Our Inner Captain Renault

--Mob Rule

 There isn't any real good reason for fighting
except self-defense 
--The Outsiders, S. E. Hinton 

I'm shocked, shocked to find
that gambling is going on in here! 
--Casablanca (1942)
 ___________________

We have been discussing the small tragedy of the Zimmerman - Martin story not because it is unusual but as the phenomenon it is: a too-common story usually ignored, but once the media hops on (for whatever self-serving reason), one for which liberal people feel compelled to pull out their inner Capt. Renault --shocked, you know? All very predictable.

We will have a few more things to say about the disingenuity surrounding the tale (=The Spectacle), but today, a look at the neighborhood watch: Good Neighbor Policy, or stateside Counterinsurgency (COIN)?

For those inclined to exploit the event, The Trayvon - Zimmerman story is one of vigilantism, and becomes an excuse to label an otherwise reasonable self-protective action (=neighborhood watch) as racism. This is an involution of the posture vis-a-vis crime which we have been encouraged to take as a nation since becoming the victims of terrorist acts, namely, one of reasonable caution and vigilance. Florida highways have state-sponsored billboards which urge citizens to be alert, and not afraid. It is a foolish entropy to encourage a naive approach to one's safety.

Vigilantism has been a part of our society since its inception, and actions like tarring and feathering loyalists served many functions, primarily identification and ostracism of The Other. Neighborhood watches are not vigilantism, for The Other is already identified qua his Otherness.

The function of the watch is to identify possible criminal behavior before the action takes place, the purpose not to punish, but to identify. When one enters such a community, one can expect to be asked about one's purpose within the gates; the residents therein have usually paid a premium to feel their safety will be enforced. When an outsider enters the perimeter, he can expect to be identified as such; this is not racism or vigilantism, though it is vigilance.

Profiling has become taboo as it has become conflated with racism, but profiling is the basis of solving most crimes. In Zimmerman's case, the community had suffered numerous robberies and criminal situations in the preceding months. Surely he was aware of the descriptions of the perpetrators in these cases, and it would be sensible to identify figures which match those descriptions and confirm their intent.

And Zimmerman is not alone. Our own President racially profiles every time he sends a Predator or Hellfire downrange in the sandy regions of the world. Mr. Obama acts as the Neighborhood watch captain of the World with every missile strike. Yet when Obama approved the strike which killed another 16-year-old United States citizen, Abdulrahmen al-Awlaki, no liberals cried crocodile tears.

In fact, no one did, despite the sad fact that our President made two kills on that day -- one of the young man, and one a direct shot through the heart of our Constitution.  The young man's grandfather recently wrote a plaintive letter published in the NYT 17 July 2013 asking "Why?",  but there will be no answer ... State secrets, you know?

As a nation, we are an easily-distractable crew. We are suffering an en masse plague of ADHD, and we get our daily feed of pap through the umbilicus that leads to the online and on screen "news" outlets.

Here is the reality on neighborhood watches: Community-based policing has always been the center of our police functions; as citizens we can and must participate in ensuring our own safety. When neighborhood members shut their doors and roll into automatically-controlled garages and don't know their neighbors, you have a community ripe for crime.

Since the events of 9-11-01, U.S. police forces have been degraded as the military and contractors have bled off personnel who now work for Counterinsurgency (COIN) and Foreign Internal Defense (FID)-sponsored programs. At the same time public safety funds have shriveled on the home front, and community-based policing has been drastically reduced.

The Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©) has come home to roost.

If we as citizens do not have the right to ensure own safety in our own neighborhoods, then we have crossed into a police state mentality. When the death of Trayvon Martin is criminalized by a witch hunt trial, what is the message? When the police are not on the scene, the safety of the streets devolves to the citizens.

One may argue til the cows come home why young black men constitute the pages of most police blotters -- hint: economics -- but nonetheless, there you have it. It is a sad fact, but if you live in a vandalized community and see a black youth appear to be scoping out residences, you have reason to suspect. The comic Chris Rock has a skit, "You can't have shit when you around niggas, you can't have shit." referring to the high burglary rates in black communities. We laugh in recognition and then walk out of the theater.

Why pretend it is not a problem?

Death of the Gated Community

--Haves and Havenots,
Arend van Dam

Hickory Dickory Dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck ten,
The mouse came again
 --Hickory Dickory Dock, Nursery rhyme

Self-Defense is not murder 
--Sleeping with the Enemy (1991) 

In 1988, the crime rate in the United States rises four hundred percent.
The once great city of New York becomes the one maximum security prison
for the entire country. 
. . .

The United States Police Force, like an army,
is encamped around the island. There are no guards inside the prison,
only prisoners and the worlds they have made.
The rules are simple: once you go in, you don't come out.  
--Escape from New York (1981)
______________________

Its summertime, and that means the news cycle is hungry for more of the crazy in Florida; we do not disappoint.

This summer will see the latest recrudescence of the 26 February 2012 shooting of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman as jury selection is underway for Zimmerman's 2nd degree murder trial. We will not discuss the excellence or degeneracy of either the shooter or the victim.

As we have written before, it a sad story oft-repeated, young black male with a brief history of flirting with the wrong side of the law, killed before be could manifest whatever it was he would mature into, usually killed by another of his own race. There is little to make this story any more noteworthy than the too-many other daily iterations of Martin's death, but the name and nationality of the shooter caught the eye of some crime reporter scouring the police blotter.

What a bombshell this might have been: Jewish man (=Zimmerman) shoots black teen (Are Jews armed? Don't they volunteer for the ACLU getting blacks their rights?) A sociological truism is that the underdog who is assisted will one day turn against his champions (=perceived betters), and people like Louis Farrakhan made sure no love was lost between the black and Jewish communities. But shooting? Surely Jewish people do not go shooting up blacks for racist reasons. This would have indeed been a coup for some gun-jumping journo, but it was not to be.

Turns out the shooter is Hispanic, and had volunteered time tutoring young black youths in his gated community of The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida, described as "a multi-ethnic" gated community. The Zimmermans had lived there since 2009, and Mr. Zimmerman was the community watch captain. So we do not have a rogue Jewish shooter, nor do we have a version of the Crips and the Bloods.

Now, since it is not a rare occurrence for a young black man to be shot by a police officer or a peer, why the outrage surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin? Perhaps the story has become one of place, rather than players. Perhaps this story actually marks the death of the gated community, once the last refuge of affluent whites seeking protection from the ravages that play out daily in the inner cities of our country.

This story has touched a nerve: does it signal the end of the line for "White Flight"? Where do the whites go now that the last bastion of "whitehood" has been breached? The gated community is no longer a white haven, and is patrolled by Hispanic volunteers who will confront the perceived interlopers.

The sanctity of the gated community has been corrupted and penetrated from within by a degraded economy which does not discriminate when taking its victims down. Gated communities are no longer guaranteed havens or retreats from the ills that plague this world, for the residents have all been jostled about by the vagaries of an unstable world.

The Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida -- the now multi-ethnic gated community -- is no longer a place of retreat. It is just another community of striving individuals who do not care to look out of their windows when they hear a scuffle or a gunshot. The losers are the people who used to believe that gates could protect them.

26 Feb 2012: R.I.P., Gated Communities. Your death was slow but inexorable; you, the victim of a tanked economy and an ever-multi-culturing society. Whether you will be missed, and/or replaced, remains to be seen.

We Are Zimmerman

The “difference … between man and other forms of life”
is that man has invented what he calls
“morality’ and ‘reason’ to justify what he is doing. …”
--Patriotic Gore, Edmund Wilson

If you have the facts, argue the facts;
If you have the law, argue the law;
If you have neither, pound the table really loudly
--old lawyer's adage

The range of what we think and do
is limited by what we fail to notice.
And because we fail to notice
that we fail to notice,
there is little we can do to change;
until we notice how failing to notice
shapes our thoughts and deeds
--R.D. Laing

War is the spectacular and bloody projection
of our everyday life, is it not?
War is merely an outward expression
of our inward state,
an enlargement of our daily action
--The Causes of War, J. Krishnamurti
_________________

The U.S. serves as the neighborhood watchman of the world, proudly and without apology. We figure we are the Good Guys for trying to keep order and teach the heathens a better way. Unfortunately, since they often behave in ways antithetical to our neatly arrayed protocol and are full of tribal enmity and such, they get killed sometimes.

This neighborhood watchism of the U.S. is related to the outsized news coverage of a discrete tragic event which occurred in late February in a small town in Central Florida, a story which has quickly fired up most of the blogosphere.

We are outraged as a nation over the death of a single young black American shot by a supposedly self-appointed "neighborhood watchman." We know nothing beyond this fact, and the loud and persistent calls to bring Zimmerman to justice hinge on the following claims:

• Trayvon Martin (TM) ™ did not present a mortal threat, therefore the killing was a criminal act

• TM ™ was just a convenient target for Zimmerman's (Z) fantasy of being an American Super Hero

• Firearms are too readily used in our society

All of these are clearly articulated presumptions of a civilized society and a liberal democracy -- hard to refute on the abstract level. All life is valuable, to include that of the most heinous criminals and low-life serial killers. The U.S. is a nation of law, and no individual transcends these precepts.

If TM ™ was not a threat to Z or to anyone's life, then his shooting was not justifiable and not in accordance with our societal values. However, into the simplicity of the legality of the issue creeps the fact that we are NOT a post-racial society, and we are a violent one pretending to be otherwise.

Returning to our neighborhood watchman analogy, If TM ™ was killed illegally, then so too every Afghan, Iraqi and Pakistani whom we killed simply for being Afghan, Iraqi or Pakistani, for we just as assuredly racially-profiled them, too. It's quite simple on that level: We are hypocrites because get morally outraged over one act of supposedly inappropriate violence while supporting a national policy of inappropriate violence.

Yet we project our collective moral outrage and guilt upon Z for his willingness to apply deadly force in what we interpret as an illegal use of violence while we as a nation habitually murder the moral equivalent of TM ™ every day of the week in the Phony War on Terror (PWOT ©), and do so without any self-mortification. And without the slightest irony, we figure if we stamp him (Z) out, we can gain some sort of vindication and atone for our transgressions. We love our martyrs, and if that were to happen, we would get a two-fer in the TM ™ saga.

The U.S. was on board with invading Afghanistan and Iraq and 10 years later is still killing people who posed no lethal threat to our national or personal well-being. Yet surely the Iraqis were simply trying to buy some Skittles and iced tea (biscuits and kaffir) with rags and not hoodies on their heads, and we killed them as frivolously as Z. supposedly did a helpless, cookie-baking young man.

While the Afghanis never entered the sanctum sanctorum of our protected personal lives -- the sacred gated community -- they did enter the symbolic sanctuary of our sacred financial and business lives when their supposed charges attacked the Twin Towers in 9-11-01. As a result of that violation and intrusion, our taxes and lack of outrage have allowed the U.S. to "go Zimmerman" on tens of thousands of hadjis.

We are all Zimmerman.

Whassup?

This year I'm not getting involved in any
complicated issues. I'm just voting my
regular ethnic prejudices


"Cause of Death: Hooked Nose"
--Heinrich Boll short story

I'm not a Roman, mum, I'm a kike,
a yid, a heebie, a hook-nose,
I'm kosher, mum,
I'm a Red Sea pedestrian and proud of it!
--Life of Brian (1979)

There is nothing more painful to me
at this stage in my life than to walk down the street
and hear footsteps and start thinking
about robbery -- and then look around
and see somebody white and feel relieved
-- Jesse Jackson
____________________

Greetings from the Gunshine State!

What's all this about Trayvon's killing being racially-motivated? We do not have the facts, yet the liberal blogosphere has been crying for vengeance since Day 1. Do you know why? Because a man named "Zimmerman" in a gated community shot a young black man.

Let's go straight to the presumptions:

Black people don't get to live in gated communities. Zimmerman must be a card-carrying member of AIPAC, and since they all hate the poor Palestinians it's just a hop, skip and a jump to hating blacks. That's what stoked the fire before any news beyond name and race of the deceased was known.

None of this is true, of course, but depending on your political skew you rushed to your own judgment.

Do you know how many good liberals will admit that this was their first conclusion? Precisely "zero", because it does not groove with their self image of being for the underdog. They will not admit their presumption of Zimmerman's ethnicity, which is every bit as odious as any other stereotype.

What is fascinating is that the family of the neighborhood watch shooter (Zimmerman) was quick to point out he was himself Hispanic -- a man of color. In other words, he could not have harbored the malevolent intent that surely a white would feel toward a black youth in a gated community. Moreover, we now know Mr. Zimmerman attended Catholic school and was an alter boy. Does this imply the Catholic religion was to blame for leading him astray?

And yet, blacks attend Catholic school, too. We visited Ranger's old neighborhood in Cleveland, and many of the dioceses were almost entirely black. So it can't be his religion that is the problem.

Nor can the problem be that only black people are shot unjustly for being in the wrong neighborhood. As a white person, it would not be wise to walk after dark in certain parts of, say, Southside Chicago. For some reason, such a shooting would not raise our national hackles; he had it coming to him. Because, you know, walking in that neighborhood would simply be folly.

If a white person walked at night in certain neighborhoods he would surely be presumed to be looking to score drugs or a hooker, and we don't have much sympathy for that behavior, being the good moralists we are. Such a murder would be a sad story, but one only read between the lines as it might only appear in the obits. If it had a special edge, like say the victim was feeble minded and had recently escaped his group house, then it might get some ink, just for the oddity of it all. Otherwise, no. Expected.

What's the not-too-veiled subtext with Trayvon's shooting? White people should control themselves better than blacks. If he were walking in Southside, it wouldn't make the news sidebar -- and yet, it would be the SAME event ... to use the liberal's term, "Walking while black"!

I would argue, all people should control themselves better, and nobody should shoot anybody. Fat chance that, right.

My deeper implication is rarely addressed: We are racist in that we EXPECT black people to go for their nine. That that behavior is neither shocking nor rare is what we should be addressing before, during and after the tragedy of Trayvon, because then you would be approaching a real solution rather than a cathartic feel-good chest-beating.

When a black shoots someone it makes metro news, maybe; if it's black-on-black, more likely it never leaves the police blotter. But ZIMMERMAN shooting a black youth? National, baby. There is some deep racism in this country among all races on a slow boil every day.

Geraldo Rivera was right when suggesting death by hoodie. When President Obama said that Trayvon could have been his son, I wonder if he would've allowed his son to walk alone in the wee hours to a convenience store and back in an unfamiliar community. I am not saying that activity is a crime (and we do not know the full details of that engagement) but I am saying if you look like you're in the wrong neighborhood, you will be noticed. To pretend otherwise is folly.

Is it fair to expect if I walk around in a Slutwalk uniform -- say, bra, panties and jackboots -- and want to enter a workingman's pub at midnight for a brewski, that I not get hassled? If you're high-minded and blissfully unaware of human behavior, you will say, "Of course it is!" No, it is not. That is not the world in which we live.

A parallel example occurred for me when I attended a black university for a semester (Florida A & M). I will relate but one example of the prejudice which I encountered as a white person on that campus.

Walking to my car, I noticed a FAMU patrol car pulled in haphazardly behind my vehicle, blocking its exit, ala Starsky and Hutch. I was then confronted by a black FAMU patrol officer with his 9 mm drawn -- yes! Not pointing at me, but drawn. I asked what was wrong -- NO LIE: He questioned the authenticity of my parking sticker, and accused me of forgery!!!

You must understand that Florida State University and FAMU had full reciprocity on matters such as parking, library privileges, etc. This was so surreal that I smiled and asked, "Are you serious?" Thank god it was daylight, and he did not have an itchy trigger finger. Sullenly, he holstered the gun and said, "I've got my eye on you." It was pure, unjustifiable harassment.

The terror only hit me as I entered my car and made to drive away, shaking and weak. As an older adult, I am outraged at that inappropriate threat of force. I was a small white woman burdened with an armload of books approaching her 17-year-old Volkswagon. What insane bullying, and if I had known better or had support, I would have brought that matter to my local representatives, at the least. I did not know better, and just wanted to get the hell out of Dodge.

That said, I met some very fine and welcoming people at FAMU, as well. BUT, those introductions were usually facilitated by a black friend; unaccompanied, I was suspect. I was told by a black male study partner that he wished he could introduce me to his fiance, but that she would be antagonistic to my whiteness. (I later encountered them in a store and he looked away.)

I was enthusiastically asked by members of my African-American Lit class after I'd made a presentation of Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God" -- how I could possibly have understood the trials of a black woman so well, they asked. I quoted Sojourner Truth ("Ain't I a Woman?) And so it goes.

That is the measure of the prejudice in your nation: Black-on-black -- or at least, dark-on-dark crime -- is permitted. It's expected; it is as old as the hills. All suspect all.

So, what do we call it when blacks murder blacks? We don't seem to call it anything. How about if a black person murders a white -- it does happen, you know? Are those racist occurrences, or simply pathetic and tragic murders?

The liberal pack is calling for everyone's head, but in order for the police to arrest a suspect they must have a court-issued probable cause warrant. Zimmerman is not a flight risk; he had called the police prior to the shooting event. He tried to coordinate with police, and they displayed negligence and a negative attitude by not responding.

This should be a problem of concern: Many police department are suffering budget cuts and a shortage of officers. Maybe several of them are on duty in Afghanistan. There was clearly a problem in the neighborhood. Zimmerman was following Florida Rules of Engagement as opposed to Afghan rules.

My main point is obvious: We all come with preconceptions and fears, founded or un-, and how to countenance that is our mission. If all followed the rule of law and respected his fellows, and expressed honestly and clearly at the first sign of feeling threatened in the spirit of seeking consensus, we wouldn't have these shootings, would we?

Is this our country as you know it? Is this your house, as you know it?

Per Trayvon, we should suspend judgment until the facts are known.

For now, we can call it, "Death by Hoodie", and should consider all which that entails.

[cross-posted @ BigBrassBlog]