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11208. arkymalarky - 7/17/2013 8:07:09 PM the facts matter completely. the question is when you have a right to use deadly force, and the answer to that is getting blurrier and blurrier. race is significant question in terms of what prompted Zimmerman to follow Martin in the first place. getting out of his car after being advised not to continue to follow Martin, then shooting him in an altercation, goes to questions of gun rights. 11209. Jenerator - 7/17/2013 8:11:41 PM I don't know. To me it is entirely reasonable if, while monitoring your neighborhood as a guard, to follow someone not recognized and who fits the description of a recent burglar. Furthermore, if that person then darted around buildings and ran, it would be plausible that that person was up to know good.
11210. Jenerator - 7/17/2013 8:12:17 PM *no 11211. Jenerator - 7/17/2013 8:13:50 PM And having that belief - which is reasonable - doesn't make me a racist.
I have followed kids down the hall who were acting suspiciously. Some of these kids ran from me, too.
And that running made their behavior even more suspicious. 11212. arkymalarky - 7/17/2013 8:22:15 PM that whole compulsion to jump to "I'm not a racist" is a very annoying sideshow of this whole affair. this is about a dead kid and the guy who shot him. it's not about all the white people who want to shout about how not racist they are for thinking Zimmerman should have walked. 11213. iiibbb - 7/17/2013 9:01:55 PM Message # 11209 I don't think Zimmerman actions were inherently racist.
For me, everything turns on the fact that he followed and engaged a suspected "evil-doer" in the dark, alone, and wound up killing him...
... without those particular facts in play I would likely be fully inclined to side with Zimmerman.
The racism thing is tiring because I hear a lot of stories like this one...white woman disses famous black musician"
But at the end of the story I have to ask... as a 200 lb 6 ft white male... what makes him so sure that she'd give me her real floor number?
I'm pretty introverted. I don't talk to people on elevators... or minimally.
There was another story I heard where a white guy was passing a homeless man who'd been shaking every passer-by's hand. He declined. The homeless man was enraged that he was so racist as not to shake a black man's hand. In reality, the guy didn't want to shake the hand of a man who'd been shaking perhaps a 100 hands for fear of getting a cold or flu.
At risk of sounding insensitive, there are a lot of people who simply view the world through the lenses of victimhood... they perceive each slight as racially motivated... in reality I'm just not particularly chummy with any strangers in public. 11214. iiibbb - 7/17/2013 9:09:27 PM I got in another back-and-fourth with a guy lamenting about the black experience in America because I felt, that all other things being equal... single mothers had a tougher row to hoe in society than someone who is black.
He could not agree less, and people piled on me for missing the point... but they utterly missed mine. 11215. arkymalarky - 7/17/2013 9:49:40 PM I don't get on elevators with strange men by myself even now. it doesn't matter what color they are or how big they are or how old I am or how old they are. I also take a lot of precautions when I'm out in public that I think are just average type precautions, no matter who it is. 11216. judithathome - 7/17/2013 10:58:57 PM Furthermore, if that person then darted around buildings and ran, it would be plausible that that person was up to know good.
How is that so plausible? He was visiting the fathers girlfriend's residence, possibly unfamiliar with which apartment he was headed for in the dark. You can bet that if someone started following me in the dark, I'd run, too...not an excuse o shoot him.
We have only the word of one man that Martin was doing these things....peering into houses, hiding in bushes, throwing the first punch...the jury believed that man and found him not guilty...they didn't find him innocent. 11217. vonKreedon - 7/18/2013 12:15:48 AM If only Martin had run, or even simply continued walking on to his Dad's girlfriend's apartment none of this would have happened. 11218. judithathome - 7/18/2013 12:42:39 AM Or....if Zimmerman had stayed in his truck the way the non-emergency 911 operator told him to..."we don't need you to do that". Pretty clear what they were advising. 11219. vonKreedon - 7/18/2013 12:52:29 AM Yep, though Zimmerman did have a role as neighborhood watch captain that requires watching. At any rate, through they're decisions the two men unwittingly conspired in theh tragic death of Martin. 11220. Wombat - 7/18/2013 2:22:23 AM What part of the word "watch" didn't he understand? 11221. judithathome - 7/18/2013 4:26:54 AM The people on the phone that he was talking to were the people he usually called as part of the watch...they told him not to follow, probably as much for his safety as for the other guys.
He'd contacted these people before...over 40 times. He should have been used to the protocols. 11222. Ms. No - 7/18/2013 6:01:27 PM The U.S. v. Trayvon Martin: How the System Worked 11223. judithathome - 7/18/2013 7:34:10 PM Just this morning, locally, police killed a young black kid...for breaking and entering.
What they didn't know before shooting him was that he and his parents were staying with neighbors while their house was undergoing foundation repair...he was in the house to retrieve something he'd left behind. But it was dark, he "broke in" and a neighbor called the police and of course, he HAD to be guilty, right? 11224. judithathome - 7/19/2013 6:56:18 PM Very moving and thoughtful speech just now by President Obama. 11225. judithathome - 7/20/2013 12:19:42 AM Good article with excerpts of President Obama's remarks: Article 11226. arkymalarky - 7/21/2013 8:35:42 PM Wow. Keith Olbermann and Nate Silver are both going to ESPN. 11227. arkymalarky - 7/21/2013 8:36:17 PM John McCain gave Obama props. Good on him.
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