Oh, Man
I'm not going to bother looking for a fair and balanced
political cartoon of this story in all of the tripe, so here is
simply an interesting ad I saw the other day
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Gibson writes: "The Zimmerman acquittal proved what we've all known for some time now, and what's been true since the 16th century. There are two justice systems in America - one for white people and people of privilege, and one for everyone else."
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Does he even have to wake up to write that? Do the outraged semi-elites among us even have to fire a brain cell before they join in the chorus, the witch hunt of hatred against something of which they know nothing? It seems to make them feel good to circle their wagons and cry, "Hey, don't hurt me, o.k.? I like black people." The trial is over; Zimmerman was acquitted.
Zimmerman is not a privileged man. He was the poor shmuck out there watching over his lately ravaged neighborhood. Did he go on ski holidays like the Martins? I don't know, but unless Mr. Martin Sr. was slumming it with his new girlfriend, I'll presume all were all of the same socioeconomic status.
Mr. Gibson's work is, like so many of his fellow liberal incendiaries, riddled with some truth, scabbed onto an osteoporitic scaffolding. After a while of reading these diatribes, I grew sick of the lack of truth. In neither my previous piece (Zimmerman Lynch Mob) nor this one am I debating the trial, as I am not privy to the facts (and neither are you). You know your bias and inclination, and what the press allows you.
Here is a fact: U.S. society is an economic caste system; neither Z. nor Martin were Brahmins. Going back to the O.J. Simpson trial, Mr. Simpson was, as a celebrity, among the elite. He bought the best representation money could buy, and he beat the rap of killing his white wife. Following his acquittal, I recall the black women delighting in his cleverness. Not his innocence, mind you; no Mrs. Brown had it coming to her.
We know that is our society -- blacks cheer for the nomination of silent Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas not for his legal acumen, but for his color; ditto the black community and President Obama. And whites, well, the good liberals self-flagellate. The color line is clear, but it is simply not so in this case.
So who are the "white people and people of privilege" lumped together so injudiciously in Gibson's piece. I know that I am not part of that entourage.
Labels: communal insanity, lack of rationale in society, liberal bias, liberal bigotry, zimmerman trial
posted by Lisa at 7:32 AM
9 Comments:
Not sure whether this is trolling or serious when you ask, basically, "what does race have to do with it?"
Questions:
How many of your ancestral family tree were hung from a tree for Voting While White?
How often are you followed around in a store by the store detectives because everybody knows that white women are all criminals?
How often have you been stopped by the Sheriff's Department or Highway Patrol for Driving While White?
When you walk down the street, how many people cross the street to avoid you because white people are scary?
When you were in school, how many of your high school counselors tried to get you to go out for the sports teams rather than for the school newspaper or drama club because everybody knows that white people are natural athletes?
When you are driving through a remote section of Kansas, how many waitresses in restaurants have ignored you and failed to seat you because white people aren't welcome in their town?
The reality is that none of that has ever happened to you and none of that ever will. But my acquaintances of color have had all of that happen to them (or to ancestors, in the case of the lynching).
Granted, this does not put us on the same scale as Lloyd Blankfein. But to deny the fact that being born white has given you the privilege to avoid all that is to deny reality.
BT,
My point is simple:
How is Gibson's statement relevant to the Zimmerman trial?
It is not. Z. is not white and is not a person of privilege; Martin was black and was perhaps higher on the social ladder than Z.
Granted, racial animus is the bane of the U.S.; but economics is the issue here.
Martin was higher on the social ladder? Do you honestly believe Martin would have felt comfortable calling 911 47 times? Martin would have been cheated with DC at a minimum. Of course again Martin had committed no crime before Zimmermann decided this asshole wasn't going to get away.
Lisa,
How many of Zimmerman's ancestral family tree were hung from a tree for Voting While Looking White?
How often is Zimmerman followed around in a store by the store detectives because everybody knows that men who look white are all criminals?
How often has Zimmerman been stopped by the Sheriff's Department or Highway Patrol for Driving While Looking White?
And so on and so forth.
If you don't understand the difference between a visibly black person's experience in life and a visibly white person's experience in life after I helpfully provided a small subset of the many, many examples of how a visibly brown person is placed lower on the social rung than a visibly white person based solely on the color of his skin (i.e., even the black professionals that I know who are well dressed and drive nice cars are often stopped for Driving While Black!), you're either trolling or willfully blind. Just sayin'.
As for the argument made in the essay you referenced that there's "black justice" and "white justice", that may or may not be true but you are correct that it had nothing to do with this particular case, which was decided solely on the lack of evidence necessary to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt (well, with the exception of that one racist juror, but she was just one juror). I was referencing your objection to the notion that a white person *of any socioeconomic class* is above a black person *of any socioeconomic class* in society's ranking scale. The difference in how we treat visibly brown people from how we treat visibly white people *without regard for how well or poorly they're dressed* demonstrates that, regardless of any meaningless mumbles about how we're a "post-racial" society blah de blah.
The day that a shabbily dressed white person (hmm, like *me*!) gets pulled over by the PoPo more often than a well-dressed brown person (like one of my co-workers who looks Hispanic and always dresses professionally even in her everyday life) is the day that you might have a point. But we are far, far away from that point as a society. That's just reality, like it or not.
BT,
Reality is a concept to be just ignored by some.
Zimmerman is no more 'white looking' than is President Obama.
This is the puzzlement... that decades after the civil rights 'era', in the post racial
21st century, we not only have this widespread howling for an obviously brown skinned man to be denied the same Constitutional rights at trial as anyone would demand for themselves, but we have a black AG under a black President, flat out calling for a return to Jim Crow laws on 'must retreat', and 'may issue'.
This runs deeper than Jesse and Al needing to pay for a new Mercedes. This is something working behind the curtain of the Brady v NRA sideshow.
This fits into the American Taliban's relentless push back to the Dark ages... for women, for minorities, and sooner or later, for everyone but the elite to lose the fundamental right of self defense.
I love it. The party of inclusiveness turns on itself like an orgy of ravenous cannibalism.
Who's more poor? Who's more disadvantaged? Who's skin is darker? Blacks versus Hispanics, white college lefties against Hispanics. They're even turning on women (i.e. a jury of women isn't capable of making the right decision). If I was a woman I be downright offended by some of the statements made by Jesse Jackson.
This is a good show.
Hopefully the Republicans can float some non-crazy/non-1% candidate that can take advantage of the apparent fractures on the left. I've always thought that Hispanics should be overwhelmingly voting Rep. In my experience, they tend to be hard working and religious. They could most definitely be the ones to revive the American dream if the job opportunities were out there. This case should help point them to where they belong politically.
I guess my "hard working" comment deserves clarification. Why would hard working people prefer Rep. over Dem.? I think because these days the Dem.s have moved away from representing the working person to promising handouts and other considerations to special interests. It's all about taxing the worker and giving to the non-worker with an excuse.
Yes, Cholo, it's odd, and I see the devolution and will post today.
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