Zimmerman Found Not Guilty!

[Memento Mori]

Now, another thing. Why do we always hear about the horror stories of the slaves? Were they all raped and abused by their slave owners? NO. Read uncle Tom's cabin. Read God's and Generals. Some slaves actually liked their owners. Not all were django unchained.

Wow, wow, wow. What are you even saying here? That because some slaveowners treated their slaves kindly, it wasn't always a horrible injustice to deny someone the rights of personhood?

This extreme disconnect, thinking people of color are "getting away with" anything, and having this idignant sense that black people hold some sort of unfair power over whites, is ridiculous and maddening.

If I was black, I don't know how I could put up with white people and our oft-unrecognized white privilege, without hating.

 

[MikeK]

What part of Arkansas were you in? I don't notice any overt racism in this part of Arkansas (western Arkansas, river valley region). When it happens, it's usually older, pre desegregation folks who say those things.

Little Rock and Sheridan. It was youngish blue-color whites doing the talking, in the courtyard outside the hotel bar (in LR of course - Sheridan is dry. Freedom-haters).

 

[Miss Shelby]

Wow, wow, wow. What are you even saying here? That because some slaveowners treated their slaves kindly, it wasn't always a horrible injustice to deny someone the rights of personhood?

No, that's not what I'm saying. I am not against emancipation, I just think that all we ever hear about are the horror stories.

 

[MikeK]

No, that's not what I'm saying. I am not against emancipation, I just think that all we ever hear about are the horror stories.

I think that being bought and sold and owned for the purpose of doing labor for another - even if treated kindly - sounds like a horror story.

 

[Davidnic]

I spent last week in Arkansas for work. I had never spent much time in the south outside of large cities before. I was apalled at how much overt racism there is by whites against blacks in 2013. Call me naive, but I had no idea that things were still as bad as I observed.

A friend was taking a motorcycle drive up and down the coast with her dad as a graduation present. They stopped at a gas station/diner to eat and fill up in West Virginia. They sat down everyone was very friendly and at one point as part of a conversation someone at the counter asked them who they disliked more and gave them the choice of two ethnic groups by the slurs for them.

People sat around as if it was a normal question, they thought it was a joke until all the locals there started debating what made each group worse.

Thankfully it was close to the end of the meal and they were able to extricate themselves and leave rather quickly.

 

[Memento Mori]

No, that's not what I'm saying. I am not against emancipation, I just think that all we ever hear about are the horror stories.

But they're all horror stories. Even if a slave was treated with kindness and respect, it's a horrible thing to be someone else's property your entire life, and I can't imagine my life being like that.

 

[MikeK]

A friend was taking a motorcycle drive up and down the coast with her dad as a graduation present. They stopped at a gas station/diner to eat and fill up in West Virginia. They sat down everyone was very friendly and at one point as part of a conversation someone at the counter asked them who they disliked more and gave them the choice of two ethnic groups by the slurs for them.

People sat around as if it was a normal question, they thought it was a joke until all the locals there started debating what made each group worse.

Thankfully it was close to the end of the meal and they were able to extricate themselves and leave rather quickly.

That sort of thing just doesn't happen here. There is certainly quiet racism - the kind that has people hoping their new neighbors aren't black and things like that...but if you opened your mouth in public with racial slurs and the sort of hate that comes with it in public, you would find a line of people ready to tell you what a waste of oxygen you are.

 

[Davidnic]

That sort of thing just doesn't happen here. There is certainly quiet racism - the kind that has people hoping their new neighbors aren't black and things like that...but if you opened your mouth in public with racial slurs and the sort of hate that comes with it in public, you would find a line of people ready to tell you what a waste of oxygen you are.

Yeah I don't see it here in a northern college town. But we do get some of the odd stuff. Like people telling my pregnant wife she is destroying the planet by having kids when we are "overpopulated". She kindly told the young lady the baby could have her spot on the planet if opened her mouth a second time.

 

[Tallguy88]

Little Rock and Sheridan. It was youngish blue-color whites doing the talking, in the courtyard outside the hotel bar (in LR of course - Sheridan is dry. Freedom-haters).

Never been to Sheridan. And I don't like Little Rock. Out here in the country people are taught manners and that blacks and whites are equal, etc. We call the racist types "white trash" and we don't take too kindly to them.

 

[Tallguy88]

That sort of thing just doesn't happen here. There is certainly quiet racism - the kind that has people hoping their new neighbors aren't black and things like that...but if you opened your mouth in public with racial slurs and the sort of hate that comes with it in public, you would find a line of people ready to tell you what a waste of oxygen you are.

That's what it's like around here. But then again, I don't hang around white trash, so maybe I have a distorted view.

 

[MikeK]

I wish it would have dawned on me that you lived in Arkansas. I'll be going back in Fall, I'll pick up the tab if you want to grab dinner and some coktails.

 

[Tallguy88]

I wish it would have dawned on me that you lived in Arkansas. I'll be going back in Fall, I'll pick up the tab if you want to grab dinner and some coktails.

Count me in. If you'll be in LR, we can meet halfway in Russellville or Conway.

 

[Root of Jesse]

Here is my opinion in the words of Joe Scarborough over at Politico:

"I am angry that George Zimmerman could chase a teenager through his neighborhood, ignore a dispatcher’s pleas, make racially charged statements, provoke a confrontation with a young man armed only with Skittles, and pull the trigger that ended that teenager’s life, only to walk away without as much as a misdemeanor attached to his name. But I also know that the laws of Florida favored the defense, that the prosecution overreached in its efforts to convict Zimmerman on a second-degree murder charge, and that we will never know which man was screaming for help in the moments that George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin. I also know that it is a fool’s errand to second-guess the conclusions of a jury that sat through countless hours of testimony and evidence before reaching a verdict."

This was probably the right verdict, but it's a sad one. Praying

Strangely, I agree with Joe Scarbourough, if what he said was true. But the prosecution never proved that Zimmerman "chased a teenager through his neighborhood", he was under no obligation to listen to the dispatcher, he didn't "make racially charged statements, provoke a confrontation..." . He admitted that he pulled the trigger, the young man was armed with his hands, and was physically fit, and into fighting, and it was shown that Zimmerman was the one on the bottom.

But hey, if OJ could get off scott free, why not Zimmermann, who did nothing wrong but react to a situation?

 

[MikeK]

Count me in. If you'll be in LR, we can meet halfway in Russellville or Conway.

Are those near Hot Springs? I'd like to go there.
I'll go anywhere but Pine Bluff, blacks and whites alike told me to avoid Pine Bluff in my random after-work explorations.

 

[Miss Shelby]

But they're all horror stories. Even if a slave was treated with kindness and respect, it's a horrible thing to be someone else's property your entire life, and I can't imagine my life being like that.

Nor can I, but I wonder about the proportion of people who were treated well and those who weren't. I want to know the truth of it, not what happened in the minority of cases. It was horrible what was done to them, to be sure. But I think what happened in Rwanda what some short 20 years ago? was far more disturbing and we didn't even get involved but to a small extent. You want to know who helped them of all people? The French.

 

[AMDG]

Someone said that Zimmerman could have just stayed in his truck and did what neighborhood watch does: watch and call the police from the truck. So why did Zimmerman get out of the truck again? It was to get the address to direct the police to the suspicious person. Oh yeah, suspicious. Instead of walking a straight line home via a public street Trayvon was trespassing between the buildings (probably why Zimmerman couldn't drive his truck up to Trayvon to ask if everything was all right or even to offer him a lift home as we all would have probably done.)

Still, Zimmerman did nothing criminal.

 

[MikeK]

How often have you offered black teenaged strangers rides after dark, AMDG?

 

[Tallguy88]

Are those near Hot Springs? I'd like to go there.
I'll go anywhere but Pine Bluff, blacks and whites alike told me to avoid Pine Bluff in my random after-work explorations.

Hot springs is near here, but there is no interstate route from here, so it's a bit of a drive. 2 hours maybe. It's a fine town. They got horse racing and spas. Big gangster vacation spot back during prohibition. More interesting than LR for sure. If you go there, let me know.

I don't think I've been to pine bluff. Not quite sure where it is.

 

[Miss Shelby]

How often have you offered ex black teenaged strangers rides after dark, AMDG?

A pimp once asked me to get into his car after dark. I was 14. and yes he was black. Not that all pimps are. I had the good sense to run.

 

[Miss Shelby]

... and another time..while we're on the subject of taking rides from people who differ in color from us.. I was 15 and had just left my house at 8 am. I was on my way up to school to meet a friend for some summer program that was going on. Shortly after I started up the street, this guy comes driving around the corner in a big green boat of a car. Black does not begin to describe him, he was blacker than night. And fat. HUGE. Like whale huge. He started saying filthy things to me like 'can I feel your thighs' and I ignored him. I didn't want to turn around and run back in my house because I didn't want him to know where I lived. So I kept walking. The more I ignored him the madder he got till finally he slammed on his brakes, got out of the car (he could move pretty fast for a fat guy)---and I took off running, I almost got hit by another car trying to flee from the crazy bastard. The people in that car called me a stupid 'b'. By the time he caught up with me in his car, I was through someone's back yard, and very close to the gas station on a busy street so I was home free. Except for the big dog that almost got me. And then he yelled at me 'you better run because I am gonna rape you, you little B!'

When i got to school I told my friend and I said 'should we call the police' and she rolled her eyes and said no. Being such a follower at the time, I just forgot about it. Never retold the story until years later. I really, really wish I would have called the police because the look in his eyes.... I KNOW he would have killed me had he gotten his hands on me. I just pray he didn't do harm to another girl and I could have prevented it.