@kd24 - yeah, sorry for bringing up Davis. I was just bemused that the "right to life" was finally being acknowledged, and wanted to poke the bear a little. I get shit brought up about me in threads I haven't even posted in, just figured a little fair play is well within the unspoken rules of decorum in this forum. Don't like it? I'll turn around in an instant if you want to get some standards around here.
did you really have to triple post to quote deck knight's shitty post? That is not thinking for yourself.
Also im really liking the unity between all walks of life for one cause. I think this brings the American community together and isolates the conservative bigots even more. The bigots really show their true color on stuff like this... It is not about if you think the verdict was good or not... It is about doing what deck knight did and isolating the color of his skin and showing him doing what most teenagers do to make it seem like trayvon was a terrible person before the incident even started.
You mean you like the unity of an unthinking mob trying to turn George Zimmerman into George Wallace? Jesus Christ also brought the unity of all walks of life to one cause when the Pharisees and their assembled supporters shouted "CRUCIFY! CRUCIFY!" during his hearing with Pontius Pilate. That behavior isn't new or even original.
Nor is your behavior of putting evil thoughts into the minds of people who don't share your view of the world. I don't know why your philosophy and logical process is so weak it requires you to think people who disagree are full of hate and bigotry - but I will say it's an indication that maybe you should be a lot less judgmental and actually study the issues independently rather than regurgitate talking points. Get out of your bubble world.
But lets get back on this racial thing. Breitbart has a timeline of the media coverage that desperately tried to paint Zimmerman as the poster child for white racism:
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/13/Media-Zimmerman-Coverage-Rap-Sheet
Problem is, Zimmerman is Peruvian. His great-grandfather had very dark skin. Zimmerman comes from one of the most multi-racial families in America.
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-s...-grandparents-would-have-looked-lot-george-zi
George Zimmerman's great-grandfather holding George Zimmerman's mother when she was a toddler.
George Zimmerman saw a young guy wearing a dark hoodie walking close to houses on a rainy night, in a neighborhood that had a recent rash of break-ins committed by young guys likely wearing Martin's style of clothing and around Martin's age. Given he has his own history wearing county orange, he might have thought Martin was casing houses from stories he heard in hail or general knowledge of criminal behavior. So he called the police via the 911 dispatcher.
The dispatcher's suggestions ("you don't have to do that") are not a command, and don't even fit the structure of one. Following them or not following them is not "illegal" as one poster put it. - And incidentally, Sharpton is now going around trying to rile up riots (
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/15/NBCs-Al-Sharpton-Plans-Protest-in-100-Cities) on the [unstated by him] basis that police are part of the problem. Zimmerman doesn't follow a supposed police command so he's doing something illegal, but riots will be held in part on the basis police commands are inherently unjust towards black people.
More to the point Zimmerman didn't even give Martin's race until asked to by the dispatcher. NBC edited that tape to make it look otherwise and fuel the white racism false narrative, but the fact is he thought Martin was acting suspicious probably on the basis of what clothes he was wearing and how close he was walking to the houses. Martin was in Zimmerman's neighborhood. Zimmerman has every right to walk around there ask people there what they are up to. What I imagine happened is that Zimmerman tried to talk to Martin after the call just to explain that he'd called the dispatcher and was waiting for the police, just to be safe given the neighborhood has had a bunch of break-ins recently. You can question the wisdom of confronting someone you just called the police on, and maybe that's what set off the physical altercation. Only Zimmerman has the potential of knowing, and who knows what trauma he suffered altered his memory of that night.
The other problem is Purple Drank. (
http://www.examiner.com/article/trayvon-s-skittles-arizona-tea-and-something-called-purple-drank) The night of the incident Martin had Skittles and a can of Arizona Watermelon Fruit Juice Cocktail [that is the product name, spare me the hyperventilating] - which are two ingredients in the Purple Drank mixture (the other being cough syrup [Codeine]). If what I suggested above and Zimmerman tried to talk to Martin and explain he called the police just to see if Martin knew anything, and Martin was holding 2/3rds of the ingredients for Purple Drank - whether he was going to make it or not - he might have panicked thinking the police would arrest him for that and that's when the beating started.
Now, Martin had trouble in school as well. In fact he was suspended from Krop High School in Miami-Dade county and he was living with his father's girlfriend the night of the incident. There's an article pointing out that because of Miami-Dade school system's attempt to improve their crime statistics through bureaucratic redefinition, some of Martin's criminal behaviors went uncorrected as they were redefined to disciplinary actions. (
http://spectator.org/blog/2013/07/15/trayvon-crime-school-miami) Martin doesn't live in Sanford, unfortunately his family life is not as good as I imagine he and everyone looking into this wishes it were.
As I said before, Zimmerman also had brushes with the law, and the most popular photo of Zimmerman in the media was in his "county orange" jumpsuit mugshot.
Bottom Line:
Neither of these guys are saints. Both of them had bad judgement that night, and it ended up getting one of them killed. The problem is that in the aftermath people are being stupid and insisting that calling the police is racist, following a guy wearing form-concealing clothes who isn't from your neighborhood is racist, and being overzealous in trying to protect your community after a rash of break-ins is racist.
People would rather call anything racist that deal with the fact that walking around at night in a neighborhood that has break-ins wearing the same clothes and fitting the same general description of the suspects is going to earn you scrutiny if the neighborhood watch captain is making the rounds. The people crying racism seem to think the ONLY thing that might cause suspicion is Martin's skin color, when the fact is his clothing and behavior are the more likely triggers. All you have to ask yourself is - if Zimmerman saw a white kid in a hoodie that looked like he was casing houses, would he have called the dispatcher? Zimmerman seems pretty cowardly and meek, so I'd say yes.