The politics of hoodie wearing

@MontereyJack,

i'm a santa-ist

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@snood,

snood wrote:

NBC Cans Producer For Airing Zimmerman 911 Call Edited To Sound More Racially Motivated

where ar the missing postas
sozobe calledg you a liar
that psost is gone
i called you a liar too

the LIE you posted is gone too
what gives?

1 Reply

@MontereyJack,

Right -- while the other voice hasn't been positively identified because they don't have a sample of Trayvon's voice to compare it to, they've concluded that it's NOT Zimmerman. Two people involved, one wasn't screaming, stands to reason that the other was.

Just PM'ed this to Snood re: my "good grief" reaction, putting it here too:

Quote:

I saw the headline and had an immediate "Holy cow are people really that stupid?" reaction.

Then I decided to track down the source to see if that was the case. The actual answers are less stupid than the summary* in your article, so I shared that.

*That's what I said in the PM but will amend that here to "headline."

1 Reply

@sozobe,

sozobe wrote:

Just PM'ed this to Snood re: my "good grief" reaction, putting it here too:

your good grief reaction is gone with the wind

1 Reply

@ABE5177,

I think I just made the same mistake, that was actually on the other thread (FreeDuck's "Stand Your Ground" thread).

I didn't call him a liar though, I questioned the headline of the article he posted (which wasn't that one, it was one about most whites thinking Zimmerman is innocent -- in fact the majority just think there isn't enough info yet to know).

1 Reply

@ABE5177,

No, it's right here. (Other thread on the same topic.)

http://able2know.org/topic/186462-31#post-4950354

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@sozobe,

tkas you are right

i still think he's a gongenital liar

1 Reply

@ABE5177,

I don't.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

An innocent man trying to keep his neighborhood safe gets beaten to death and that doesn't touch your injustice nerve? Your reaction would be "Well the NRA will make a bigg deal out of this now!"?

You misunderstand on purpose. Point was, had Zimmerman been killed Trayvon would currently be in jail awaiting trial. That, to me, is justice. So no, it wouldn't touch my injustice nerve.

Quote:

What is your google game supposed to teach me?

Out of curiosity I did as you suggested and here's what I found

...

It took me three pages in to get to a white guy in north Florida. Omitted from the results was the ex-cop in Chicago who was armed, because he was a working railroad policeman, and who was just convicted of attempted murder for the pleasure of getting shot 28 times. Granted, I did the search in google news. It would be interesting to see a study of such incidents, including what the consequences were for the shooters.

My point, and granted it's tangential, is that there seems to be an implicit mal intent projected on to black men by (probably mostly rookie) law enforcement and those inclined to think like them. I'm not really sure what to do about that but I don't think it's acceptable. That does touch my injustice nerve. And if I happened to be a person of color it would scare the **** out of me and make me fear for my loved ones.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

As you can see, it didn't take long at all to get to several white guys.

All but number 7 were outside the US. Perhaps I should have been clearer that I think these issues are uniquely American (as far as I know). I do appreciate the Stand Your Ground connection though.

1 Reply

@sozobe,

Are you saying that it is reasonable, socially acceptable, or legal to physically assault someone who you believe to be following you?

All of the noise about Martin rightfully availing himself of the Stand Your Ground law is just that. Unless Zimmerman was waving his gun and yelling to Martin how he was going to shoot him, the teen punching him in the nose and bashing his head against a curb would not constitute a reasonable reaction.

It appears to me that there is evidence that Martin attacked Zimmerman, broke his nose and bashed his head, but it could be proven otherwise.

One can argue that the degree of assault didn't justify being killed, but as I have told my sons, the minute they resort to violence at any level they are opening a very wide door. Anything can and does happen and it doesn't matter how far the instigator wanted to take things. You start a fight and you don't ever know how it will end.

If "all" you do is break someone's nose with a punch, your an idiot if you think that they are limited to that level of violence in retaliation.

Outside of self-defense, once someone uses or seriously threatens violence, they have no right to bitch about what sort of response they receive. It's very easy to avoid the wrath of someone who responds to threats or violence with insane rage.

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@FreeDuck,

FreeDuck wrote:

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

As you can see, it didn't take long at all to get to several white guys.

All but number 7 were outside the US. Perhaps I should have been clearer that I think these issues are uniquely American (as far as I know). I do appreciate the Stand Your Ground connection though.

Two were outside the US. One in the UK and one in Pakistan. Last time I checked, Arizona, California, and New York were part of America.

1 Reply

Under Florida law, Finn, Trayvon was perfectly justified in anything up to death if he felt threatened. That's the way the law is working out in actual practice there. If you don't like it, don't take us to task, tell Florida. We've been saying that all along. Bad law. That's why it's becoming known as the Kill At Will Law. It authorizes peremptory violence. Trayvon, wisely, probably felt threatened. He certainly was right to do so. So, even if he fought Zimmerman with what he had available to stop him, which might only have been fists, Florida law gave him that right.

Did he attack Zimmerman, or did Zimmerman, who as we know from the tapes was pissed that "assholes always get away" and went after Trayvon, start it? Who ran away? Who pursued him? We have only Zimmerman's word Trayvon attacked him. Considering he's been shown to be untruthful in other things he's said, considering he's had other violent encounters with the law, I don't put much faith in his veracity here.

If Trayvon broke Zimmerman's nose, why were there no marks on his hands. He was hitting something relatively tough, cartilage and bone. Skin is fragile. There should have been marks. There weren't.

And if you've ever had any experience with fights, either as participant, or onlooker, or hearing about it, you know that in probably 99% of them, both sides claim "it was the damned other guy who started it".

Sorry, Zimmerman still seems the far more likely candidate for starting the confrontation.

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Two were outside the US. One in the UK and one in Pakistan. Last time I checked, Arizona, California, and New York were part of America.

My mistake, I missed California. Which one was New York?

1 Reply

@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Are you saying that it is reasonable, socially acceptable, or legal to physically assault someone who you believe to be following you?

Are you even reading what FreeDuck keeps saying?

If Trayvon had been arrested and put in jail for allegedly assaulting Mr. Zimmerman that would have been justice. Of course this would mean that the police would have heard both sides of the story and could have made a decision on who assaulted whom. And, of course both Trayvon and Mr. Zimmerman would have had the opportunity to represent their sides in Court.

That would have been justice.

Of course that isn't going to happen now, is it. And that is the problem with letting people "stand their ground" and shoot people they feel threatened by instead of backing down and letting the police handle it.

1 Reply

finn says:

Quote:

Are you saying that it is reasonable, socially acceptable, or legal to physically assault someone who you believe to be following you?

Yes, in Florida it seems to be. That's pretty much the way the law has worked out in practice.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Finn dAbuzz wrote:

Are you saying that it is reasonable, socially acceptable, or legal to physically assault someone who you believe to be following you?

We don't actually know who initiated physical contact, only that Trayvon appears to have been better at it. But yes, in some cases, I do think it would be acceptable to assault someone who is clearly following you (any doubts Trayvon might have had would have been removed when Zimmerman acknowledged doing so), especially if you've already tried running away from them. I think it's highly unlikely that Trayvon actually would have beaten Zimmerman to death.

While I understand and agree that once you initiate a violent confrontation with someone you have opened the door to consequences you might not like, there is clearly a legal and moral difference between using force and using deadly force.

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@Finn dAbuzz,

I can also easily imagine myself, especially when I was younger and a bit more defiant, in Trayvon's shoes. If someone was following me, I certainly would stand up and demand to know what the **** was up (and a younger me would have use exactly those words).

At this point, had Zimmerman backed down, I would have let it go. If Zimmerman had shoved me I would have thrown a punch. I certainly wouldn't have beaten him to death (and most fights don't end in death). I have mellowed a bit with middle age...

But Trayvon didn't start this encounter. Him standing up to the strange guy who is following him seems perfectly rational. Him pushing the strange guy back or even throwing a punch when the strange guy won't back down are also understandable.

Zimmermans actions don't make sense. I can't imagine bring a gun to neighborhood watch when the rules explicitly say not to. I can't imagine disobeying a police dispatcher who told me to back down. I can't imagine not backing down when the person I have been following confronts.

And there is no set of circumstances where I would ever shoot an unarmed teenager who isn't involved in any crime.

It just doesn't make sense.

Finn, I am wondering. What would you have done if you were an innocent teenager out to get skittles and ice tea and some strange guy starts following you? Wouldn't you confront the bastard?

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Case last week in Florida, a guy chased a SUSPECTED burglar for a block, caught him, and stabbed him to death, and got off under the Stand Your Ground Law. If chasing a guy for a block, catching him, and stabbing him counts as reasonably thinking your life could be in danger, then anything, literally anything, counts as a reasonable fear in Florida.

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Well, I didn't wear my pink hoodie to the semihemidemi a2k gathering today (some were not posters here), for Diane's birthday. There's still time before the hot weather gets a grip on us.

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The politics of hoodie wearing

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