thegreekdog wrote:Iliad wrote:There was literally another case in Florida where a black woman received 20 year in jail for firing warning shots with her gun at her husband despite her claiming the stand your ground laws.
That's what happens when you have trials... you get different verdicts and different punishments. Perhaps you have a better way? For what it's worth, the jury in both cases (the Zimmerman case and the case you refer to above) were picked by the prosecution and defense and were as unbiased as one could get (assuming the jurors didn't lie under voir dire).
In my limited experience with high profile cases involving race (and by experience, I mean seeing the news), there tends to be an avoidance of racism against the minority party (I suppose in this case both Martin and Zimmerman were minorities, but I suppose that also depends on what media outlet you're getting your information from - some places called Zimmerman white and some called him Hispanic; not to go on a tangent, but all media outlets call the president black, when he's as white as Zimmerman is).
Iliad wrote:It's kinda disgusting how Trayvon was put on trial instead essentially. The latent racial undercurrents in calling him a thug and so really went beyond subtext and into the almost outright said zone.
Again, that's what happens in trials when an attorney is trying to defend his or her client. You put the victim on trial. Happens in murder cases, happens in rape cases, happens all the time. It's rarely effective (again, in my limited experience).
Iliad wrote:I can't imagine how terrifying it would be to be persistently followed by someone in a car, then on foot, while I'm walking home alone at night. Zimmerman pursued him, antagonised him, created the conflict, and shot him because he thought he was losing that same fight he was responsible for.
Again, you Brits with your weird logic. You're essentially inferring (chang also inferred it) that if someone is following you, it is perfectly legal and justifiable for you to turn around and slam that person's face in the curb. I keep reading about how Zimmerman created the situation; why aren't those same people holding Martin responsible? There are many different scenarios whereby Martin would have remained alive. He could have said, "Sir, I'm walking to my father's house" or he could have just kept walking and ignored Zimmerman or he could have let Zimmerman take him into custody (I would not have chosen that route given the penchant for people to impersonate police officers and the like) or he could have, you know, called the fucking police instead of texting his girlfriend if he thought some asshole was following him (that would have been my decision). Instead, Martin turned around, beat the shit out of a guy and was shot. I have nothing but contempt for Zimmerman, mostly because I think he's an idiot and should have been punished in some way, but I absolutely will not have sympathy for Martin beyond that the kid is dead.
This is a non-story that was made into a huge story by a national media looking for ratings and playing about the racism of black people and white people. Black teenagers are shot on a regular basis in this country and their killers go free on a regular basis. But if someone whose last name sounds white kills an "innocent" teenager, it's national news (if you're watching MSNBC and others... and the president, I suppose). Or if someone who is a hard-working Hispanic man carrying a gun defends himself against a hardened juvenile delinquent who attacked him, it's national news (if you're watching Fox News and others). The way you all have been played by your respective media choices and biases is absurd, but not surprising (for some, others do surprise me - like you Iliad and chang50 - you guys seemed smarter than this).
