The George Zimmerman verdict has been the headline story since it was announced last Saturday night. In my opinion most of what we have heard and read thus far has shed nothing new to the opposing views about the verdict the jury reached.
The one exception is Martin Bashir. Instead of focusing on the trial and verdict, Bashir took time on his MSNBC television show to call out the people engaged in character assassination of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin by exaggerating prior offenses to suggest he had a criminal character that inevitably led to the confrontation with Zimmerman that cost him his life. This, Bashir suggests, is nothing more than stereotyping Trayvon as a typical black youth looking for trouble the night he was killed. What these people ignore, he says, are three known facts: (1) a man with a gun chose to pursue an unarmed teenager who’d done nothing wrong; (2) the man with the gun chose to initiate a confrontation with the teenager after he was advised not to; and (3) as a result of the confrontation the man with the gun shot the teenager to death. These are the facts we know, period. Thus, Bashir rightly suggests these despicable efforts to make a 17 year old kid into a heretofore unknown criminal are because of one thing – Trayvon Martin was a black youth. I urge you to watch the video of Martin Bashir’s illuminating commentary.
Of course, not everything is about race. We don’t know that the jury’s verdict was influenced by race. It is possible that the prosecutors failed to make their case and the six women jurors believed they could not convict Zimmerman because of it. But what is about race is new media personalities who draw unwarranted conclusions about Trayvon’s character or go further and imply that he got what he deserved. They have no way of knowing what they are talking about. What they are doing is making assertions and conclusions based on racial profiling. Had Trayvon Martin been white, it is possible that none of this would be happening. There would have never been a trial because there would have never been a killing. And there would have never been a killing because had Trayvon been white, George Zimmerman would have never followed him in the first place.
As I said, not everything is about race. But that doesn’t mean racism is not widespread in our nation. It is. But what makes this fact worse is that racist attitudes have somehow become respectable enough to be aired on television, spoken on the radio, and appear in papers and journals without the slightest worry that there will be hell to pay for airing them. I think what makes this possible is that racism is now more subtle than it was when the bubbas I grew up with didn’t know how to hide theirs. Indeed, whenever I go home and run into one of them they still cannot hide it.
But the news media is smarter than the bubbas from my old neighborhood. They hide their racism by asking questions such as: Is Obama a real American? Does Obama hate white people? Was Trayvon Martin an angry black youth out for a fight? Isn’t affirmative action just another name for wanting special treatment because of race? Aren’t most welfare recipients black single mothers?. “I’m just asking,” they say. No they’re not. They are promoting racial profiling and stereotypes.
This is, as Martin Bashir understood, the issue the Zimmerman trial and verdict should lead us to focus on. As a nation we can be better than the media personalities who try to divide us, who promote the notion that we are becoming a nation of welfare loafers living off the rest of us, that whites are the real victims of discrimination today, who whitewash our nation’s past to make it better than it ever was. We can make racism so unacceptable that no one would dare even hint at it in public. We were once on that road, but the bubba’s in our land didn’t go away and are now a core constituency for media and political hacks willing to exploit an unfounded fear of “the other” to promote their self-serving agenda.
We really can be better that these voices want us to be. Here’s how. By realizing that there are other voices like that of a British journalist with Pakistani heritage who daily tell us the truth about what is going on, who expose the vicious intent of pseudo journalists whose agenda is to divide us as a people. If we take the time to pay attention to these other voices, it will be yet another step toward becoming the kind of nation most of us want for ourselves and future generations, a nation where a 17 year old kid can walk to the store in any neighborhood to buy some Skittles and get home without being shot, no matter the color of his skin.
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Jan, I like to share your stuff on Facebook, but the icon was missing this time. Got any ideas?
Thank you Jan! At GA with NAACP in same convention center. Eric Holder speaking about Zimmerman. GA JUST overwhelmingly approved inclusive resolution, but it feels as though we are a few steps behind as we vote as a rapidly shrinking institutional church.
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Jan, I would like to share this blog on my facebook page. I think it is something that everyone needs to hear. How can I do it.
Never mind. I figured it out. Thanks for all your blogs. They are just what I continue to need to hear.
It was very sad to hear about the verdict. It’s so hard to understand why one person’s life is more valuable than others. What seemed so logical wasn’t. We hear that whites are becoming the minority in this country. Aren’t these people thinking that this could happen to the people in their culture, too? I once was in a series of multi-cultural circles and we discussed various topics. It was so sad to hear the stories of black people and what they put up with. A white bookstore owner located in downtown Everett WA told us that he had often seen policemen stop kids just walking by and asking what they were up to. They were just kids walking! We are enjoying your posts. We grew up with Corrine Goplin Slaughter and she forwarded them until I signed up myself. I forward them to two other friends. Thank you.
Treasure Omdahl2015 10th St. SEEast Grand Forks MN 56721 218 201-2558 c “Be well, do good work and keep in touch” – Garrison Keillor
Date: Tue, 16 Jul 2013 19:40:37 +0000 To: taomdahl@msn.com
Some of you want to post my Blog on the FaceBook. Please feel free to do so. I know it can be done because people do it, but I am not sure how to do so myself. The link should appear with the Blog, but if it is not there I am not sure why. It usually is. I will investigate and see if I learn anything I can pass on.
Treasure. I am so glad you are following the Blog. Corrine and Don are very special people. I am grateful they shared it with you. Please continue to respond as you choose to do so.
My view is that if Zimmerman were black and Martin were white, Zimmerman would have been convicted, hands down. I think it is as simple as that. Sat was a sad day for America. I like to think we are better than that, but I’m not sure we are.
Whatever one can do to stretch people thinking to inspire and help others to see issues in new ways. We need voices that explore non-violent solutions, versus dwelling on sensation. We need voices that urge us to think, identify, and recognize social problems and injustices. We need voices that help us overcome gender, racial, religious, and economic bias and violence. Are you one of those voices?
The statue of “Lady Justice” is blind for the very reason that people possess all manor of differences and the forefathers intended that the US Court System consider “only” relevant facts and circumstances when adjudicating disputes and crimes, not the happenstances of nature and nurture. In the hands of humans that ideal seems often too high a bar. (No pun intended.)
Monica. I certainly want to be such a voice. But the main point you made is absolutely right on. We need the kind of voices you name and then to listen to them.
I love Corrine and Don!
Jan, my question, about being that voice, was to all or your readers, thank you for being a voice for those not being heard. 🙂
I’m an older white guy…..68. When I was nineteen, I was beaten so badly that I had to be hospitalized. I determined that THAT would never happen again and so far it hasn’t. My secret is simple…….I have a Clint Eastwood attitude and I will cheat, using whatever is at hand – on the ground, in my car, in my tool box, whatever, and I will mean it with all that’s in me. Had this been my confrontation and Trayvon been a white kid, I would have used whatever tool at my disposal to stop the beating. In this case a pistol resuting in a dead white boy. Black/white has nothing to do with this. Simply put, those of you who are letting your imaginations make any conclusions are wrong. Your pardign is too small to know the complete truth of the matter. In a confrontation of any sort, the slightest shift in perception will result in unpredictable consequences and make for a different outcome. Unforeseen tragecy in the making, not necessarily because of color but because the world is a tragic place where meteors collide and walls fall down.
There are some pre-conceived notions that need to be addressed and questioned: (1) “Man w/gun chose to pursue unarmed teenager who had done nothing wrong” — Maybe G.Z “. . . chose to watch from a distance” could be what he was doing, untuil police arrived. “. . . T.M. hadn’t done anything wrong . . ” . . . there was repeated crime in the neighborhood; that’s why G.Z. was hired to WATCH for anything unusual, and he made a determination to WATCH until Police he called arrived. ” . . . unarmed teenager” — how would anybody know that? Weopons are usually concealed, not waved about over one’s head! Don’t make “snap judgements” when you really don’t know. (2) “Man w/gun chose to initiate conversation w/teenager. According to case, I believe that T.M. made the first verbal contact, following his “white cracker” comment to his girlfriend, which sounds “racist” on the part of T.M., btw, Result of confrontation was that G.Z. was being beaten up on cement by T.M. as the accredited (C.S.I. type) defense witnesses stated, from the fact of injuries on G. Z., both front AND back of head. Getting the facts wrong means that the conclusion you reach is wrong.
What is stunning about your comment is that it is filled with “could be’s”, yet your conclusion claims they are facts that “prove” Martin Bashir was wrong. Moreover, if a white teenager had been killed by a black man, he would have been considered a victim of murder. This tragedy happened because of one thing – George Zimmerman was playing vigilante., period. Frankly, in this day and time I am appalled by the kind of subtle racism your comment represents.
(1) “if a white teenager had been killed by a black man, he would have been considered a victim of murder.” ….. This is a False Assumption on your part. Facts and data are brought forth to a jury to decide, but you are judge and jury with less than 20 words. (2) You are talking about racism in general in society and then APPLYING your views to this particular case. Governmental agency (FBI ? or some other) determined that there was NO racial bias in this case; otherwise a descrimination charge could have been brought to court for jury decision. You cannot mix apples and oranges and state that “wrong” had been done because of “racism.” (3) I did not attempt to prove anything, but bring up alternative vision. “G.Z. was playing vigilante, period.” If you can make conjectures, then so can I. The jury was REQUIRED to look at the FACTS, then APPLY THE LAW, which is what they did. Why would you second-guess their anguished decision? (4) I saw a talk show interview after the verdict was in with the girlfriend of T.M. She gave some insight into the workings of the community she and Travon shared, and she felt that what Travon was doing was “whooping ass” which is what is done when they “feel” some sort of slight. (Note: feelings are not facts.)