Thread: Trayvon Martin (pardon me if this subject is verboten.)

Originally Posted by pixelfixed

Wonder how this whole convo would shake out if he was a white Kid? just sayin.

Just a week or two before the Trayvon mess, a 12 yo white male was chased from school to his home by two older black youth, they caught him on his front porch, there just happened to be a fuel can there, the fuel was doused onto the white male and ignited by the one of the blacks. This happened in Kansas City. It was hardly mentioned in the news. Fortunately the young man remembered to stop, drop and roll as his attackers fled. The young man did not recognize the older males.

Fat girls can be mean to skinny girls, but skinny firls cannot do the same to fat girls.

Racial issues nowadays are always looked at in the light of previous experiences and cultural norms.
Historically there has been a lot of violence against blacks. We're supposed to be past those transgressions of the past, but every incident brings back memories of the bad old days and triggers a strong reaction. Everyone is aware that blacks were treated very badly in the US up until not too long ago. And white people were in general not the victim of racial violence.

So every time something like that happens, the incident with a black victim gets massive feedback due to the past when that violence was institutional and socially acceptable. Racial violence against white people was not, so every incident there is lacking that strong social feedback.

Originally Posted by Bruno

So every time something like that happens, the incident with a black victim gets massive feedback due to the past when that violence was institutional and socially acceptable. Racial violence against white people was not, so every incident there is lacking that strong social feedback.

What it is missing, is Jesse and Al... Who in our terms, would be called Spoons, or Trolls

interesting timeline put together by Reuters:

Business Insider put together some chronological bullet points highlighting the article’s most important points:

Zimmerman grew up in a mixed-race household
He was an altar boy at his Caltholic church from age 7-17
He is bilingual
After he finished high school, he studied for and got an insurance license
In 2004, Zimmerman and a black friend opened an Allstate insurance office (which soon failed)
Zimmerman’s 2005 arrest for “resisting arrest, violence, and battery of an officer” occurred after he shoved an under-cover alcohol control agent at a bar when the agent was trying to arrest an underage friend of his
Zimmerman married his wife, Shellie, in 2007. They rented a house in Twin Lakes. Twin Lakes is about 50% white, 20% Hispanic, and 20% black.
In 2009, Zimmerman enrolled in Seminole State College
In the fall of 2009, a pit bull broke free twice and once cornered Shellie in the Zimmermans’ yard. George Zimmerman asked a police officer whether he should buy pepper spray. The cop told him pepper spray wasn’t fast enough and recommended that he get a gun.
By the summer of 2011, Twin Lakes “was experiencing a rash of burglaries and break-ins.” In several of the cases, witnesses said the robbers were young black men
In July 2011, a black teenager stole a bicycle off the Zimmermans’ porch
In August of 2011, a neighbor of the Zimmermans, Olivia Bertalan, was home during the day when two young black men entered her house. She hid in a room upstairs and called the police. When the police arrived, the two men, who had been trying to take a TV, fled. One of them ran through the Zimmermans’ yard.
After the break-in, George Zimmerman stopped by the Bertalans and gave Olivia a card with his name and number on it. He told her to visit his wife Shellie if she felt unsafe.
The police recommended that Bertalan get a dog. She moved away instead. Zimmerman got a second dog–a Rottweiler.
In September, several concerned residents of the neighborhood, including Zimmerman, asked the neighborhood association to create a neighborhood watch. Zimmerman was asked to run it.
In the next month, two more houses in the neighborhood were robbed.
A community newsletter reminded residents to report any crimes to the police and then call “George Zimmerman, our captain.”
On February 2, 2012, Zimmerman spotted a young black man looking into the windows of a neighbor’s empty house. He called the police and said “I don‘t know what he’s doing. I don’t want to approach him, personally.” The police sent a car, but by the time they arrived, the man was gone.
On February 6th, another house was burglarized. Witnesses said two of the robbers were black teenagers. One, who had prior burglary convictions, was soon caught with a laptop stolen from the house.
Two weeks later, Zimmerman spotted Travyon Martin and called the police. The last time he had done this, the suspect got away. This time, he disregarded police instructions and followed. A few minutes later, Martin was dead.

Other than to point out that Zimmerman was probably not racist or targeting Trayvon for his skin color, is any of that relevant?