“I would like to know how George Zimmerman learned of my words that he used. They appear on page 358 of Lies My Teacher Told Me. While I would like to believe he read the entire book, if he did, he seems to have missed its anti-racist central message.”
(via randomhumanrambling)
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Lawyers withdraw after George Zimmerman allegedly goes rogue
The lawyers representing George Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch volunteer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin but has not been arrested, on Tuesday said they have withdrawn from the case after losing contact with Zimmerman.
Attorneys Craig Sonner and Hal Uhrig said they were concerned that Zimmerman had telephoned the special prosecutor probing the case directly, set up a legal defense fund website and may have spoken with Fox Television commentator Sean Hannity, all without their knowledge.
“We have lost contact with him,” attorney Craig Sonner said at a press conference outside the Seminole County Courthouse.
Zimmerman better pray he isn’t indicted. This looks worse and worse for him as each day passes.
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George Zimmerman’s “Black Friend” Defense Won’t Work
It was just a matter of time before white supremacist groups and right-wing apologists for abusive police started coming out of the woodwork to try and justify the shooting death of Trayvon Martin. His emails and Facebook accounts have been reportedly hacked by the hate groups. His school suspension records were leaked and posted on the Web. All of this to show that Trayvon was not some angel but, to some minds, a stereotypical young black thug who deserved what he got.
This type of racist mindset overlooks the fact that even if Trayvon was an extremely troubled kid from an extremely troubled background – much of the reporting on him and his family so far says otherwise – none of it would justify his shooting. He was unarmed. He was stalked, cornered, and killed. He violated no laws walking on the street and in that gated community. He had friends and family who loved him. One of his teachers described him as “an A and B student who majored in cheerfulness.” He was a child and he deserved the chance to live out his future. Period.
He was suspicious solely because he was black. As Bryan pointed out, that’s something that black parents, and for that matter the sisters, aunts, cousins, girlfriends of black men and boys, understand all too well. We worry because we know they are potential targets of police and armed civilians, guided by long-held racial fear and ingrained assumptions about black males. Although Trayvon’s death is introducing a new generation to this sad reality of “Living While Black,” those of us who’ve been around longer know what black men endure on regular basis and why they are taught a code of conduct at an early age. The New York Times wrote about this back in 1997. And yet it keeps happening.
“They killed my son and now they’re trying to kill his reputation,” Sybrina Fulton, mother of Trayvon Martin, said last week in response to the information leaked about her son. She and Trayvon’s father blame the Sanford police department for the leaks about Trayvon’s school suspensions – once allegedly for suspicion of possessing marijuana – and his supposed unprovoked attack on George Zimmerman.
Zimmerman’s father is waging his own PR campaign on behalf of his son. He started out by claiming that his son, whose mother is Peruvian, considers himself Hispanic, as if his biracial status undermines arguments that his son may have acted out of racial bias. It’s convenient to point out that Zimmerman is part Hispanic right after he shot dead an unarmed black kid. Never mind that George Zimmerman called police obsessively about “suspicious ” black men in his neighborhood and may have even used a racial epithet in his 911 call about Trayvon. Hispanic people, like white, black, Asian, Native-American and, yes even bi-racial people, are perfectly capable of being racist or showing racial bias in certain instances. Black males just seem to get the brunt of that bias and too often end up dead because of it.
Just yesterday this piece in the New York Times noted that “blacks are the target of the highest number of hate crimes in the United States, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.” They are just 12.6 percent of the population yet were “70 percent of the victims of racial hate crimes in 2010.”
Last week, Zimmerman’s lawyer trotted out Joe Oliver, the “black friend” and former co-worker of George Zimmerman, who did the rounds on television talk shows and news programs and defended Zimmerman. Unfortunately for Zimmerman, Oliver did him no favors, as this video clip shows. Oliver didn’t seem to know Zimmerman very well and didn’t know that Zimmerman’s ex-fiancee had filed assault charges against him. He stumbled on questions about the anger management counseling Zimmerman allegedly underwent. The “some of my best friends are black” tactic failed badly.
Zimmerman’s father reminds me of the father of one of the NYC cops who tortured and sodomized Abner Louima with a broomstick in a Brooklyn police station in 1997. The cop’s father presented his son’s black girlfriend as if her mere existence could discount the fact that his son sodomized Louima while hurling racial epithets at him. Racism is complex and often deeply internalized; socializing casually with an individual black co-worker or sleeping with a black woman doesn’t change that. I’m waiting for Zimmerman’s real black friends, those who knew him well and know his heart, to come forward and vigorously defend him. I’m not holding my breath.
Anonymous asked you:
Meg, I really need your help. Do you have links to the Trayvon Martin murder concerning the smear back-lash by certain right-wing outlets? A point-by-point dismantling of this blatantly false and blatantly racist “evidence” would be much appreciated for certain people in my social circle. I like how when the media actually reports on cases like this, the right-wingers call it “manufactured sensationalism”.
Meg at Cognitive Dissonance:
Yes.
Yes, I have lots of links, info, and outrage.
First, I’m getting sick of the new meme regarding the media “ignoring” the “black on black” violence. Bernie Goldberg insists if both men were black, we wouldn’t know the name Trayvon Martin. He’s probably right. Why?
BECAUSE GEORGE ZIMMERMAN WOULD HAVE BEEN JAILED. No self-defense claim would have flown.
“What about all the dead black kids killed by other blacks?!” wails Heather Mac Donald of The National Review. I’m paraphrasing. Sort of:
Blacks commit 80 percent of all shootings in the city — as reported by the victims of and witnesses to those shootings — though they are but 23 percent of the population; whites commit 1.4 percent of all shootings, though they are 35 percent of the population. Add Hispanic shootings to the black tally, and you account for 98 percent of all of the city’s gun violence. In New York, as in big cities across the country, the face of violence is overwhelmingly black and Hispanic…
[T]he racial storyline that has been imposed on the shooting does not fairly represent contemporary America. That storyline is not just wrong, it is dangerous, because it only feeds black alienation and anger. Family breakdown, not white racism, is the biggest impediment facing blacks today, producing such casualties as the 18-year-old gangbanger who fatally shot a 34-year-old mother picking up her child from school in Brownsville, Brooklyn, last October. Sharpton and the national media didn’t show up for that killing, just as they don’t for the thousands of other black-on-black killings each year.
Screw examining the systemic explanations — let’s just chide people for the “racial storyline” while claiming “the face of violence is overwhelmingly black and Hispanic” because THAT’S NOT WRONG AT ALL. Perhaps examining the unequal criminal justice system, the incarceration rate of minorities, the efforts expounded by police in investigations dependent upon the race of the victim and perpetrator, and interactions with police in minority neighborhoods can shed some light on these statistics.
Nah, let’s just throw some numbers out there about scary brown people.
On to the release of Trayvon Martin’s suspension from school for traces of marijuana in an empty plastic baggie in his backpack. First, if the police department did indeed leak this information (and they need to get their pipes checked - lots of leaks lately) they may have violated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act [FERPA]. The information in a student’s educational record, including disciplinary record, is not to be revealed without written permission.
Before any conservative naysayers exclaim: “But Meg! It says on the government’s socialist website with ‘free’ information that they can release the record to law enforcement! What about the weed?!” — the AP is on it, confirming Trayvon Martin has no juvenile record. Oh, and these things called facts show white youths are more likely to abuse drugs than black youths but black students, particularly black male students, are much more likely to be suspended and referred to the juvenile system.
Of course, discussion of Trayvon’s maybe drug use fits nicely in with George Zimmerman’s claim he was suspicious and “on drugs or something.” The drug-crazed brown man is an old canard:
Straight from The New York Times in 1914 — the only way to deal with drugs in the black community is to lock up “irreclaimable” users. As for marijuana:
Brown people are getting your kids hooked. Lock ‘em up. Does any of this ring a bell?
None of the alleged drug use matters, though. Zimmerman is not a cop, even if he aspired to be one. He didn’t observe Martin selling or using drugs. He just thought he was suspicious and up to no good. Neighborhood Watch captains are told to not carry weapons, and call 911 to report crime — not to confront alleged perpetrators because they aren’t police. However, Zimmerman thought differently. From the Miami Herald:
The recent shooting raised troubling questions about whether the homeowners association knew its volunteer was armed with a Kel Tek 9mm semiautomatic handgun. Many residents — black and white — question Zimmerman’s judgment and wonder why he would have engaged the teenager at all.
The answer may lie in police records, which show that 50 suspicious-person reports were called in to police in the past year at Twin Lakes. There were eight burglaries, nine thefts and one other shooting in the year prior to Trayvon’s death…
Since the beginning of the year, Zimmerman made 46 calls to police. His most frequent calls were to report “suspicious persons” — all of whom were black — including a skinny black male, about 7-9 years old. The Orlando Sentinel reports:
Many of the calls start the same way — Zimmerman mentions the recent rash of burglaries in the area and identifies himself as a member of the neighborhood watch.
“We’ve had a lot of break-ins in our neighborhood recently and I’m on the neighborhood watch,” Zimmerman said during one call. “There’s two suspicious characters at the gate of my neighborhood, I’ve never seen them before. I don’t know what they are doing. They are hanging out…loitering.”
That day, the “characters” are two black men in a white sedan, Zimmerman tells the dispatchers. An officer is sent to check out the call, but it’s unclear if anything suspicious was uncovered. Another time he calls to report two black teens who match the description of suspects in recent break-in, who his wife saw and identified for police.
One of Zimmerman’s African American neighbors, Ibrahim Rashada, discussed his discomfort with Zimmerman’s zealotry in the Miami Herald:
[Rashada] does not walk around the neighborhood at all. “I fit the stereotype he emailed around,” he said… “So I thought, ‘Let me sit in the house. I don’t want anyone chasing me.’” For walks, he goes downtown. [Rashada’s wife] listened to her husband’s rationale, dropped her head, and cried.
Zimmerman’s neighbors expressed frustration with police response and anger at his tactics. However, Zimmerman is not without his defenders:
Problems in the 6-year-old community started during the recession, when foreclosures forced owners to rent out to “low-lifes and gangsters,” said Frank Taaffe, a former neighborhood block captain.
“Just two weeks before this shooting, George called me at my girlfriend’s house to say he saw some black guy doing surveillance at my house, because I had a left a window open,” Taaffe said. “He thwarted a potential burglary of my house.”
Oh, really? You know this black man was going to burglarize your house? In the neighborhood invaded by “low-lifes and gangsters” no less… Taaffe’s emerged as one of Zimmerman’s primary defenders. There’s a lot of guilt by association and dredging up the supposed past in order to tarnish Treyvon Martin and black men in general.
You wanna play that game?
Let’s play.
Frank Taaffe said George Zimmerman is just like him and a likable guy. Well, Zimmerman and Taaffe appear to have more in common than a pathological distaste for young black males strolling their neighborhood. Taaffe was arrested for Battery, Felony Trespass, and Domestic Violence. He’s also the respondent in multiple civil cases filed for non-support of children, “repeat violence,” and Domestic Violence from as far back as 1983, and as recently as 2008.
Zimmerman was arrested for domestic violence, resisting an officer with violence, battery on a law enforcement officer, and resisting an officer without violence. His father, a retired judge, insists his son is a good boy. These two men are smearing all people of color as “thugs,” “low-lifes,” and “gangsters.” Again, Trayvon Martin has no arrest record. None. But he’s a “thug.”
Certain elements stand alone. After being told not to pursue Martin by 911 operators, warned not to be armed as a neighborhood watch captain, muttering “these assholes always get away” and a racial slur, instigating a confrontation with an unarmed man, and shooting that unarmed man dead, George Zimmerman is still free and still armed. Witnesses state Zimmerman loudly reassured people it was “self-defense” and set his gun on the ground after shooting Martin. In fact, the lead investigator did not buy Zimmerman’s story, and wanted him charged with manslaughter.
Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who signed the controversial “Stand Your Ground” law in 2005 said this is not the proper application of the law. Bush said, “Stand your ground means stand your ground. It doesn’t mean chase after somebody who’s turned their back.” Like Zimmerman did.
Bush is not the only conservative to speak out. Columnist and commentator George Will said the law, “Tries to codify a right of self-defense that really confers upon citizens the illusion of these, that they have powers exercised by highly-trained police officers. Mr. Zimmerman says he was acting under this self-defense law, but he is said to have been recorded saying he pursued the person. You cannot be in pursuit and acting in self-defense.” Like Zimmerman.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. even chimed in and said, “We all know there’s a racial component to this, and when the president highlights it, I don’t think it adds a whole lot. But nobody suggests that the president’s insensitive to the 17-year-old if he’d been white. I think the criticism by our guys was a little off-base.”
But it’s not about race, right? The fake photos originating from neo-Nazi sites, smearing Trayvon Martin’s name, calling him a thug via his alleged Twitter — that’s not about race, it’s perspective. Attempting to link Trayvon Martin and President Obama to the New Black Panthers isn’t about race, either. It’s not about race or politics when conservative site The Washington Free Beacon loudly proclaims “REGISTERED DEM KILLED TRAYVON” and “guns don’t kill people, Dems do.” And we should feel sorry for Zimmerman because in many ways, “George has lost his life, too.”
No. That would be Trayvon Martin. He’s the one who lost his life. You know, the one armed with Skittles, not a Kel-Tec 9 mm handgun.
Conservative blogger Dan Riehl writes the outrage is the fault of black leaders — not the guy who fired the gun. Seriously: “Said leaders, I use the term loosely, seem only interested in fueling outrage and a mob mentality for political gain. It’s sad to see so many black Americans still falling for it after so many decades. Their minds haven’t been freed, all that’s changed is the owners of the plantation. Too many would be black leaders are too happy to lead them down a path through a cotton field of ignorance and hate ending at the ballot box, before just going on and on with no real end in sight.” Disgusting.
Riehl also claims Obama is leading a “lynch mob” against Zimmerman since the Obama campaign sells hoodies. No word if Mitt Romney is also leading the mob with his fashionable “Believe in America” and logo zip-up and pullover hoodies:
Angry Black Lady rips Riehl (and others) apart on her site, Angry Black Lady Chronicles. And rightly so. Black men are persistently stereotyped as dangerous, hoodie-wearing thugs, even though crime rates among black youth have fallen to record lows. Trayvon Martin’s crime appears to be “Walking while black” — a crime Bernie Goldberg or Dan Riehl will never be accused of, thanks to white privilege. Tommy Christopher writes:
This is the essence of the oft-misunderstood term “white privilege,” which is that even the least fortunate among us take for granted things that black people cannot. These don’t feel like privileges, because they’re really not, they are things that ought not be denied to anyone. It doesn’t feel like a privilege to catch a taxicab, or to walk around a store without being constantly watched and shadowed, or not to fear that any encounter with police could escalate to lethality… or to send your child to the store for a snack, confident he’ll return home without being mistaken for an imaginary criminal.
The murder of Trayvon Martin must spark a national conversation and one that must include people of color, for precisely the reasons outlined by Christopher. His fellow Mediaite columnist, Frances Martel, said, “[O]ur broken criminal justice system isn’t a black problem. It’s an American problem.” Until we acknowledge the existence of institutionalized racism, in a system serving liberty and justice for some, and then commit to real reform, Trayvon Martin will not be the last “suspicious person” gunned down for wearing nothing more than dark skin.
I hope this answers your question.
Cheers,
Meg
(via generalbriefing)
Nancy Grace Ignores Trayvon Martin Case
Why has HLN host Nancy Grace basically ignored talking about the Trayvon Martin (the 17-year-old unarmed teen shot by the yet to be arrested George Zimmerman) case on her show? Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur discuss on The Young Turks.
*Why Has Nancy Grace Been Silent About Trayvon Martin On HLN?
I know that we’re talking about Nancy Grace here (and who really cares about that woman?) but her extreme lack of coverage in the murder of Trayvon Martin is reflective of something I talked about earlier: how we treat non-white, especially Black, victims and that is something that’s important to talk about. The amount of media coverage that Trayvon’s case is currently receiving is a fluke. I’m not sure I can even recall a single case involving a non-white child that received more than a 15 second mention in our media, which seems to always be consumed with missing white girl syndrome. How long did we hear about JonBenét Ramsey, Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson, Elizabeth Smart, Natalee Holloway, Caylee Anthony, etc.? How many individuals have even heard the names Brisenia Flores, Phoenix Coldon, Stacey English, Bianca Jones, Jahessye Shockley, or Lluvia McCraw?
Crimes such as what happened to Elizabeth Smart are much less rare than the violence which is committed against minorities, especially non-white women, but they still receive a disproportionate amount of coverage and attention, which often increases the levels of fear among white women. When it comes to missing children’s cases, Black children make up over 40% of the cases while only composing 13% of the U.S. population and boys make up a little over half of all cases, yet they don’t even receive a third of the media coverage. We focus on white victims far more than we do non-white victims and our media continues to demonize minorities as criminals instead.
The National Association of Hispanic Journalists found that, of 12,000 evening news stories aired annually by the 3 major American Networks, only 1% are about Latin@s or issues concerning Latin@s. When Latin@s are featured in news stories, they are portrayed negatively 80% of the time. Latin@s, especially Latin@ immigrants, are much more likely to be included in stories about crime even though immigrants are less likely to commit a crime than U.S. citizens. Because of the way our media demonizes immigrants, we think of them as criminals when, in actuality, they’re nothing of the sort and this unfair image is reflected by our domestic policies, which lead victims to be afraid of the police, unable to go to law enforcement for help, and the crimes committed against them go ignored.
Visible minorities are more likely to be victims of a violent crime than non-visible minorities and far more likely than non-minorities. Over 70% of racially-motivated hate crimes are committed against Black individuals. The disproportionate news coverage has a profound impact on the way we think about minorities and journalists tell us who is important, who isn’t, and who is creating the mess. Journalists write our villains for us and the fact that they almost always happen to be minorities isn’t exactly a coincidence when news organizations are vastly white. When a minority falls victim to a crime, they’re still partially written off as a villain and some of the responsibility is nearly always placed on them. This isn’t true when a white person is a victim. Minorities are devalued as human-beings and this is reflected in nearly every aspect of our society. It’s why perpetrators who committed crimes against white victims receive harsher and longer sentences than those who committed crimes against non-white victims. It’s why our media, except in rare circumstances, doesn’t pick up stories about minority victims despite minorities making up a disproportionate percentage of victims of crimes. It’s why Geraldo Rivera said Trayvon Martin’s hoodie was just as much to blame for Trayvon’s death as George Zimmerman and it’s why Nancy Grace doesn’t even care enough to pick up this explosive story.
High-res
Florida politicians and civil rights leaders joined calls for the firing of a police chief in the case of a neighborhood watch captain who killed an unarmed black teenager, as new details emerged on Wednesday about police handling of the investigation.
“The reality is that people in this community have lost faith in the police chief’s ability to keep their children safe,” Benjamin Jealous, president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), told Reuters.
Florida congresswoman Frederica Wilson, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, echoed the call in an appearance on CNN. “Not only would I like to see it happen, but I’m joining with them to make sure it happens,” Wilson said.
Speaking in the U.S. House of Representatives, Florida congresswoman Corrine Brown criticized the police investigation of the shooter, George Zimmerman, who remains free almost a month after gunning down 17-year-old Trayvon Martin outside a gated community in Sanford, near Orlando.
“No drug tests. No alcohol tests. No lie detector tests. It’s just his word that he felt threatened, so therefore he shot to kill. That is unacceptable,” said Brown, who is also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Read more: Florida police chief under fire in case of slain teen
Did George Zimmerman say “fucking coons” in his 9/11 call?
Did George Zimmerman, the infamous yet-to-be-arrested shooter of unarmed 17-year-old Trayvon Martin, say “fucking coons” in his 911 call? Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur of The Young Turks share their take. Many already believe Zimmeran singled out Martin as ‘suspicious’ simply because he was black.
Guilty.
I just need the guy dead. He deserves nothing less.
(via theowlintheolivetree-deactivate)
Fewer than 50,000 petition signatures to go, Tumblr.
Help bring Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, to justice.
(via formerlybarbreyryswells)
Trayvon Martin Shooter Still Not Arrested
Via The Huffington Post: “Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African-American teenager, was shot and killed in a gated community in Florida late last month by a white neighborhood watch captain, according to police. But the watch captain, George Zimmerman — a 28-year-old college student who has admitted to police that he shot the young man — still walks free. And Martin’s family is pleading for answers and demanding justice…”.* Ana Kasparian and Cenk Uygur break it down on The Young Turks.
Here’s a follow up to the video I posted from the Young Turks about the murder of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. In this clip, Cenk gets pretty upset and rightfully so. Unfortunately, these types of cases are all too common in this country and I’ve even talked about several of the shootings in my own neighborhood on this blog. The image painted of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, is rather disturbing and somehow these murderers always manage to get away.
