Trayvon Martin

[lostfan]

Your bother had $300 to spend on an item of clothing in high school? Holy crap. I probably spent that on my entire wardrobe for high school.

Hence, the "dumbass" at the end. He was really insistent on buying it (he did have a job at the time, granted)

[Iwritecode]

According to one of the jurors, the "stand your ground" law was the reason they aquitted him even though his lawyers never used that specific defense.

 

NEW YORK/TALLAHASSEE (Reuters) - A member of the jury that found George Zimmerman not guilty in the shooting death of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin called for changes to Florida's self-defense law, which she said gave jurors no option but to acquit the defendant.

 

The juror's statement adds to pleas from around the country to change the "Stand Your Ground" laws that many states adopted after Florida did so under former Governor Jeb Bush in 2005.

 

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson also urged authorities to toss out "Stand Your Ground" laws on Wednesday and highlighted what many see as racial bias in the U.S. justice system by drawing attention to the case of Marissa Alexander.

 

Alexander, a 32-year-old black woman, got a 20-year sentence for firing a bullet against a wall to scare off her abusive husband. The judge would not allow her to use a "Stand Your Ground" defense and it took the jury just 12 minutes to find her guilty of three counts of aggravated battery.

 

"In one case, Mr. Zimmerman kills a young man and walks away, free to kill again," Jackson told reporters soon after meeting Alexander in a Florida prison. "Marissa shot no one, hurt no one, and she's in jail for 20 years."

 

In the Florida capital, Tallahassee, demonstrators occupied a part of the governor's office for the second straight day on Wednesday demanding that the state repeal "Stand Your Ground."

 

With her identity kept secret, the juror, designated B-37, gave an interview to CNN on Monday that stirred further debate in the case that captivated the U.S. public and triggered lengthy discussions about race, guns and vigilantism.

 

After a torrent of criticism, including a statement from four other jurors who said she did not speak for them, the juror issued a statement further stressing her position that Florida's self-defense law forced the jury to vote not guilty.

 

"My prayers are with all those who have the influence and power to modify the laws that left me with no verdict option other than 'not guilty' in order to remain within the instructions," juror B-37 said. "No other family should be forced to endure what the Martin family has endured."

 

According to the instructions given to the jury, Zimmerman had "no duty to retreat and had the right to stand his ground and meet force with force" if he reasonably feared for his life or great bodily harm.

 

LAW CHALLENGED

 

Among the many voices demanding change, singer Stevie Wonder said he will not perform in Florida until the state discards a "stand your ground" law.

 

A day after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder questioned those laws in a speech, the Florida president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) urged Republican Governor Rick Scott on Wednesday to return to Tallahassee to meet with the scores of young demonstrators occupying his office to protest the verdict.

 

The protesters, hastily organized by a group called "Dream Defenders," are among those demanding Scott call a special session of the Republican-led Florida legislature to repeal "Stand Your Ground."

 

"The consequence of this verdict and the 'Stand Your Ground' law has made Florida an increasingly unsafe state for its citizens, especially its black and Latino youth," Adora Obi Nweze, president of the Florida State Conference of the NAACP, wrote in a letter hand-delivered to Scott's office.

 

An aide said the governor was out of town.

 

After three weeks of testimony and 16 hours of deliberation, the jury of five white women and one of mixed race acquitted Zimmerman of second-degree murder and manslaughter in the shooting death of Martin, inside a gated community in the central Florida town of Sanford on February 26, 2012.

 

Shortly before the shooting, Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, called police from his car to report a suspicious person, Martin. The rapid-fire chain of events ended when Zimmerman shot Martin through the heart with his 9mm semiautomatic handgun.

 

The Democratic leaders of Florida's legislature, who are in the minority in both chambers, were due to hold a news conference in Fort Lauderdale on Thursday to announce plans for action in response to the Zimmerman acquittal. They tried to get the "Stand Your Ground" law changed in the past session, but couldn't manage to get a committee hearing on the issue.

 

Juror B-37, a mother of two who grew up in a military family and used to have a permit to carry a concealed weapon, said one holdout juror switched her vote to "not guilty" after half an hour of agonizing over the law.

 

"She wanted to find him guilty of something but couldn't because of the law. The way the law was written, he wasn't responsible for (negligent) things that he had done leading up to that point," she said.

[Jake]

My dad got this in a chain email from conservative buddy:

 

 

Do you know who this is? It is Little

 

Trayvon Martin...! At 17 yrs of age.

 

Don't know how

 

much coverage this story has had in your area, but, if it has,

 

here's a new look at it!

 

For those of us who thought we

 

were well informed and weren't.....quite the realty

 

check.

 

That old adage applies here: "there are two sides

 

to every story." We don't always get the truth from the

 

media. One of my favorite rants - the liberal controlled

 

media, television news, newspapers, magazines, radio; all

 

continue to show 12 year old Trayvon; NOT 17 year old

 

Trayvon.

 

They continue to show the 5 year old picture

 

BECAUSE it helps to cement in your mind the cute, little,

 

hoodie-wearing youngster who was stalked by this

 

monster

.

In reality "little Trayvon" at the time of his

 

death stood almost 6'2" tall and weighed 175 muscular

 

pounds. He had numerous run ins with authorities (both at

 

school and local police), had been stopped and almost arrested

 

two days before his death for smacking a bus driver in the face,

 

because the driver refused to let him ride for free. He

 

was released because the driver was told not to press charges by

 

the bus company and to continue on his route.

 

When

 

"little Trayvon" was suspended at school it was not only because

 

he tried to bring a little marijuana in with him, he was in

 

possession of wedding rings and other jewelry, watches, etc.

 

that he said he "found" along with a large screwdriver while on

 

the way to school that day. The jewelry was turned over to

 

the Police by the school.

 

I am not trying to say this was

 

a good shooting. I am not trying to say this kid deserved

 

to die. I am saying the media in the USA is

 

controlled by liberals who twist and distort what you see and

 

hear in order for you to see things their way.

 

Not a

 

single paper has printed RECENT photos of this kid, because it

 

would not keep your interest in this case.

 

Not a single

 

paper will admit that this kid was a marijuana

 

dealer.

His friends on Facebook all say he had the "best plants".

Not

 

a single paper will show you any of his recent photos where he

 

shows off a mouthful of gold teeth and all of his

 

tattoos.

 

Not a single newspaper will tell the news like

 

it really is...and NOT how they want you to think it

 

is...

 

President Obama looked at the FIVE year old photo

 

the media chose to show the Nation and said, "If I had a

 

son...he would look like Trayvon.." So from that comment

 

should I assume you did not bother to look for the facts in this

 

shooting..or should I assume you want a son who is a 17 year old

 

drug dealing, gold teethed, tattooed thug whose name on one of

 

his facebook profiles was "Wild n****" who 'finds" jewelry and

 

burglary tools on the way to school?

 

A fair and impartial

 

news media in the USA ? One that does not follow the

 

preconceived liberal agenda? One that is NOT looking to

 

further divide this already fractured nation?

 

I didn't

 

compose this. I'm only passing it on.

 

Never trust

 

the news media for the truth. You must realized that they

 

are in business for the money and power

 

too.

 

Trayvon at 12 yrs of

 

age..

 

 

LIBERAL MEDIA!!!

 

[Jenksismyhero]

Yeah I got that a few days ago. That guys a rapper though, not even the same guy.

 

HOWEVA, it is true that the media used/keeps using those pictures of Martin when he was 12 years old. Easier to sell the "little boy eating skittles gets killed by a racist vigilante with a gun" storyline.

[Boogua]

My dad got this in a chain email from conservative buddy:

 

 

 

LIBERAL MEDIA!!!

Lol, isn't the picture of "17 year old Trayvon" a picture of rapper The Game?

[pettie4sox]

Not sure if it's satire but yeah the young picture is just the media doing their spin dance. I thought ME said Tray was 5'11 and like 160 lbs?

[Jake]

Yes, that is The Game. That email made my day thinking of all the angry white folks that wouldn't recognize The Game and assume all black people look similar enough that the young Trayvon could turn into The Game.

[lostfan]

Obama: "Trayvon Martin could've been me 35 years ago."

 

Countdown to exploding heads in 3... 2...

[pettie4sox]

Obama: "Trayvon Martin could've been me 35 years ago."

 

Countdown to exploding heads in 3... 2...

 

ADSJFKLASDJFKLSADJFKLSJALKDJF;ASDFJLA;FJKDL;SAKFJSDAL;FDSJKFL;DSFJKKLDSGAJDALKFJVMMIRJAOPIJPDSAKFJDL

;SAF

[Jake]

Obama: "Trayvon Martin could've been me 35 years ago."

 

Countdown to exploding heads in 3... 2...

 

Obama was a rapper?

[lostfan]

Obama was a rapper?

[Jake]

Now this all makes sense...

 

[mr_genius]

HOWEVA, it is true that the media used/keeps using those pictures of Martin when he was 12 years old. Easier to sell the "little boy eating skittles gets killed by a racist vigilante with a gun" storyline.

 

when I first heard the whole thing reported on CNN, they kept saying "Little baby Trayvon was shot". I kept wondering why a baby was crawling around outside by himself at night? And why would someone shoot said baby? It was a very confusing story at first.

[Jake]

The Hollister shirt picture was taken August 2011. He was 16, 7 month pre-shooting.

[StrangeSox]

TNC had some thoughts on that Richard Cohen article I shared last week that I thought were worth bringing up:

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archiv...ofiling/277871/

 

With that said, we should take a moment to appreciate the import of Cohen's words. They hold that neither I, nor my twelve year old son, nor any of my nephews, nor any of my male family members deserve to be judged as individuals by the state. Instead we must be seen as members of a class more inclined to criminality. It does not matter that the vast, vast majority of black men commit no violent crime at all. Cohen argues that that majority should unduly bear the burden of police invasion, because of a minority who happens to live among us.

 

Richard Cohen concedes that this is a violation, but it is one he believes black people, for the good of their country, must learn to live with. Effectively he is arguing for a kind of racist public safety tax. The tax may, or may not, end with a frisking. More contact with the police, and people who want to be police, necessarily means more deadly tragedy. Thus Cohen is not simply calling for my son and I to bear the brunt of "violation," he is calling for us to run a higher risk of death and serious injury at the hands of the state. Effectively he is calling for Sean Bell's fianceé, Trayvon Martin's parents, Amadou Diallo's mother, Prince Jones' daughter, the relatives of Kathryn Johnston to accept the deaths of their love ones as the price of doing business in America.

 

The unspoken premise here is chilling -- the annihilation of the black individual.

 

An capricious anti-intellectualism, a fanatical imbecility, a willful amnesia, an eternal sunshine upon our spotless minds, is white supremacy's gravest legacy. You would not know from reading Richard Cohen that the idea that blacks are more criminally prone, is older than the crime stats we cite, that it has been cited since America's founding to justify the very kinds of public safety measures Cohen now endorses. Black criminality is more than myth; it is socially engineered prophecy. If you believe a people to be inhuman, you confine them to inhuman quarters and inhuman labor, and subject them to inhuman policy. When they then behave inhumanely to each other, you take it is as proof of your original thesis. The game is rigged. Because it must be.

 

You should not be deluded into thinking Richard Cohen an outlier. The most prominent advocate of profiling our current pariah classes -- black people and Muslim Americans -- is now being mentioned in conversations to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Those mentions received an endorsement from our president:

Edited July 22, 2013 by StrangeSox

[iamshack]

TNC had some thoughts on that Richard Cohen article I shared last week that I thought were worth bringing up:

 

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archiv...ofiling/277871/

That is all fine and good...all that fancy language to describe how wrong Cohen is...tell me how to approach crime in an alternative manner! This is my issue with the far left...always pointing out the inadequacies but rarely coming up with realistic solutions...it's not enough to always point out how wrong the rest of us are if you never provide a realistic alternative...

[lostfan]

That is all fine and good...all that fancy language to describe how wrong Cohen is...tell me how to approach crime in an alternative manner! This is my issue with the far left...always pointing out the inadequacies but rarely coming up with realistic solutions...it's not enough to always point out how wrong the rest of us are if you never provide a realistic alternative...

I don't think objection to "stop and frisk" is really limited to the far left - you can't tell me there's not an easy-to-see line between "common sense" which is knowing the suspect of a crime is probably black and the police responding accordingly, and treating every black person you see like they're a potential criminal. The latter is an invitation to all sorts of court-sanctioned f***ery.

[Jenksismyhero]

If an officer is looking for an specific suspect, no one would ask that the NYPD not include race as part of the description.

 

Interestingly the news media refuses to include race descriptions in stories for fear of exactly what he's talking about. From this weekend:

 

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/b...,0,770857.story

 

 

 

[StrangeSox]

It's easy to defend a broken status quo that way (especially when you're not on the receiving end of dysfunction), but it's not an actual defense. I don't need a cure for cancer in order to diagnose it.

 

 

I'd hardly associate TNC with the "far left," either.

[Jenksismyhero]

I don't think objection to "stop and frisk" is really limited to the far left - you can't tell me there's not an easy-to-see line between "common sense" which is knowing the suspect of a crime is probably black and the police responding accordingly, and treating every black person you see like they're a potential criminal. The latter is an invitation to all sorts of court-sanctioned f***ery.

 

Yeah the stop and frisk rules go too far.

[iamshack]

I don't think objection to "stop and frisk" is really limited to the far left - you can't tell me there's not an easy-to-see line between "common sense" which is knowing the suspect of a crime is probably black and the police responding accordingly, and treating every black person you see like they're a potential criminal. The latter is an invitation to all sorts of court-sanctioned f***ery.

But Cohen says this...he points out that there have to be other factors involved...and don't get me wrong, I don't really agree with Cohen and I said as much last week...but the article SS posted today, and many articles that these intellectuals on the left write, are fantastic at pointing out inadequacies, but not so much at bringing real, workable alternative solutions to the table. Yes, we'd love to approach crime in a manner which never suspects or inconveniences or violates anyone simply because of what others that might share something in common with them have done, or because some folks are just downright racist...but we still have to keep our streets safe, do we not? Ok, how should we do it better?

 

 

[StrangeSox]

But Cohen says this...he points out that there have to be other factors involved...and don't get me wrong, I don't really agree with Cohen and I said as much last week...but the article SS posted today, and many articles that these intellectuals on the left write, are fantastic at pointing out inadequacies, but not so much at bringing real, workable alternative solutions to the table. Yes, we'd love to approach crime in a manner which never suspects or inconveniences or violates anyone simply because of what others that might share something in common with them have done, or because some folks are just downright racist...but we still have to keep our streets safe, do we not? Ok, how should we do it better?

Well, a good first step would be to stop engaging in explicit racial profiling and stereotyping.

 

Why is it up to the black community (and non-black liberals and leftists concerned with these issues) to come up with alternatives for systemic racism before systemic racism can be ended? Why does TNC need to propose some "real, workable solution" to American crime and poverty to point out how racist and awful stop-and-frisk is?

[iamshack]

Well, a good first step would be to stop engaging in explicit racial profiling and stereotyping.

 

Why is it up to the black community (and non-black liberals and leftists concerned with these issues) to come up with alternatives for systemic racism before systemic racism can be ended? Why does TNC need to propose some "real, workable solution" to American crime and poverty to point out how racist and awful stop-and-frisk is?

Because someone has to, do they not?

 

My point is that the left seems to devote a disproportionate amount of energy to pointing out inadequacies in the current system rather than devoting their energy to actually improving the situation themselves.

 

It's very easy to point out the flaws...and I get it, people need to be educated of those flaws before change usually occurs, but this has been a theme with the Democratic party for the last decade...the better ideology, but a lack of political will to actually put it into action.

[StrangeSox]

Because someone has to, do they not?

 

My point is that the left seems to devote a disproportionate amount of energy to pointing out inadequacies in the current system rather than devoting their energy to actually improving the situation themselves.

 

It's very easy to point out the flaws...and I get it, people need to be educated of those flaws before change usually occurs, but this has been a theme with the Democratic party for the last decade...the better ideology, but a lack of political will to actually put it into action.

 

Ok, now you're conflating "the far left" (radical communists, anarchists, etc.) with "the left" with the Democratic Party.

 

"So what's your solution?!" is just a weak defense of the status quo. It's not an actual argument and I'll note that you didn't address the part where I suggest that we simply end racist policies. We don't need any alternative to stop with garbage like "stop-and-frisk" and demanding a comprehensive solution to crime and poverty before we can talk about the failures of the current system only serves to justify those same failures.

[lostfan]

But Cohen says this...he points out that there have to be other factors involved...and don't get me wrong, I don't really agree with Cohen and I said as much last week...but the article SS posted today, and many articles that these intellectuals on the left write, are fantastic at pointing out inadequacies, but not so much at bringing real, workable alternative solutions to the table. Yes, we'd love to approach crime in a manner which never suspects or inconveniences or violates anyone simply because of what others that might share something in common with them have done, or because some folks are just downright racist...but we still have to keep our streets safe, do we not? Ok, how should we do it better?

Well, I think the media (god I hate invoking that phrase) tends to repeat this theme of urban blight where big cities are deteriorating centers of unmanageable crime, and the major cities like Chicago and New York are like what Detroit looked like in Robocop. So the outdated 80s era perception of everything "getting worse" seems to be what people visualize and they think we need some kind of new, innovative solutions to stop the flow of rising crime (that is actually falling). Not that I'm trying to claim there aren't problems that need to be addressed but we have to keep this in its proper perspective.