Zimmerman Verdict In...

Yes.

As a US Soldier while in Germany.

I was targeted and questioned.

Nothing happened though. But I was 100% profiled.

According to your definition, you have just been deemed a racist because you lumped a group of white people into being serial killers. The rest of us or a good majority look at that as the statistical truth, it's okay to say when you have a serial killer on your hands that it will more than likely be a white middle aged male. However one should keep their eye open to other possibilities of gender and race. To most reasonable people that is a fact and is not racial profiling.

Plenty of people get "wrongfully" harassed every day by law enforcement and civilians each day. However the problem is that people should expect to be harassed if you look shady.

People need to learn the difference between racial profiling and descriptions. If I see someone with a hoody walking around at night darting in between house, Black, White, Asian, or alien I would check out the situation to see what is going on. Then when/if I find out the skin color of that individual, I will report the skin color. Let's face it, it helps identify a suspect. That not racial it's just a fact. It's no different saying blonde hair blue eyes. Black people are black with different shades and White people white with different shades. That's not Racism it's just fact and helps quickly start ruling out millions of people that commit crimes.

And this is where the problem is going to be. No one will know how many people GZ has followed or scoped out around his neighborhood. No one. However, because he is 1/2 white, people are going to say that he was racially profiling because he was a 1/2 white man checking out a black male.

Which is in all entirety racist to assume a 1/2 white man was racially profiling a black male by checking out what a black male was doing.....

The fight against racism will create racism in itself.

Because what child in their right mind has a Quantum Physics book!?

***isn't right.

...I love that movie.

nothing good can come of any of this one, I've got nothing.

What you said is true, but other stories make me believe that humanity is capable of being saved:

Teenagers save girl from being kidnapped

Complete opposite of what's going on here.

WILL? HAS!

Honestly, I'm a 1944 model and I watched it happen. When I was a kid there was less racism but what there was was highly visible.

The more the civil rights struggle was in the news, the more racism moved north and west.

When busing was instituted to racially integrate schools race riots exploded in Boston.

A decade or so ago I was talking to a black friend, same age as me. I grew up in N. Y. he in Seattle. I mentioned I never knew about antisemitism till I saw a movie about it in '53 or '54 (I'm Jewish). He looked at me shock in his eyes and said "Same for me with prejudice against blacks."

Can you imagine any 9 or 10 year old not knowing about racism in today's world?

Of course the Republican's southern strategy didn't help one bit. And today the internet is the biggest driver of racism or any other ism.

Burglaries, drug deals and murder happen, oh I don't know, 1,000,000 or more times for every serial killing. That's why. Look up crime statistics (it's actually a course at most colleges and since most degrees require a form of statistics, everyone should really consider it). It's not racist if it's a fact.
Do I agree with stopping -every- black person on the street where they "don't fit in"? No. Not at all. But I do believe in "racial profiling" in the sense of "A black man burglarized this house." should mean you DON'T bother whites, hispanics or asians over it. That's just stupid.

As for the heart-string picture... use it to play a violin. Innocent kids aren't the ones that are represented, just the delinquents. You even bring that up in your comment...


Um, YES! They should! Parents are wholly responsible for their children's upbringing. What they wear and how they act is a direct reflection of their surroundings. If you're too incompetent to raise a child properly, don't have one. Condoms are cheaper anyway.

Everyone is SO QUICK to jump on guns for gun violence (the tool, not the person) because people are incapable of accepting responsibility. This is no different. It wasn't racism, it still isn't racism... but the riots ARE racism and damn sure make people start to believe more in it!

No they don't, your being irrational. The exact judge for this trial has denied several SYG proceedings upon which the person said they felt threatened.

The circumstances surrounding the threat are what's important.

GZ following TM is not illegal.
GZ "profiling" (the Jury determined it was not racial profiling btw) TM is not illegal.
GZ carrying a concealed weapon (that TM didn't see btw) is not illegal.
TM doubling back is not illegal.
TM approaching GZ is not illegal.
TM striking GZ is felony assault, possibly a misdemeanor if the DA is feeling generous.
TM straddling GZ while striking him repetitiously is now battery and possibly attempted murder depending on what his intentions are.

Those are the circumstances GZ was in. The jury determined that a "reasonable person" would feel threatened in that situation and the use of deadly force was warranted, aka "justified homicide".

It isn't about what the defender feels, it's about the reasonable person standard that the jury use's.

You just wrote out a timeline of events that was Zimmerman's defense.
A key part of the case was that there was conflicting evidence and testimony. You certainly don't know what happened, and the only person who really does is Zimmerman.

Conflicting evidence and testimony, yes...from unreliable witnesses or witnesses that didn't even actually see anything. Some of them (See: Jeannee Manalo) didn't even go outside the whole night and reconstructed things based on things they saw in the news or from unreliable guesswork. The only actual eyewitness to anything important was John Good, whose story agrees with Zimmerman's.

Will anybody really know what exactly happened that night? Of course not. But going "this could've happened" and constantly trying to force an argument to moderation isn't going to work when there's more evidence supporting one side over the other.

Every time something like this happens it never stops being so damn surreal to me. People always like to say they want the truth and they will look at the facts and such, but if it happens to agree more to a narrative of a particular group they don't like people will plug their ears and rationalize any amount of evidence away.

If you want to be angry at someone, be angry at the media that decided to turn this relatively standard homicide court case into something racially charged, causing numerous destroyed lives either through loss of career or actual loss of life in the "protests" that are resulting.

And there is the huge problem. Everyone says they want justice, but they want justice for who they think was the victim.

They have no clue that's not how the system works. You work with what you can prove not what you think happened. Truth be told, I think it's a tragic situation and there are still a few other possible situations that could have happened.

Personally, I think GZ thought that TM was up to no good. TM thought he had some crazy dude trying to follow him. When the two met up, those two opinions were their mind sets. They were each trying to protect something that wasn't there.

We can never prove that though. The only evidence that we see is that TM double backed and GZ has multiple lacerations on his head. So whether right or wrong, all we can do is look at what we can see. That is how the justice department works.

People sit there and think "How is he not guilty!?" What were they looking at? Well there you go. You can only convict on what you can prove, not what you think happened......

I don't like the situation, I think it's tragic, but we don't live in a utopia where everyone is perfect and not out during the night up to no good. I am not saying TM was doing that, however people watch what people are doing because people do kill, steal and rape. It's not a bad thing to want to protect those around you.

I don't think that goes to show that racism was any less prevelant or rampant back then than it is now... The biggest difference is social media connecting so many people to so many others and so many other things... People witness racism against someone else that they never would have met otherwise than perhaps experiencing it themselves... From what I gather you didn't have to be as PC back then either...

You're kidding I hope?

- From the song Palace of the Czar. Can't find the copyright date, but I think I remember it as popular in '59.

PC WAS NECESSARY THEN. If you were merely a nonconformist the FBI could, and often would, ruin your career simply by "investigating" you.

Oh... wait... I forgot... dictums imposed by the right wing aren't "Political Correctness" only those imposed by the left....

How does McCarthy have anything to do with racial tensions?

Less racism? Or just less racism you observed?

Because racism was far more intense 50 years ago than it is today. You know, black people getting murdered, hispanics being caricatured on television, whites having free reign to openly denigrate people of other races, asians reduced to sex objects, gays virtually anathema to everyone, nigh complete economic/social/political domination in government, segregated public spaces etc etc etc.

The difference is that today racism is in the spotlight because we're still in a transitory period between the 60s and whatever the end result will be. Those who feel the utopia was shattered with the Civil Rights Act will fight tooth and nail, numerous groups who were silenced back then are making their arguments in public forums like the Internet and there is generally more to hear about and more perspectives of where we need to go in the future.

Lots of people use the Internet as a venting space for their innate racist thoughts.
Lots of people use the Internet to push the need for changes on whatever pet issues they have.
The Internet tends to bring out the loudest people rather than a slice of the entire public.

Race is bound to America afterall.

How does political correctness only deal with racial tensions? Read Theodore Sturgeon's "Affair With a Green Monkey", all about mid century political correctness. Of course we called it conformity back then.


I am going to stick to my story.



Sounds a LOT like today.


Try between the Revolutionary War and whatever the end result will be.

Filibusters have been in the news lately. The very first filibuster was to strip this passage from the Declaration of Independence:

If you don't think there is less racism now compared to 50 years ago you are crazy. I won't say we are anywhere we need to be however things are better than they were 50 years ago, and they sure are a hell of a lot better than they were 200 years ago. I don't feel that this trial was a race or civil rights issue.

Rodney King was a totally different and understandable situation. I grew up when that happened and I was too young to see what the big deal was about that. I watched that 5 years ago and thought, holy ***HOW THE FU*% DOES SOMEONE WATCH THAT VIDEO AND NOT SEE WHAT WAS WRONG WITH IT!?

That was a civil rights issue. This is not.

Because we were talking in context of racial tensions in the US? Idk how you skipped from that to McCarthyism...

Also you misquoted me... Sparth said the second line that you quoted! Get it right man/woman!

I think Sparth was referencing what would now be considered hate crimes... like lynchings and the like...

I would also like to say that at 9 years old I was not aware of racism either nor have I really met 9 year olds that sit there and talk about it or are really aware of it...

This is where PC entered the conversation.

That is what I responded to.


Response and counterpoint.


Apologies.


I could point out that back then when cops were bored they would raid gay bars but today they arrest young black men.

I could point out incarceration stats by race then vs. now.

I could point out unemployment stats by race then vs. now.

But I won't. I will simply play my trump card. I WAS THERE AND YOU WERE NOT.

I was there on freedom rides, ban the bomb marches, stop the war marches. I didn't get beat on and tear gassed because I was Jewish, nor did the black kids next to me get beat on and tear gassed because they were black, nor were the white kids spared because they were white.

And yes, in the south civil rights workers were murdered for attempting to register black voters.

But today a major political party is working hard to disenfranchise great swaths of the population, most of who are minorities. They are doing it openly and proudly with nary a white pillowcase in sight.

Wait, so you think it is worse now than in the 50's? I didn't live at that time, however the portrayal of then vs now to me, is worlds apart....

I mean if you really want to just split up the whole conversation and take it piece by piece and respond to it that way then ok but I was just saying you didn't have to be as PC about race issues not PC in general lol... PC in general I would have to have a different conversation with you... but I mean the conversation we were having was about racial tensions in the US...

Your trump card is that you were there? How do you know I wasn't or anyone else for that matter?

Oh, so cops just "get bored" and arrest young black men... it has nothing to do with the fact they are statistically the ones committing the crimes to BE arrested for. Not at all, just bored honkeys out on a joy ride.

As for incarceration... please do. Whites outnumber blacks in prison significantly. The "percentage" of blacks behind bars is higher PER BLACK than it is overall. EG; 1:3 vs 1:5 but there are simply MORE whites out there committing the crimes.

And unemployment? Really? How about you look at more important numbers because I again guarantee whites outnumber any other race in unemployment, foodstamps AND financial assistance through welfare. Why? THERE ARE MORE!

All you've done is proven exactly why racism happens. People try to blame everyone but themselves. Nine times out of ten, people behind bars COMMIT CRIMES to be put there.

This is not a race issue and it never should have been. A man shot and killed someone. Whether you believe it was self defense or not is irrelevant... the BIG issue is how many people are OBSESSED over this "white"(uh, hispanic?) man killing a black kid. Obsessed enough to ignore all the facts and only go based on emotion.

What it should have said

Headline: Young black male shot and killed in street altercation with hispanic-american.

How the media spins it.

Headline: Innocent boy brutally gunned down on walk for skittles and iced tea by racist white brute.

Come on now. Really? We all know Trayvon was a thug punk who was known for drugs and violence. Cut the "innocent kid" stuff and recognize someone died and the man who was at fault was proven NOT GUILTY in the court system WE BUILT.

I found this image floating around, I thought it was pretty interesting, so posting it here for some food for thought.

QFT

Seriously, the whole story of this trial is just to hatebait the people into riots which in turns creates a lot of revenue for the media. So at the end of the day, the media benefits from the general public's kneejerk emotional irrational reactions.

Best story of the day - create a mob artificially so they can profit from it. When the profit dries up, drop the story like a prom date baby. If you don't believe me, look at the treatment of Occupy Wall Street. That is as artificial as they come.

I have not kept up on the case (I've heard about it obviously, but I haven't read any official records concerning the actual evidence or whatnot so my opinion on the situation is uninformed and should be taken as such.) But one of my friends posted this article, which I read and found interesting. It talks about how the jury could have realistically reached the conclusion of Not Guilty, (which they did of course), and then goes on to list the series of laws and circumstances leading up to the shooting which allowed the final outcome.

It's written by a black man with children, and yes, there is a racial slant to it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/16/opinion/the-whole-system-failed.html?smid=fb-share&_r=0

Keep in mind that some of these things listed are opinions of the author of the article (such as that the police did an awful job of collecting and preserving evidence) and I do not personally know the truthfulness of those statements.

Also keep in mind that I'm not here taking sides (like I said, my opinion is uninformed.) People are shot and killed every day, people of all colors, and killers walk free. I'm not saying that I don't care, just more that I'm unsure of what makes this case more special than any of them. So mostly what I'm trying to do here is just add in the perspective of an actual black parent. I'm neither black nor a parent, so I just don't have the empathy that I need to for the "what if it was my child?" thing. The guy in the article has that perspective, if anyone is interested in that angle.

http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/07/17/19526519-wisconsin-man-76-guilty-in-fatal-shooting-of-13-year-old-neighbor?lite

Here is a story of a white man (Old at that) who shot and killed a black teen. The confrontation was caught on camera. The man was found guilty.

Racism isn't dead, but you cant just look at the GZ case and claim it's a civil rights case when there are other cases out there that show "white" guys arn't just running amok gunning down black teens and walking for it.

The actuality is worlds apart too.

Some things got better over the years, some things got worse. Some things we didn't see as racist then, viewed through today's lens are racist big time.

Back then racism was institutionalized throughout the south and the Dixiecrat wing of the Democratic party. Today it is institutionalized throughout the criminal justice system, the entire Republican party, and the Supreme Court.


Poor communication happens. I do it sometimes too.


I don't but I can play the odds. Anyone born 1954 or earlier could have been. What are the odds that anyone posting here is over 59 years old?


So it is OK to stop, frisk, and arrest people on STATISTICAL evidence?

Even my most rabidly right wing friends (and yes I have a few) wouldn't fall for that one. Then again my friends, right wing, left wing, or apolitical tend to have brains, avoid Fox "news", and none work for the NYPD.