In case you missed this yesterday….
Aside from the President’s 2008 campaign speech on race, needed after his controversial pastor Rev. Wright’s remarks came to light, President Obama has mostly strayed away from discussing race and racism in office. Part of that reluctance is due to the fact that since a lot of the opposition to him and his policies was due to his race, and he did not want to turn his administration into a black v. white debate. (And if you think some of the opposition to the President during his first term was not racially-based, then ask yourself why the Tea Party did not exist during President Bush’s term, since the very same spending, debt and deficits occurred on a much larger scale during Bush’s term, and ask yourself why did they need to make racial jokes, and ask yourself why they call him a nigg*r, and ask yourself why they call him a Muslim Socialist instead of just a socialist. If you deny that racism is at least part of the reason some people oppose the President, then you are a stone cold idiot who should be prevented from operating heavy machinery).
Anyway, the President is uniquely qualified and right to speak about racism that African Americans experience, because he is the first President to have experienced it. And he should speak. Because we all need to think about this central question: if Trayvon Martin was white, would George Zimmerman ever call 911? Would he ever had got out of the car?
I agree with Booman:
[T]he president’s remarks […] were more personal and heartfelt than anything I could possibly say. And his overall point and strategy followed exactly what I’ve been saying. We need to humanize black people for a lot of white people, and there isn’t a stronger way to do that than to have the president say that he could have been Trayvon 35 years ago. That’s he’s been followed in stores and heard car locks click as he walks by. And he didn’t point fingers and try to make people feel like they are bad people or racists. He tried to get them to listen. Writ large, that is the only way to move public opinion enough to change these crazy laws on self-defense, as well as to win support for other progressive policies.
Respectful dialogue, exposure, and education. As the president noted, the kids already get it. We should listen to them, too. As for the hyperventilating throngs of right-wing jackasses, just be happy they’re exposing themselves for posterity.
“President Obama has mostly strayed away from discussing race and racism in office.”
Not really. It seems all throughout his presidency he’s used terms pointing out people or groups that either do, or do not look like him.
These politicians and race jockeys who gin up racial tensions aren’t the ones who will be harmed if anything happens, will they?
Let’s see what spin you leftwingers put on this Roderick Scott shot and killed a 17 year old white boy. No weapon the kid didn’t even hit Roderick all he was doing was charging him.
http://radioviceonline.com/media-roderick-scott-not-guilty-manslaugter-self-defense-shooting-chris-cervini/
Where were the race wars or cries of racism over this by whites? The racism card is as worn out but the race hucksters like Sharpton (who equated young black males making babies to a bowel movement ) Jackson, and Obama.
Exactly what do you see happening? Goodness, you are easily frightened of… what? Please, be specific.
Hmmm… Was Roderick Scott arrested that night or sent home? Looks like it.
The police took him to the station on Island Cottage Road, where he was held for hours, before being transported to jail. Neither the two 911 calls Scott made, nor the videotaped statements he made to police, were played in court.
And there’s the difference.
And Pandora nails it. When it’s reversed it’s still an tragedy, but there’s no outcry for justice. Because justice is usually served. And swiftly.
Just read the first paragraph of the blog, a complete, lie which shows the authors bias. If the right would tell the complete truth and not skew the facts by misstatements and omissions, people might take them seriously.
fightingbluehen, Also – the President totally failed at not being black. All of his speeches, to date, have been spoken by a non-white. That’s the part that really stings. Am I right?
Public outcry like the national media circus surrounding the Tawana Brawley case when forensic evidence proved she was lying. There wouldn’t have been any case and RIGHTFULLY SO if some of the same racist hucksters hadn’t started the hype, just like they have this time.
In December 1987, 1,000 people marched through the streets of Newburgh, New York, in support of Brawley. Brawley’s claims in the case captured headlines across the country. Public rallies were held denouncing the incident. Racial tensions also climbed. When civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton, with attorneys Alton H. Maddox and C. Vernon Mason, began handling Brawley’s publicity, the case quickly took on an explosive edge. At the height of the controversy in June 1988, a poll showed a gap of 34 percentage points between blacks (51%) and whites (85%) on the question of whether she was lying. Sharpton, Maddox, and Mason generated a national media sensation. The three claimed officials all the way up to the state government were trying to cover up defendants in the case because they were white. Specifically, they named Steven Pagones, an Assistant District Attorney in Dutchess County, as one of the rapists, and a racist, among other accusations.
NOTHING has changed since 1987 the same race baiting hucksters are pulling the same crap.
Zimmerman wasn’t arrested because the initial assessment of the crime scene evidence proved it was self defense, the jury decided the same thing.
@Jimmy’s Patron: First off, stop eating at Jimmy’s. It’s obviously making you even stupider than the average conservative, which is very, very stupid indeed.
Now let’s look at some of the differences in the cases:
Zimmerman had suspicions of Trayvon Martin. Scott caught three people actually robbing his neighbor’s car. Difference: Suspicion vs. guilt.
Scott was arrested immediately. Zimmerman was let go when the police chief acted as judge and jury in addition to law enforcement. Difference: You tell me, genius.
Trayvon Martin’s supporters were demanding a better inquiry that the police chief’s say-so, and IMO were right to do so, as Zimmerman still has not told the truth about what happened that night. Cervelli’s supporters aren’t interested in the fact that he was caught in the midst of a crime; they are demanding that black people stop noticing that other blacks often get less-than-just treatment by the justice system.
Scott took the stand in his own defense, presumably because he had nothing to hide. Zimmerman did not take the stand, presumably because the lies and inconsistencies in his stories would have put him in danger of conviction. Difference: The difference between someone who tells the truth and someone who habitually lies.
And finally, nobody on Martin’s side is actually defending Scott, who may still be convicted for his quick trigger finger. Everybody on Zimmerman’s side is not only OK with the quick trigger finger, they support it.
Now go back to Jimmy’s and suck down some fried bullshit and stew about why the black man is doing so much better than you in this brave new world.
jimmy’s patron needs to get on topic or be gone.
These politicians and race jockeys who gin up racial tensions aren’t the ones who will be harmed if anything happens, will they?
And neither will you, Mr. White Privilege. But apparently your privilege is meant to shelter you from black people discussing acts of racism, is that right?
Geezer wrote:
I certainly can! The local law enforcement officials in Sanford, Florida, looked at the evidence and did not see anything that was a crime which could be proved in a court of law; police and prosecutors exercise that kind of discretion all the time. That was not good enough for our friends on the left, who whipped this up into a terrible race case, and got the state to overrule the local officials, and charges were brought.
Then, after a year to investigate, with all of the resources available to the state, the state still had no case, but went to trial anyway. The verdict delivered validates the decisions of the local officials that there was no case here.
Mr Zimmerman did not take the stand because his attorneys and he realized that the state had not proved its case. Mr de la Rionda recognized that himself, with the prosecution’s request that the jury consider lesser charges; they knew that hadn’t made a case for murder two. Judge Nelson allowed the jury to consider manslaughter as well, but that, too, was rejected by the jury as not having been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
I know that many of my friends on the left think that the verdict was unjust. What constitutes justice is a concept open to different interpretations by different people. But we do not try people based on justice, but on whether they have broken the law, and those are not infrequently two different things. Mr Zimmerman has not, as judged by a jury of his peers, broken the law.
“The local law enforcement officials in Sanford, Florida, looked at the evidence and did not see anything that was a crime which could be proved in a court of law; police and prosecutors exercise that kind of discretion all the time.”
And whenever it happens in circumstances such as those in the Zimmerman case, people have and should exercise the right to call for a more thorough examination.
“Judge Nelson allowed the jury to consider manslaughter as well, but that, too, was rejected by the jury as not having been proved beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Yes, it was, showing that, as you note, it is a legal system, not a justice system. Then, being upset with the verdict, people have the right to take to the streets to protest the lack of justice.
Everything those unhappy with the verdict have done is well within American traditions, just as much (or moreso) than the legal system itself.
So the question is, why do you hate America?
By the way, Zimmerman’s rights in no way preclude us from asking him to tell the truth about what happened, which he clearly has not — unless you buy the preposterous notion that he forgot the name of one of the three streets in his neighborhood.
If you don’t like the protests, don’t take part. But as Americans, those unhappy with the verdict have the right to protest. Like so many on the right, you put your own rights above others’ so routinely that you don’t realize you’re doing it.
I’m not real familiar with the Scott case, but based on the comments, I think the point is that law enforcement, (and the judicial system in general) has a bias to assuming that African Americans are the perps in any confrontation regardless of the circumstances.
Geezer wrote:
Actually, at least in the forum you complained he declined to testify, he certainly did have the right to preclude you from asking him anything. Of course, Bernie de la Rionda, the truly idiotic prosecutor, helped Mr Zimmerman with that: he used a tape of Mr Zimmerman’s statements to the police in the trial, thus putting Mr Zimmerman’s side of the story before the jury without Mr Zimmerman having to testify to it! 🙂 There were a lot of people who were wondering just whose side the prosecutors were on, they put on such a lousy case; half of the prosecution’s witnesses were better for the defense than for the state.
Of course, you absolutely have a right to protest the verdict, as long as you don’t infringe on anyone else’s rights in the process. But when you say that:
Regrettably, that isn’t quite true. The demonstrations have not been as violent as some feared, but they haven’t been entirely peaceful, either.
Jason wrote:
OK, why is that? When you look at Philadelphia, you see a city with a black mayor, who followed another black mayor, a black police commissioner, and a black fire chief. Those men all lead organizations with a substantial number of black subordinates, from policemen on the beat to sergeants, lieutenants and captains.
In our current murder capital, Detroit, both the mayor and the police chief are black. Why would they be prejudiced against blacks?
Of course, in most of those situations, both the criminals and the victims are black. Blacks are far more likely to be the victims of crimes by black perpetrators than are whites.
…therefor it is okay for people like Zimmerman to try, find guilty, and execute blacks in any confrontation regardless of the circumstances because, statistically speaking, they are always on the right side of the law.
Got it.
“at least in the forum you complained he declined to testify, he certainly did have the right to preclude you from asking him anything.”
Never said they did. But they have the right to ask him now, just as he has the right to decline to clear up his tangled stories. That’s how I expect liars to act.
“The demonstrations have not been as violent as some feared, but they haven’t been entirely peaceful, either.”
Bullshit. LA has already admitted some of the damage supposedly done by protesters was not. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sam-slovick/beyond-trayvon_b_3608000.html
It is telling, however, how eager you are to grasp at such a thin straw to justify your bias.
We already are familiar, from the Occupy movement, of the practice of police to infiltrate such groups and start the problems themselves.
“Blacks are far more likely to be the victims of crimes by black perpetrators than are whites.”
And whites are far more likely to be victims at the hands of other whites. What does this have to do with institutional racism?
“Blacks are far more likely to be the victims of crimes by black perpetrators than are whites.”
Whites are far more likely to be the victims of crimes by white perpetrators than are blacks.
There you go. So… what was your point?
Jinx, Geezer!
@pandora: The longer this guilt-induced white freakout goes on, the more annoyed I’m getting.
Y’all might like this one. Did George Zimmerman’s prosecutors try to get him off?
I suppose it’s possible. But my real objection is that he was shot in the first place, and my concern is that the stand your ground laws are making violence in these encounters more likely.
Here’s a reasonably neutral look from the Tampa Tribune at Florida’s experience with the law:
http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/crime/florida-stand-your-ground-law-yields-some-shocking-outcomes-depending-on/1233133
And here’s a link to a recently released study that, with many caveats, finds possible statistical backup for my concerns:
http://econweb.tamu.edu/mhoekstra/castle_doctrine.pdf
Of course, those with darker skin than mine have their own concerns, and I’m not going to say those concerns are illegitimate just because I don’t prioritize them.
Mr Zimmerman and his attorneys never made a “stand your ground” defense, but argued self-defense all along. Stand your ground would have been actually contrary to their claims, since Mr Zimmerman claimed, and the evidence indicated, that Mr Martin had him on the ground and was on top of him, beating him, when he fired his weapon. If Mr Zimmerman’s claims are truthful — and there were witnesses who testified that they were on the ground, and they believed that it was Mr Martin on top — the option to flee had been taken away.
My take on this case has been that Mr Zimmerman created the situation, by calling the police and following Mr Martin, but both of those actions were still perfectly legal. Mr Martin realized that he was being followed, and then decided to close the distance and accost Mr Zimmerman. That, too, was perfectly legal, and the first breaking of the law occurred when one of the men struck the other. The state contended that Mr Zimmerman struck the first blow, while the defense said that Mr Martin initiated the physical fight. There were no (known) outside witnesses to that part, so the state could not prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, and it is the state which has that burden.
There were no angels in this case: Mr Zimmerman should not have followed Mr Martin after the dispatcher told him that they did not need him to do that, and Mr Martin should not have turned around and confronted Mr Zimmerman. Mr Martin had been thrice suspended from school, while Mr Zimmerman had an unadjudicated domestic violence complaint against him. But the verdict, under the law, was the correct one.
I agree with your best guess about what happened, but stand your ground figured prominently in the case even though no stand your ground hearing was held. Stand your ground changes the nature of the grounds for a manslaughter charge even if it’s not invoked, and the chatty juror acknowledged it figured in the jury’s deliberations.
Stand your ground might have been well-intended, but it’s a bad law and should be revoked for public altercations. I have no problem with it when used as originally intended, to ease problems for people who use their firearms inside their homes to defend it and themselves.
34 states have some form of stand your ground laws, the majority can’t all be wrong. There is no need for a stand your ground law when defending yourself in your home, the castle doctrine covers that. Your assertion that a person legally licensed shouldn’t have the right to defend themselves or their family if a public altercation arose is ludicrous.
the majority can’t all be wrong Don’t bet on it remember the Iraq war ? I could go and on
“There is no need for a stand your ground law when defending yourself in your home, the castle doctrine covers that.”
And you studied law under whom? Dr. Otto Yerass?
Mr Geezer wrote:
Have you considered what your statement actually means? It means that you believe it should be illegal to resist an assault — a crime being committed against you — if you can run away. Such a concept gives an advantage to assailants, an advantage to those who break the law first, and makes it easier for them to get away with their crimes.
If someone assaults an innocent person, and that innocent person happens to be armed and wounds or kills his assailant, I regard that as a good thing.
“If someone assaults an innocent person, and that innocent person happens to be armed and wounds or kills his assailant, I regard that as a good thing.”
I know. That’s what makes you a barbarian.
“Don’t bet on it remember the Iraq war ? I could go and on”
So could I Obama, Biden, Markell, Denn, Schwartzkopf, Biden….but I digress
“I know. That’s what makes you a barbarian.”
Nice to know if someone assaults you you’ll remain civilized and do nothing.
Mr Geezer wrote:
We’re about to see if this site accepts doubled blockquotes. 🙂
Should I prefer that the assailants always win? Should I prefer that the innocent always have to run and be perpetual victims?
We will always have our barbarian impulses; civilization depends upon society being able to enforce control over them. But as nearly as I can tell from your statement, you would prefer a system in which the most that can be done is for the police to come by and try to find the barbarians after the attacks are over, after the victims have been robbed or beaten or killed. Many times, the police are unable to locate the perpetrators, and many times there is insufficient evidence to lock up the criminals even if they are found. Your position would skew things more in favor of the criminals than they are now.
To put it more simply, I’ll ask an obvious question: is it better if the victim of an attempted murder manages to kill his attacker, or if the police manage to catch, and the prosecution manages to win a conviction against the murderer after his victim is dead?
I’ll add a second obvious question, only slightly different from the first: is it better if the victim of an attempted mugging manages to kill his attacker, or if the police manage to catch, and the prosecution manages to win a conviction against the mugger after his victim has been beaten?
This changes the dynamic to one in which the victim would still be alive, though injured, but the assailant would be dead.
And, just to pimp my own site, I put those questions in the form of a reader poll.
“Nice to know if someone assaults you you’ll remain civilized and do nothing.”
Don’t be absurd. You again show your ignorance of the law, Terry. You are allowed to match force, but not with lethal force. In short, if you’re losing a fistfight, you can’t blow away the guy who’s beating you up — or rather, you used to face charges if you did.
This is the same answer to Dana. Killing someone for robbing you used to leave you culpable for the death. Killing someone for robbing you IN YOUR HOME was different, but even there, if you warned the intruder you were armed and he turned and ran, you could not shoot him in the back without legal culpability.
What you prefer is the mythical frontier justice. It is the way things were settled before civilized societies developed laws.
Don’t get all pissed off about it. Most conservatives don’t have the ability to reason any better than cavemen, so I’m not surprised or anything. Barbarians, as you note, will always be with us. Be like the rest of conservatives — proud of your lack of civilization and sophistication. Just do us a favor and stay in Texas. I promise I won’t come visit.
So could I Obama, Biden, Markell, Denn, Schwartzkopf, Biden….but I digress
So the majority is right when they agree with you but wrong when they disagree.
Your posts contradict each other. Yet you want to take you seriously.
The problem, Mr Geezer, is that if you are being mugged, you don’t know if you will be killed or not. Most men in a fist fight don’t really see death as a possible outcome, but if someone has another man pinned down and is trying to bash his head into the pavement, as the evidence indicates Trayvon Martin was trying on George Zimmerman, then there is a reasonable fear of imminent death.
If someone is trying to rob you, he is threatening you, very probably with a weapon. Whether it is a gun or a knife, either can be lethal. If you wait for the assailant to use lethal force before you believe you are justified in using lethal force in return, you have waited too long.
Do I prefer frontier justice? There are times when only frontier defense is the only sensible option. As has been said before, when seconds count, the police are only minutes away!
I understand perfectly your position, Dana. And please forgive me if I note that juries were pretty good at figuring out whether people were truly justified in using deadly force before these laws were enacted (including the Zimmerman jury, which, given the laws and the evidence, reached the only reasonable verdict).
These laws have taken judgment by one’s peers out of the picture, and in the process have made it nearly impossible to distinguish between true self-defense and killings that can’t be PROVEN not to be self-defense. In short, the burden is now on the prosecutors to disprove the allegations of liars. Sorry, but I’m not OK with that.
Mr Geezer wrote:
The burden has always been on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; would you have us change that?
The jury said not guilty which is different than innocent. The behavior of the police and prosecutor is suspect. Another trial might have resulted in the same verdict but, by not arresting Zimmerman and not putting on a good case doubts will always remain.
Actually, Mr McKenney, I’d say that the trial and its outcome validated the decisions of the Sanford Police and prosecutors, who decided that there wasn’t sufficient evidence that Mr Zimmerman committed a crime to charge him with one.
The case that the prosecutors presented was extremely weak, and some of the state’s witnesses were stronger for the defense than the prosecution.
I think there were 2 trials going on. One, where the reality was that George ZImmerman was on a nice walk with his significant other (the gun), when a 7’9″ 500 lb Russian special Ops Trayvon Martin jumped out of nowwhere screaming for an end to traditional marriage. We know who saw that one.
The rest of us saw the one where, if Zim had stayed in his car that night, no crime would have come to pass and a child would still be alive.
Dana… Zimmerman broke no law. OK? you have someone here who is totaly against the verdict, hand gun ownership, and white people in general. He broke no law. I submit that any law that allows you a legal loophole to instigate a fight with a child, then kill them once you get a little scared is a bad law that ought to be changed.
and btw, there is a wide, wide gulf between “you cant follow a child, then kill them if they dont seem to enjoy being stalked” and “you cant defend yourself”.
“The burden has always been on the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; would you have us change that?”
Of course not, and it’s not what I said in the first place.
Formerly, a killer claiming self-defense had the burden of proof. As the Zimmerman case illustrated, the burden of proof is now on the prosecution.
Can you see the difference between having to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a killing occurred in self-defense, and having to prove that a killing was NOT committed in self-defense?
Consider the Spooner case in Wisconsin. Without a video of the incident, the shooter (Spooner) could have argued that he felt threatened by the 13-year-old he shot, and the state would have the burden of proving beyond reasonable doubt that he did NOT feel in danger. It’s an absurd standard, and it invites trigger-happy responses.
You are incredibly naive to think that nothing could go wrong with such laws, and I think it’s partly due to your gun ownership.
Dana I fully disagree. When you have sloppy police work and incompetent prosecution, it does not follow that the jury vindicated their actions.