@snood,
I've never asked you to redeem me snood so I'm glad you've given up.
I don't disagree that there is a history of blacks getting the short end of the stick with the criminal justice system, but it's not absolute, and where it does occur it's not soley a case of race. Poor people of all races tend to get the short end of the justice stick. The Memphis Three are a prime example of this.
I can understand why some people might feel that Zimmerman should have been arrested and charged, but these people don't have all of the evidence, and unless the local police have a history of shorting blacks it shouldn't be assumed that they did in this case.
I do understand why blacks are suspicious, but suspicions aren't facts and past injustices don't justify a rush to judgment on George Zimmerman. They certainly don't justify putting a bounty on his head, manipulating his words, or having congress enter a resolution that he is a racist.
Frankly, it's not justice at work to assume that whenever there is a black victim and the perpetrator is not black, that racism is involved. Again, I can understand why blacks may tend to believe there is, but the criminal justice system should not, and nor should the Media , elected officials, and people who style themselves as leaders of any group of people.
I'm nit entirely comfortable with the idea that if a group of people make enough of a ruckus that a special investigator will be appointed where none would otherwise, but I'm glad one was, and if the ruckus was justified, that's where it should have stopped.
At this point though, I'm afraid that for a large number of people, there is nothing to investigate, no questions to answer. No matter what the Special investigator concludes, they've already made up their minds that Zimmerman is a racist murderer.
Maybe he is, and if he is, he needs to pay, but if presumption of innocence has any meaning, it has to apply to everyone, black, brown, yellow, red and white. This is what our leaders need to be talking to us about, not calling press conferences to throw gas on the fire of folks responding emotionally.
Our news media needs to be reporting facts, and not deliberately distorting them. This sort of behavior is as much a violation of the public trust as a cop not arresting a man who kills a black kid solely because he identifies with him.(and if you think I'm full of it, check out Don Cheedle's recent tweets). While the consequences may not rise to the harms blacks have experienced as a result of institutional bias, the same dynamic has been going on for some time for conservatives as relates to the MSM.
I suspect you find such claims of media bias as dubious, but empathy isn't worth a whole lot if it only kicks in as respects people with whom you agree.
The really sad aspect of this is that ultimately the bad blood that can arise from highly charged situations like this sticks with regular people and not the self-absorbed hucksters who fan the flames.
Blacks like Juan Williams, Shelby Steele, and Mayor Nutter ask why this one incident draws more attention and outrage than the far greater number of black on black crimes and from what I can see they are, at best, simply ignored.
If Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, or Sheila Jackson Lee can assure that no black person is ever again killed by a white person for racial reasons, they will have done very little for their people. If they can make a huge dent in black on black murders among young black men they will have done something of worth. Of course the latter won't garner them the publicity they crave, and so it will never happen.
Eventually we will know all we can know about this incident. That's the time to form judgments. Nothing wrong with personally jumping the gun unless one expects the world to act on it.
