Backing Away Slowly...
Mar. 29th, 2012 05:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxThe Trayvon Martin case has been both heartbreaking and infuriating. Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that a boy was killed for going to the store to buy Skittles, wearing a hoodie, for a culture infatuated with guns, and because of racist stereotypes (and mindsets). This can't be divorced from racism because when listening to people argue about this case, the underlying racial problems are obvious when 'somehow' Trayvon is being indicted for the POSSIBILITY that he MAY have tried to defend himself in the 1 minute gap between the phone call and his being killed... indicted by the same people 'defending' Zimmerman by arguing that Zimmerman was 'just defending himself' and therefore justified for following Martin and--according to the phone call--confronting Martin. Why is it that Zimmerman's defenders see no contradiction in their indicting a slaughtered boy for possibly/maybe defending himself from the guy who had just stalked him on a dark, rainy street with their saying that Zimmerman is 'justified' for feeling 'threatened' after he stalked the boy and brought about a confrontation while Zimmerman was armed?!.
That's where bias is very most definitely on full display.
Putting aside the ABC released video footage of Zimmerman in the police station (where he doesn't appear to have any injuries that match the desciption he and his defenders have given) my jaw dropped at Zimmerman's father's statement:
For the record the President said:
...which is the truth! It's called empathy.
Trayvon Martin was just a boy. He was someone's beloved son and brother. His life was violently ended and his parents left grieving. Expressing empathy for a child and his parents in no way whatsoever qualifies as 'hate. That it's interpreted as such says a hell of a lot more about the person reading his statement that way than the President showing empathy for the grieved in a human tragedy.
...and Zimmerman Sr. calls the President's statement hateful? WTF? Seriously, WTF.
That's where bias is very most definitely on full display.
Putting aside the ABC released video footage of Zimmerman in the police station (where he doesn't appear to have any injuries that match the desciption he and his defenders have given) my jaw dropped at Zimmerman's father's statement:
I never foresaw so much hate coming from the president, .
For the record the President said:
"If I had a son, he'd look like Trayvon Martin"
...which is the truth! It's called empathy.
Trayvon Martin was just a boy. He was someone's beloved son and brother. His life was violently ended and his parents left grieving. Expressing empathy for a child and his parents in no way whatsoever qualifies as 'hate. That it's interpreted as such says a hell of a lot more about the person reading his statement that way than the President showing empathy for the grieved in a human tragedy.
...and Zimmerman Sr. calls the President's statement hateful? WTF? Seriously, WTF.
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Date: 2012-03-29 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 03:21 pm (UTC)This whole thing breaks my heart. It also makes me crazy that we don't have reasonable gun control laws in this country.
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Date: 2012-03-29 03:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-29 03:39 pm (UTC)Because that's particularly plausible to come from an unarmed boy who had been talking to his girlfriend about being frightened and who was 100lbs lighter than the guy who had been stalking him??!
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Date: 2012-03-29 03:56 pm (UTC)The fact Zimmerman has been charged with NOTHING appalls me more every day.
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Date: 2012-03-29 04:01 pm (UTC)And the sad fact is the 'investigation' (there was no investigation), the lack of gathering evidence at the time, and what is increasingly looking at some 'good ol' boy' reaction, means the case has already been blown even if they were to finally arrest or indict.