If you can wear a hoodie and go to a convenient store to buy some iced tea and skittles and not worry you’ll “justifiably” get shot for doing so–you just may have white privilege.
Skincolor and outfit are what made Martin a target. This could happen to anyone who looks likes Martin, which is a lot of fucking people. This type of thing is scary because it is a threat to black people who dress a certain way. You can be shot for it. Legally.
We always manage to find ethical loopholes to justify shit like this. It was an honest mistake we suppose, or whatever. Then we have the gall to deny that race was ever factor in the first place. That’s just fucked up. Royally.
Zimmerman wasn’t even a police officer, he was a self-styled vigilante with a gun, out to get punks, i.e. anyone who looked like Martin. Race, age, sweatshirt = Target.
Somehow it’s ok for Zimmerman to profile and single out Martin, approach him with a gun in a hostile manner, and when he fought back, to shoot him in self defense. So basically it’s ok to kill someone as long as you can provoke them into attacking you first. Bait, trap, pull trigger - just another night protecting the streets from punks like Martin.
Fucked. Up.
Wow you really ate up the media fodder didn’t you?
i suppose you know what actually happened. The version where Zimmerman was just being a concerned citizen, perhaps?
The only people that know are the ones with access to the full court transcript.That would be, jurors, judge and lawyers. Not the media. The media twists to suit their need for ratings. You actually trusting them is sad. You are educated far better than that.
Kris, the motherfucker was guilty the moment he stepped out of his car. Period. He was told to NOT get out of his car. What could you expect Martin to do? Just let this stupid motherfucker play cowboy? Didn’t Martin have the right to “stand his ground” and pound Zimmerman’s head into jelly on concrete? Where is the justice? Certainly not in Florida.
So you have access to all records, evidence and transcripts?
Can someone reach for his gun while his head is being pounded into the sidewalk? Zimmerman was told not to pursue. Did he listen?
You probably mean Hispanic privilege.
Zimmerman isn’t white.
Of course, making things black and white is much simpler and more satisfying.
There is only one person who knows what happened. The other guy is dead. Everyone else is writing a narrative about what they think happened.
I hate to be judgemental but from the little revealed, it is an easy conjecture: he was a bravura seeking wannabe cop, the the other a young man high on testasterone. Everything else is a rationalisation like a literal aand figurative chess game.
Zimmerman’s race is beside the point - Martin is the one who got shot. Had he been a white guy in a suit, he wouldn’t have.
Actually with the amount of adrenaline that would be coursing through his body, yea he could easily do so. He was disobeying an order, yes. Guilty of cold blooded murder? The jury does not think so, unanimously.
Beside the point - Really? If Zimmerman was black and he had shot Martin and had been found innocent … would you have made this thread? Would there have been so much attention paid to the trial?
What??? Zimmerman’s race does not count but, a white guy in a suit does? How ???
It’s a non-story. It was made newsworthy because the mainstream media made it into news. It was a tragic event in a podunk town. No more, no less. Not everything has a wider meaning. Sometimes bad things happen.
nvm
I, like anyone, don’t know what happened. I don’t know that he’s innocent, I don’t know that he’s guilty. I’m not even sure I strongly believe either way.
But your posts have been a breath of fresh air, Kriswest. Seriously. I understand the outrage that people like uglypeoplefucking must feel, and Irreleus, but once that outrage is out of your system, you’ve just got to realize that you don’t really know what happened. Best case scenario, Zimmerman’s story is true and he still killed a guy that he could have avoided killing if he just listened to the guy who told him to stay in the car. However, he’s not on trial for getting out of a car. He couldn’t have known that getting out of a car would lead to a murder, so why does it even matter that he got out of the car? Hindsight bias is 20/20 – we know he shouldn’t have gotten out of the car, because we’re seeing the results of the events, not the causes. He made a mistake getting out of the car against direct orders, that’s totally fair – but that’s not murder. You’re spot on there missy.
I’m extremely surprised that the jury found him guilty. I would have thought that the jury, given the media frenzy and the national – international – hatred of Zimmerman would have biased the jury against him from the beginning. I wouldn’t have thought that even a mountain of evidence in Zimmerman’s favor would have led to him being found innocent. I thought the battle was lost before it even started (especially given that the jury were all women, but I won’t go into why that would make a difference).
The way I see it, the only possible way they could have found him innocent, in the face of the entire world who hates his guts, is if there was a really good case that he was. Really, really strong. Anything short of that, and it would have been so easy to find him guilty, just as the rest of the world already did. That the jury found him innocent in the face of a world that disagreed says a lot to me. I’m glad to know, if nothing more, that he wasn’t doomed from the start. I thought he was, and I’m very glad to find out I was wrong.
It’s funny you should ask that, because i was just thinking that if Zimmerman HAD been black, he probably wouldn’t have been found innocent. But yeah, if he were a black armed vigilante targeting neighborhood kids rather than an hispanic one, i’d still be pretty dismayed by his acquital, rest assured.
And i don’t understand what the media circus really changes. . . as if the fact that it was a well-covered story by the media somehow invalidates criticisms of the verdict?
Fj, the jury was all female? I’ll be damned. The actual evidence had to weigh heavily in Zimmerman’s favor. Especially since all 12 said innocent. Thats as rare as a real blue rose. It means the evidence was solid.