if an older and heavier man followed my 17-yo-self in the dark—and i find it highly improbable that Zimmerman made known that he has a gun, but even more so then—i would run. i'm not saying that Zimmerman did everything right. he certainly shouldn't have followed him. but who initiated the violence is of utmost importance. following someone in the dark is stupid. bashing someone's head in the sidewalk is attempted murder.
I honestly have not followed this case at all but from what I have gathered from all the Monday morning quarterbacks in my life: 1. Zimmerman became the aggressor when he decided to ignore his responsibility to just notify police and wait in his car. -In essence he began stalking the kid. 2. What I didn't realize, and correct me if I am wrong, is that Trayvon got away from Zimmerman for an extended amount of time and instead of calling 911 or heading home he reengaged. Lot's of bad calls on either side. I enjoyed the article theadvancedapes, it's important to remember what brought us to this point and I don't disagree with you that had it been a 17 year old you walking down that street, nothing would have happened. Pretty f*ck'd up situation.
1. Correct 2. From Martin's call with his friend we know that Martin realized he was being followed and was unnerved by it. After that we only have testimony from Zimmerman, which is non-evidence. Should Martin have called 911? Probably. But the fact that he didn't isn't evidence that he did anything wrong. He was being followed and we don't know how much time he had to make that decision. Could he have continued heading home? We don't know the answer to that either. He was being followed by a man with a gun. We don't know if Zimmerman would have let him if he did just run or walk faster home. 3. I ask myself what could Martin have done. And there is no easy answer. It seems like he was going to be framed as the bad guy no matter what (because of his skin colour). I don't know what parents with black or brown children are supposed to tell their children. The answer seems to be don't go outside at night.
cgod had a comment on Hubski recently about having a large group of black clients in to his bar right after the verdict. From his account, their reaction seemed to be just that "what do we do to keep our kids safe?" If all it takes is a Hoody and some increased pigment in your skin to be a "bad guy after sundown," I don't know what I'd be thinking if I were a black parent. This is worth further honest discussion.
That is the saddest aspect of this decision. Geraldo Rivera actually proposed that minorities should stop "wearing hoodies". So ridiculous. That is pretty much telling minorities to: "Accept the institutional injustice. Just shut up and take it." Here is important food for thought provided by the anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot:What matters here is how the changing construction of whiteness intersects with the maintenance of a white/black divide that structures all race relations in the United States. Whether significant numbers of the people now called Latinos or Asian Americans–or the significant numbers of their known “mixed” offspring with whites–will become probationary whites and thus reinforce the structure is an important indicator of the future of race relations in the United States.
Geraldo Rivera actually proposed that minorities should stop "wearing hoodies".
Anyone else see this comment by Rivera as analogous to blaming women for being assaulted because of how they dress. This is how the annual slutwalks started: The rallies began when Constable Michael Sanguinetti, a Toronto Police officer, suggested that to remain safe, "women should avoid dressing like sluts
I would highly recommend reading/watching this post by shoe77. theadvancedapes, you could certainly cite this teachers lesson in future conversations about race. -Extremely interesting and certainly relevant.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ge7i60GuNRg Here's an illuminating experiment on Racial Profiling
I showed this to my introductory biological anthropology class when we discussed the construction of race and discrimination.
Check out this post. What do you make of this premise? His death wasn’t about race, guns, or your pet issue. It was about misjudgment and overreaction—exactly what we’re doing now to the verdict.
Read it and agree. Having a "Stand Your Ground Law" and untrained neighborhood volunteers packing heat is a recipe for future disasters. Can we not see our limitations as human beings? George Zimmerman should never have had the right to carry a weapon and use deadly force.
The author made some good points. The problem is with the law. I suppose that all we can say is that Zimmerman was in the moral wrong; but in the state of Florida he was "not guilty" because of the messed up laws there. The system needs to change or else there will be more innocent minorities killed.
If you ran, what would the person following you (with a gun) do? As I already said, the medical examiner said head injuries were "insignificant". The only evidence we have that Trayvon bashed someone's head against a sidewalk is from Zimmerman's story of what transpired. Which is non-evidence.i would run
bashing someone's head in the sidewalk is attempted murder