couple of decades whites will finally be a minority in America.
We’ll finally be one big Socialist Progressive Utopian Wonderland.
I don’t so much look at the “what if’s”. I try to look at the “why’s”.
From what I’ve read, there were at least eight burglaries in the previous 14 months before this “tragedy”. I’ve read that “most” of these were committed by young black males. I haven’t read of one single crime at Twin Lakes that was NOT committed by a young black male.
Usually, in Florida, in February, the temp of the rain falling out of the sky is pretty chilly. A reasonable person would not want to get soaked to the skin. You would be miserably cold. Cold water takes a lot of heat out of your skin.
Therefore, if I observe, during a pretty good rainstorm, a dark person with no rain protection loitering aimlessly where you probably wouldn’t see anyone except landscape maintenance on a nice sunny day, ….BINGO!
.
Not suspicious? Just out buying Skittles? Gimme a break! Hell, he should have been arrested for being too stupid to get out of the rain.
Remember, one burglary was felony invasion of an occupied dwelling(lucky woman and kid). And I’ve read (don’t know if it’s absolutely true) that they KNEW she was home.
Remember in the old movies when the sheriff would pass out guns to the town’s citizenry to ward off some impending attack. That brazen invasion of that poor woman’s house signified that it was time to arm. To get much more serious about protecting the neighborhood. Rape or death would/might be a logical progression.
“To arms, to arms! The young black males are coming!”
My apologies. Just trying to see the situation as George might have.
By extension, this whole thing could conceivably be blamed on all the perpetrators of the previous burglaries.
Okay. Let’s “suppose”. Let’s speculate. Bad “facts” and all. What would have happened. Zimmerman would have been walking on the sidewalk, not weirdly meandering in the grass. Zimmerman would have been carrying an obvious grocery bag with milk, bread, cat food, and/or other helpful fill-ins asked for by other members of his family. Zimmerman would have smiled and waved. Zimmerman would not have called him a creepy ass anything. Zimmerman would have asked the guy when his car slowed down if he needed directions or, if Zimmerman was feeling threatened, Zimmerman would have just gone home.
Zimmerman ought to sue the parents of TM since he was 17, obviously committed assault and was under their supervision or lack thereof.
Further, all those interested in ‘justice’ for young, black, men should immediately join in supporting an investigation of Corey and her prosecution team. It strikes me that this team, given the antics they used in the Zimmerman trial, have probably done just as or more ‘questionable’ things that have resulted in the conviction of hundreds, if not thousands, of young black men.
THAT is a very good point.
If they did this to Zimmerman…what might they do WITHOUT the media watching every move?
It’s funny to me that these arguments boil down to Trayvon simply had a natural reaction to being followed.
As Campos says:
“And his killer is a grown man who provokes a fight with an otherwise harmless kid”
It’s almost as if we have become so used to black violence that GZ ought to have expected it. I can’t count the times I’ve heard people essentially say that this case leaves the door open for white people lawfully murdering blacks by coaxing them into fights.
Has everyone lost their mind?
I didn’t follow the TV really well, but did we ever get to see the video presentation that Zimmerman’s lawyers wanted to show the jury but the judge said no .. maybe at close ?
A heavily edited (redacted) version of it was shown at closing.
I didn’t find it to be very significant, but who knows what the jury thought.
I don’t think it was any game changer but it did provide a very good visual and reinforced the basis of the defense’s position. I found the shifts in the perspective were impressive particularly where you are basically looking over John Good’s shoulder. It had to give the jury a better perspective of what John Good actually saw.
I think we may eventually see a more complete animation one of these days when the defense team determine it may benefit Zimmerman in some way.
Newt vs Van Jones – Racism in Zimmerman case
Impeach Eric Holder………NOW! Then BO right behind him.
The school system should have reported TM for the stolen stuff in his backpack. If they had, he might be alive, although in some legal trouble but at least alive.
“Trayvon Martin’s Involvement In Local Burglaries Covered Up By Media, School, Police, Prosecutors”
From Atlas Shrugs. Why didn’t they report him because the parents should have helped their son?
TM started down that road of fighting, stealing from others, then what would have been his next step, murder?
My husband said that Rush was talking about all of this.
This is for those who haven’t read it yet.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2013/07/trayvon-martins-involvement-in-local-burglaries-covered-up-by-media-school-police-prosecutors.html
I am so irritated with the logic of the left. It amounts to nothing. And I see Angela Corey and crew are taking their sore loser tour on the road–still repeating the lies and what they failed to prove. They really need to shut up because repeating these tired fallacious chestnuts is just throwing gas on the fire of the low-information viewers of HLN/CNN, etc. Makes me wonder what higher elected office she’s angling for now? I tell you now, if harm comes to me or my family as a result of their mendacity, I won’t hesitate to seek a lawyer. The state of Florida has lost enough money on this goat-roping. Move on Angie.
Apparently BDLR based the prosecution’s case on his devastating cross-exam of Zimmerman.
But since GZ was a coward and didn’t take the stand their case fell apart.
I kid you not.
They had what…five…six interviews with Zimmerman on tape that he freely gave without a lawyer present and the only inconsistencies they could find at that time were ones that were not material to the case. Those twits cannot admit they were wrong, that they had no case, and in the words of another commenter a few weeks ago are still beating the dead horse hoping for a whinny. I am going to find a link and email Pam Bondi’s office, in addition to the governor’s office and demand they tell these twits to shut up. They lost for a reason and continuing to try this case in the court of public opinion with more lies and distortions is just plain evil.
” Those twits cannot admit they were wrong, that they had no case…”
Also, isn’t it the case that anyone on the prosecuting side who concluded there was no case got reassigned to other work? 🙂
Evil,sure but the reason for this fiasco is to keep blacks and white ‘guilt trip’ liberals on the Democrat party plantation. It helped get Obama reelected and they’ll play this sad song over and over to help with 2014 and beyond.
A “little” thug is a thug black or white or whatever.
The preoccupation of race was an after effect due to national figures reacting in a non’ objective manner.
It’s time to put this puppy to rest…
“What if Trayvon were White?”
No organization would have pressured the governor to do something to GZ.
No special prosecutor would have been appointed, after the prosecutor assigned to the jurisdiction where the shooting took place refused to file the case.
No police chief would have lost his job because he refused to arrest GZ.
No jury would have returned a verdict of not guilty, because there never would have been a prosecution.
And, most importantly, the media would have had to spend the long, hot, summer discussing real, substantive, issues that really matter to the everyday lives of every American.
Simple. We had a case of self-defense here in Chicago. Young black man broke into the home of an old black man. Old black man filled the young man full of lead, killed him. The police confiscated his gun (it’s Chicago, after all) and didn’t charge him.
That’s the Homer Smith case probably. I googled, but only found that the old man *had* been charged, and that people were outraged. Do you have a link showing the charges were dropped?
I did find a 2010 Florida case of a middle-aged black man shooting a hispanic teenager (it looks like). He was charged with murder but then the state dropped the case, admitting they couldn’t win.
http://www.news-press.com/article/20100916/CRIME/9160375/Fort-Myers-killing-suspect-likely-off-hook
George Zimmerman could have been my son.
Well. I just went looking to verify what I already knew, that the prosecutor in the Duke LaCrosse case was punished for overreaching, when I found this:
http://videos.huffingtonpost.com/duke-lacrosse-accuser-indicted-for-murder-517051413
The parallels between the Zimmerman case and the LaCrosse case are strong.
I know, can’t remember if she’s yet to be tried but remember the optics? Poor single mom, working her way through college the only way she could as a stripper, victimized by rich white boys at exclusive university. The truth wasn’t even in the ballpark. Crystal Mangum was crazy out of the bag prior to this case and she had only signed up for a class here or there. She ruined the lives of many with her lies and the victims magnanimously opted to not go after her, saying she was a victim of the GBI.
That prosecutor was “punished” if you count one day in jail as punishment. It’s amazing how criminal a prosecutor can be and get away with it. I don’t understand why judges are so soft on them.
Anyone else know the actual reason Martian was suspended for 10 day prior to the shooting?
I read it in one of Martin’s text messages which the Defense released to the public domain. He left campus to attend a fight…
http://www.gzdocs.com/documents/0513/discovery_3/extraction_reports/report1.pdf
What if GZ was also black? Would anything at all have come of this? My guess is not in Chicago.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=0b7_1373822934
Under Florida’s old racial classification law, he *is* black: “The words ‘negro’, ‘colored’, ‘colored persons’, ‘mulatto’, or ‘persons of color’, when applied to persons, include every person having one-eighth or more of African or negro blood” (Fla. Stat. § 1-101(6) (1941) (cited in Pauli Murray, States’ Laws on Race and Color (Studies in the Legal History of the South) (Athens, Ga., 1950; reprint ed. 1997), p. 78.) See http://books.google.com/books/about/States_Laws_on_Race_and_Color.html?id=L8LsCifv10IC
If this had been the same case except it was a young white gym rat busting an older, nerdy black guy’s nose and then grounding and pounding him, and the black guy shooting the white kid, pretty much everybody who’s protesting the results of this trial would be cheering for the black guy, and they would have been asking why this mess ever went to trial, if it in fact ever made it to trial. And you know what? I’d still be agreeing with them. Because race is not what this is about.
The good news for everyone who makes the “What if the races were reversed” argument is that there is a perfect example playing out in TX. They don’t have to engage in hypotheticals.
http://www.khou.com/news/crime/Pastor-questions-grand-jury-indictment-in-road-rage-death–192138941.html
The best part is that the pastor that went to the scene to make sure this woman wouldn’t be arrested had been to Florida to protest the Zimmerman wasn’t arrested fast enough.
BTW, the MSM seems to be working overtime to use this to move the bar on racism. MSNBC host Touré stated to day that a pattern of past conduct is too high a bar to prove racist intent. What matters is whether or not the person in question is benefitting from “white privilege” in that moment, whether or not they even are aware of it.
Talking head Tiffany Davis on HLN said that if one person looking at a situation feels it’s about race, it is about race. End of discussion.
As suggested in comments at Geller’s site, it may be possible to check on the disposition of the “found jewelry” from Martin’s backpack. Are the Dade County police reports online? If the stolen jewelry in any of them matches the description of that seized from Martin, or if any has been reclaimed now, it helps complete the picture of an active criminal career.
The jewelry from Martin’s backpack was linked to a burglary that occurred a few blocks from his high school . It took awhile to get back to the owners, as it was logged as “found”, but it did eventually get returned.
[…] all sorts of race-baiting going on. Big Media conducted a public lynching of George Zimmerman. Big Media lied. Big Media […]
Recording devices are cheap. Really inexpensive. I have come to the conclusion that all white males should be sound recording their lives 24 hours a day. This would protect the vast majority from charges of racism, child molestation, sexual assault or harrassment, etc. And video record all sexual encounters. Avoid he said-she said dilemna- if it’s recorded, it’s what’s on the recording.
Women and minorities don’t need to do this. It’s obvious the legal system is set up to believe them, so if the encounter isn’t recorded, the default is the white male is lying, the other participant is telling the absolute whole truth, unless recorded otherwise.
There’s a market for a comfortable, wearable recording system. Clipped to the ear like headphones. Or for video, clipped the eyeglass (or sunglass) frame.
If Trayvon Martin had been white, this is what would have happened:
GZ: “Who is that? What are you doing there???”
TM: “Oh hey sir my name’s Trayvon I’m staying with my dad’s girlfriend around the corner. I just went to the 7-11 for some candy and a drink.”
GZ: “Well be careful running around out here at night, kid, there have been a string of burglaries in this neighborhood recently. I am on the neighborhood watch so I was just checking you out. It’s so dark I couldn’t tell that you were just a neighborhood kid at first. Sorry if I surprised you.”
TM: (laughing) “Dude, do I really look like a burglar to you? My dad would wring my neck if I ever did anything like that!”
GZ: (sheepishly) “Yeah sorry about that kid. Well nice meeting you.”
TM: “You too, I have to go home or I’ll be late and mom & dad will start to worry. C ya.”
Some more:
GZ: “Sorry kid but I already called the police. I have to phone it in that there’s no problem. They might want your name & address, is that OK?”
TM: “Oh crap!!! I will get in trouble with my dad if the police come over!!! I didn’t do anything wrong!!!” (Kid starts crying.)
GZ: “OK OK I’m sorry I didn’t mean to upset you, I will tell the police it’s all OK and my mistake.”
TM: (still crying) “Please mister don’t get me in trouble with the police or my father! I will get grounded and he won’t buy me a new Tony Hawk skateboard for my birthday!!!”
GZ: “Listen if you need me to I can explain what happened to your father. You won’t get in trouble because you didn’t do anything wrong, like I said, you gotta be careful out here lately. Now go on home kid and stop crying.”
http://rochester.ynn.com/content/top_stories/490926/jury-finds-roderick-scott-not-guilty/
In answer to the original post “What if?”
In each case, a citizen was legally armed. In each case, the sweet little innocent teen attacked the armed individual. Cervini never even got close to Scott. Zimmerman absorbed significant punishment prior to the shooting.
The mindset of both teens was that they will get the better of “their opponent” if you will. OOPSIE! He has a weapon. If either of these two teens had known their potential victim was armed, I’m sure they never would have perpetrated the attack.
I have no problem with either verdict. While some may consider Ted Nugent to be a radical, his comments on the Martin case were spot on.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2010/12/paterson_commutes_sentence_in.html
Story about a middle aged black man that shot an unarmed white team in the face and killed him during an argument in front of his house. He did NOT call 911, he went out to argue with the team and shot him dead in front of several witnesses.
He got something like 2 years in jail and that his sentence was commuted by the black governor a few months later. He was let out after serving very little time. He claimed one of the reasons he shot and killed the teen was because he had been traumatized by the stories his GRAND DADDY told him about the KKK 80 years ago, so he shot and killed the kid as a natural reaction to white racism.
Uh huh.
White’s lawyer, Frederick Brewington, said the governor’s race played no role in his decision. “He reviewed this matter as he reviews any other matter,” he said. “People have to be careful not to fan the flames of racism. If the governor happened to be white and he commuted the sentence of a white person, would that be an issue?”
WOW!!!! How about that statement. Amazing.
What if Trayvon Martin were white?
First of all, I’m one who believes that while due process was followed and justice probably done, the thing’s a tragedy.
Had Trayvon Martin been white, I think that the wounds onthe back of Zimmerman’s head, his other injuries, and the words on his cell phone still would’ve argued for acquittal.
I’m also reminded of the Jame Byrd dragging death case. That was white-on-black murder, in which the perps justly got the death penalty. Now, I suspect that had James Byrd been armed and shot a couple of the Yahoos who tried to murder him, the authorities could well have decided self-defense, or, had he been charged, a similar jury probably would have acquitted in that case.
One other thing: Had I made a different marriage than the one I actually did make, my sons would’ve looked like Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his late brother Tamerlan. That does not mean that I will join the crowd that thinks they were simply railroaded.
I am actually of the belief that things would have ended up drastically differently had Trayvon Martin been white …
First off, the media would have jumped on the case immediately but the narrative would have been much different. Rather than demonize Zimmerman for following Trayvon Martin, the media would have demonized Trayvon Martin for attacking George Zimmerman; and the media would be looking for any connection between Trayvon Martin and the Tea-Party or anti illegal immigration groups to portray them as violent and racist extremists.
I am inconsolably saddened that there appears to be no one, NO ONE, of prominence in the black community willing or able to stand up to the Race Arsonists such as Sharpton and Jealous. I am resigned to never seeing Dr. King’s dream realized if no such persons exist.
What got me to it on the news coverage is all the people saying “well, it might have been a factually true verdict but it wasn’t a ‘socially acceptable’ verdict. WTH does that even mean anyway?
[…] What would have happened if? Well, you wouldn’t have the President trying to influence the case to the prosecution, nor the State of Florida switching to one of their top prosecutor teams, and so on. […]
Skimming this comment thread and doing a bit of googling, here are some black kills hispanic or black kills white self-defense cases.
http://www.news-press.com/article/20100916/CRIME/9160375/Fort-Myers-killing-suspect-likely-off-hook (Black man shoots out of his window and kills a hispanic teenager. Charges dropped. )
http://rochester.ynn.com/content/top_stories/490926/jury-finds-roderick-scott-not-guilty/ (Black man kills white teenager whom he caught stealing from cars. Tried, acquitted. )
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2010/12/paterson_commutes_sentence_in.html (57-year-old black man serves 5 months (then pardoned) for shooting and killing a white teenager who was arguing with his son. No claim of self-defense was made.)
http://www.khou.com/news/crime/Pastor-questions-grand-jury-indictment-in-road-rage-death–192138941.html and http://www.speroforum.com/a/ABTQXCNTFM32/73128-Black-woman-stands-her-ground-kills-white-man#.UeYchEHIFtA http://misguidedchildren.com/justice/2013/07/self-defense-with-a-twist (Black woman indicted for killing car driver who she says banged on her car and tried to open her door after they stopped in a gas station after a fender bender. A witness denies the banging occurred.)
[…] people, logic! Like Mr. Jacobson so eloquently writes, just because a white-on-black murder is more likely to be found innocent than a black-on-white […]