OK... so the Zimmerman trial is over. dude was found not guilty by a jury. Gotta admit that that kinda ticks me off. People wanna say that it was strictly about the law and race was not a part of it. Technically that should be true. But....
...If some random white guy wearing a "South will rise again" with confederate flag tshirt, with scruffy long hair, ratty jeans and a dirty trucker hat with Esso patch on it was walking down our street late in the evening after we have had some things stolen in the neighborhood.... and I call the police and tell them i see some suspicious acting teenager... and they tell me to sit tight... and i decide to pursue him... and the dude, stops and turns on me when i decide to follow him... and we get into an argument.... and he's a crackhead, tobacco chewing Jujitsu expert who has me down for the count and is beating the fool out of me... and I decide to takeout my pistol and shot him in the heart...not in my house, or even in my yard, but down the street.... guess where i would be sitting right now. There would be no Stand your Ground no matter how much I would shout George Zimmerman did it... i would be in jail, and I would be on a fast track to AT LEAST manslaughter, and more than likely...murder.
no matter how much people reading this... (and 99 percent of you are white) wanna say that the law was upheld, and blah blah blah... you all know that the reason so many people are upset about this becasue we all know that if it was a young hoodlum white kid, or heaven forbid, a blond white woman, i would be so far under the jail right now they might as well have me hanging from a tree in my backyard...
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Big question in my mind, Grandpakb, is would you WISH for yourself to be able to defend yourself in such a situation? I sure would want you to be able to do so and would fight for the law that allows you to do so versus throwing the proverbial baby out with the bath water and not even having you have the opportunity in any way, shape, or form, even if in theory as you suppose, to defend yourself... food for thought. You know where I stand on the FACTS of this issue, and it truly has nothing to do with race itself, but far more that the press introduced much purely false and half-true information to unfairly try Zimmerman through public media from the beginning. If your case went to trial with the exact same witness testimony the only way you wouldn't be acquitted would be prejudice. Almost every single prosecution witness ended up serving the defense better than the prosecution. The child saint we were sold on day one was shown to be a law breaking, pot smoking, fighting thief WITH DRUGS IN HIS SYSTEM AT THE TIME who was shown to be physically on top of Zimmerman pounding his head into pavement. Using Martin Luther King's guidance to judge men (and women) by the character of their content versus the color of their skin, we were given a glimpse of Martin's character in the choice of his friends, with the single "best" "star" chosen representative being Rachel Jenteal. That spoke volumes in my mind as to the content of his likely character especially when combined with his troubled past. I see it as the exact same thing as if I had to resort to Honey Boo Boo as being my best character witness. The court system didn't fail Trayvon Martin... a deeply racist BLACK (their term, not my preferred term) portion of society that glorifies stupidity, gang violence, drug use, poor parenting with little accountability, and one that masks school performance and in this case one that even hid prior criminal acts failed Trayvon Martin, and until we as an entire society acknowledge this and try to move away from the dysfunctional broken nature of this portion of society I'm not holding my breath things will improve quickly, at least amongst that specific portion of the population.
So... If I went down to visit my friend in Florida who lived in Apartment 13c... it's late, I'm tired after driving 7 hours after work. Its dark, raining and I am out of my car trying to find this apartment. (turns out my friend said 13e but I missheard) I am a little apprehensive as i am in an unfamiliar area and I dont ant some body coming up on me in the dark. I'm wearing my black hoody (which i routinely wear several in the winter)and suddenly this random dude hops out of his car and starts following me. He confronts me, and i am afraid for my life... I attempt to walk away but this dude keeps following me, i turn to confront him directly and a scuffle insues cause this dude thinks he needs to apprehend me. He shoots and kills me. Is this cool with you?
... cause I wont drugs in my system. I wont have a record. I wont have a history of unruly behavior. No pix of me smoking weed or or even hinting at smoking weed.... Why would this guy have followed me? And the issue is that he would have. And I would be dead. Just like my son would be. And Mr Zimmerman would be walking around free. But... reverse those roles... with me or my son. We are in jail. Murder charges. Possible Death Penalty...
I said it before and I'll say it again, if a scuffle ensues and someone is on top of you pounding your head into pavement to the point you receive stitches and you're on the bottom, 100% support you shooting them. Simply defending your life. And versus speaking to your own biases, you might want to actually speak to the factual data in FL no less. "Stand Your Ground" laws have disproportionately been used to DEFEND melanin superior defendants, successfully 55% of the time no less. But that, as they say, is an "inconvenient truth" so you won't see the Communist News Network or Obama admin speaking about it. http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/16/blacks-benefit-from-florida-stand-your-ground-law-at-disproportionate-rate/
If you want to take the time to look at the cases one by one the Tampa Tribune has a site that details each case. My lib friends are sharing it because it speaks to the crass nature of man, with many cases being quite... uhmmm... unsophisticated (street fights, domestic disputes, etc). But the take aways I got looking at the cases were, "Wow... sure a good many melanin SUPERIOR folks SUCCESSFULLY using the law for their defense!", as well as, "More than a few female victims of domestic abuse successfully defending themselves when near death's door!" Good for both groups, I say. Far prefer them to have that right to defend themselves against death than to be victims who couldn't defend themselves without automatic murder charges. Again, food for thought.
Another way to look at it, if you've got a concealed weapon license and you do end up having your skull pounded into the pavement fearing for your life, would you not use the weapon to defend yourself regardless of the law? And if so, would you not at least want a law that MIGHT, just MIGHT (55% odds to date) keep you from lifelong imprisonment? Because if you don't want that law and you still choose to defend yourself, you're throwing those 55% odds out the window. Again, throw the baby out with the bathwater if you wish but that IS what it sounds like you're proposing.
The sad thing about this is that Treyvon wouldn't be dead if Zimmerman hadn't been following him. If he had listened to the 911 dispatcher in the 1st place, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Yes, you should be able to defend yourself when threatened.... but isn't that what Treyvon was doing too? Zimmerman didn't know anything about the drugs etc. He just saw someone he thought shouldn't be there and ended up in a horrible situation.
Stand Your Ground laws are good in theory. But there is a major loophole in Florida's that should be fixed.
Its unfortunate and sad, but there is still a major racial divide in this country. The only thing I can do is raise my girls to recognize we are all the same no matter what we look like. I try to lead by example.
And tongue in cheek, what else did you expect from the state that let Casey Anthony go free?
Andee, with due respect our very FBI investigated the issue and shared their finding that they found absolutely no evidence of racism involved. Nor did the police in their own investigation. Do you know something that the FBI and the local police don't? Much evidence actually exists that points to Zimmerman having quite a diverse background himself, and one that appeared to be quite color blind. If you followed the MSM coverage, I can completely understand believing racism might have been at play... but a bit of research will show that the media actually with intent modified, and effectively hid, truth in this case to paint a picture that fit a racist narrative and hid much truth regarding Trayvon's quite troubled (and criminal) recent history. I find the attempts to hide/alter the truth not only sad but deeply, deeply disturbing and believe all citizens, regardless of the number of melanin cells they have, should too.
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