POLITICS MARCH 20, 2012
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Trayvon Martin was 17, visiting his father in Sanford, Florida. He was also black. George Zimmerman is 28, and had been a self-appointed neighborhood watchman in the area. He called in to the police that Martin was “suspicious,” upon which the police directed him to leave the rest to them. Zimmerman did not, feeling that Martin was “up to no good” or “on drugs or something.” Zimmerman was packing a handgun, and before long, Martin was dead from a gunshot wound in the chest. Zimmerman—who was charged with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer in 2005, and was noted in the neighborhood for a particular animus against young black boys—claims self-defense, though all Martin had on him was a can of ice tea and a bag of Skittles. As of yet, however, Zimmerman has yet to be charged with any crime.
The repercussions of incidents like the February murder of Martin are guaranteed to linger like the fallout from a nuclear accident, sickening the people, and communities, involved for years afterward. Indeed, the tragedy of this event is twofold. One is that it resulted in the senseless death of a bright, good-natured boy. The other is that it has stoked yet again the embers of racial hurt in this country, reinforcing the main obstacle to any true healing: the ugly relationship between blacks and the police.
The very nature of being black in the United States is now marked insidiously and essentially by the perceived reality of constantly being forced to deal with malevolent police forces. Indeed, a representative example of the black condition is what black journalist Deborah Mathis, in her syndicated column in 1997, called “Blackmotheritis”: “a nervous disorder afflicting millions of black women with adolescent or teenaged children, particularly the mothers of boys.” Mathis explains how she told her son:
Keep your hands out of your pockets. Don’t reach under your shirt. If there’s an itch, just live with it. In winter, keep your jacket open.
Mathis wasn’t kidding:
The other day, on a brief shopping foray, Joseph popped his hand beneath his shirt to rub a mosquito bite. “Joseph!” I shouted. My son’s name fell hard from my mouth as if it were a pain to say it. “Get your hand …” “Okay, Ma,” he said impatiently, then muttered something that seemed, at once, mad and sad. “I just don’t want …” I began, ruefully. “I know, Ma, I know. I’m sorry.”
Certainly Mathis was laying it on a bit. However, at The Washington Post, Jonathan Capeheart, a black journalist more temperate and influential than Mathis, recounts similar advice given to him in the 1980s and says that he followed it; Charles Blow has recounted a kind of “Blackfatheritis” as well.
“Oh, come on,” many of us think—including me, usually. Even outdoors, I scratch when I have an itch and do not consider myself lucky to have avoided arrest for it. But then along comes an episode like what happened to Martin. Suddenly, the narrative that the cops are anti-black, and that consequently, on a certain level being black is a battle against the cops, seems much more compelling. The feeling of resentment and persecution percolates. Gangsta rap ends up making a kind of sense, as does the title that Ishmael Reed gave his report on the black condition: Another Day at the Front. In short, a case like Trayvon Martin’s is interpreted as a metaphor for how white America feels about black people. Martin is already an icon, referred to regularly on black websites by his first name.
The Martin case is especially unpardonable in that there are apparently no meaningfully complicating circumstances. In New York, Sean Bell, 23, was shot dead upon suspicion that he or one of his friends were armed, after a late-night nightclub argument with another group. Just last month, Ramarley Graham, 18, was accidentally killed by police after fleeing while carrying marijuana. Both of these deaths were tragedies of the highest degree. But when’s the last time you heard of somebody killed for packing Skittles?
When I first moved to New York ten years ago, a major obstacle to opening up a black audience to non-left observations about race was the then-recent shooting death of Amadou Diallo. The 41 shots pumped into him, a number that had become so iconic that black comedians were making references to it, stood as an emblematic statement about racism in America. Whether this should have been the case is not a useful question. We might all consider how difficult it would be not to develop visceral resentments if members of our own communities suffered such fates on a regular basis.
And yet so far Zimmerman is a free man. Unless the public has been grievously misled about what happened to Trayvon Martin, it would be nothing less than sinful for Zimmerman to go unpunished. So much so that for the first time in my life, a part of me would almost understand those who might be moved to wreak civil unrest in response.
John McWhorter is a contributing editor for The New Republic.
40 comments
Zimmerman, the "self-appointed neighborhood watchman," was out to murder a black person. Cops sometimes find "excuses" to kill blacks, but almost always a "situation" has to exist, like resisting arrest, or reaching for something that "looked like a gun." In this instance "Watchman" Zimmerman was out to kill somebody. He chased the kid down for no reason, and his chosen victim was screaming for help when he shot him. It's on the 9-1-1 tape. Zimmerman is a murderer and should get life without parole. If he doesn't, there's something wrong with the justice system in Florida (like we don't already know that). Once in a great while a cop goes to jail for murdering a "perp." Zimmerman only wanted to be a cop. Think how many "maybe-kinda-perps" would be dead if he had succeeded. What a twisted soul.
- magboy47.
March 20, 2012 at 12:30am
At first, I saw a Trayvon Martin headline on the sidebar at Slate and figured it was another Sharpton victimology case(*). But then when I saw it recurring and read its distillation on Sullivan and Mother Jones, I was completely appalled. We live in a world in which Dharun Ravi was convicted of hate crimes relating to a gay college kid's suicide. And the well known murderer of a unarmed black kid has not been arrested or charged? And yet for political reasons--Florida is a swing state--Obama and Holder must not be seen pushing the envelope. Maybe this will show people we're not quite post-racial yet. But it won't. *I used to be averse to Sharpton. I don't know whether something has changed about him, but I'm definitely happier that someone is advocating these causes on the national stage. Let's not kid ourselves: if Trayvon Martin were Natalee Holloway or any number of Nancy Grace causes, this would have swept the national networks some time ago.
- chaitless
March 20, 2012 at 12:42am
The reports of police officers attempting to convince witnesses that what they saw or heard wasn't what they saw or heard is a complete giveaway in this case. It seems to me that we need an FBI investigation into this case, as the local authorities and the state seem unwilling to move on it.
- ironyroad
March 20, 2012 at 2:05am
This story is so sad in so many ways, I have never made it through without my heart siezing up and tears just exploding from my eyes. What is a "self-appointed neighborhood watchman" but a psychopath with a gun? The only reason he's not in jail is because of the race of this child. How any African American parent of a son can sleep through the night has always been beyond me.
- WandreyCer
March 20, 2012 at 2:57am
Feds to investigate. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/20/trayvon-martin-case-justice-department_n_1366101.html
- WandreyCer
March 20, 2012 at 8:27am
I am a military veteran with an admiration of firearms. I am sick of reading about how what I consider to be the privilege of firearms ownership is abused by self-righteous bullies who take the law into their own hands. Throw in what looks like racial bias and it gets even uglier.
- brokensq
March 20, 2012 at 8:54am
"So much so that for the first time in my life, a part of me would almost understand those who might be moved to wreak civil unrest in response." So can we say in this case that a black liberal is a black conservative who's been mugged by reality?
- SMacEachern2
March 20, 2012 at 11:16am
Florida's "stand your ground" law is another major component of this senseless tragedy.
- basman
March 20, 2012 at 1:26pm
As peaceful and quiet as my life has been (no war service), I have encountered too many situations where the truth that human beings of all colors and shades are vicious and dangerous has been too obvious. I once took a gun out of the hand of an elderly (white) man who was pointing it at a 12-year-old (black) boy he thought was going to mug him. I once was (in a parking lot after a basketball game) a few seconds away from being the only adult in a mini-race riot of angry white and black adolescents. There is no doubt that whites enslaved and oppressed black people for hundreds of years. There is no doubt that many black people are dangerous criminals and there is no doubt that many white people are dangerous criminals. Perhaps everyone should follow the example set by Obama's family and miscegenate as fast as possible, so it will be more difficult to tell the criminals from each other by skin color. Perhaps if everyone carrying a gun is considered a criminal? Oh, oh, I just shot another rabbit. Well, lock up this old self-confusing Jew who is sometimes found carrying and shooting a pellet rifle, and throw away the keys.
- skahn
March 20, 2012 at 1:39pm
With all due respect, I'm surprised to see any justification--however carefully hedged--of illegal violence offered by a public intellectual in response to this tragedy. The concluding sentence offers at least three ellisions (*) and a possible euphemism (**) in the given context: "So much so that for the first time in my life, *a part of me* would *almost* understand those who *might* be moved to wreak **civil unrest** in response." This is the sort of language every responsible intellectual since Orwell has weighed against, no matter how sympathetic the desire might be for retribution. It's all the more shameful coming from a professional linguist and otherwise fine writer.
- jraimo
March 20, 2012 at 2:35pm
It makes me want to make a revolution and overthrow the government of, at least, Florida, with no hedging, euphemism, or elision at all. If Florida cannot bring Zimmerman to justice, it has no government worthy of being called such.
- roidubouloi
March 20, 2012 at 3:23pm
To my mind, the mere fact that Zimmerman ignored the dispatcher telling him not to involve himself directly is sufficient by itself for a conviction of manslaughter, at the least. Even if he did not know what he was getting into and even if the evolution of the circumstances was something that he could rationally have interpreted as requiring him to defend himself with lethal force (I find that incredible but am giving the benefit of the doubt for the sake of argument), the fact that he got out of his car armed with a gun in order to confront another person, despite being told by the police not to, is a crime. Someone's death or serious injury was a very foreseeable consequence of that action.
- roidubouloi
March 20, 2012 at 3:27pm
We need to address the other large problem here. The virtually unfettered access to guns that allow both Zimmerman to shoot Martin, but give Zimmerman the paranoia that Martin might be armed and claim self defense.
- PlanetScot
March 20, 2012 at 3:35pm
jraimo, "civil unrest" and "illegal violence" are not by any means the same thing. McWhorter did not call for violence. Mass protests, occupations, and civil disobedience meet the meaning of civil unrest quite effectively.
- ironyroad
March 20, 2012 at 3:36pm
Roi, you're right about the guy not listening to the dispatcher about leaving it alone. I don't know the specifics of the Florida stand your ground law but Zimmerman's disobeyence of that direction ought to obviate any reliance he wants to put on that law. It's a travesty that he hasn't been charged by the state. Good that the Feds are investigating it. They, someone, should investigate the non charging too.
- basman
March 20, 2012 at 4:45pm
That the burden of proof seems to have been placed on the sady dead victim of Zimmerman's paranoia or antipathy makes me want to weep and rage. Yes, the "right to bear arms" should be protected, but to the decision to bear arms brings with it the obligation to accept the consequences of not using those arms responsibly. To go out into the community, armed and with the clear intent to use those arms, would seem to put a special burden of proof on the shooter, not the shooter's victim.
- bMorHon
March 20, 2012 at 4:45pm
I think it's the non charging that gives substance to McWhorter's harkening to the police against blacks and the oppressiveness of "being black in America today" frames as having forceful resonance still more than the shooting itself.
- basman
March 20, 2012 at 4:49pm
I heard more of the Zimmerman 9-1-1 tape today and he said to the dispatcher: "...these assholes always get away." He was obviously determined that the kid was not going to get away, in this case with his life. I understand the Justice Department is already investigating. Hopefully, they'll go after, not only Zimmerman, but the police department involved--or should I say uninvolved.
- magboy47.
March 20, 2012 at 6:15pm
Zimmerman is fucked up. The police are fucked up, We are fucked up. This happens way more in America than would be accepted in a decent country. When's it supposed to change? Neil
- purcellneil@aol.com
March 20, 2012 at 9:15pm
Neill, America began with a) Slavery of black people; b) genocide against aboriginal inhabitants; c) The Declaration of independence; c-1) The United States Constitution; and c-2) The United States Bill of Right. America continued with d) one of the bloodiest wars in humanity's astonishing history of spilling human blood, resulting in the freeing of slaves; e) women given the right to vote; f) school desegregation. In other words, it's a slow process and we are a work in progress. Not much different in quite a few other places. One of my wife's best friends was born in Ceylon/Sri Lanka. Once at dinner, I asked her what it was like growing up there. “The civil war was just starting. I saw Hindu children and Tamil children burned to death in street riots. My father was Catholic; so I attended a parochial school. When the nuns fled from the school and the island, he sent me to live with my older sister (already attending college in the United States).” So there are worse places. As I frequently say, “How can we stand ourselves?”
- skahn
March 20, 2012 at 11:40pm
On the same theme, a good friend of mine, an engineer who works at Boeing, was born in Peru and now has U.S. citizenship. After some reluctance, she told me a little about growing up in Lima during the "Shining Path" and associated troubles. Just the other day, lost while trying to find a meeting at the University of Washington (where I once attended graduate school but seldom visit any more) a kindly student (from Argentina) came to my rescue and navigated me to my destination. He told me (after the typical rude prying on my part that puts my wife in despair) a bit about living in Buenas Aires and having family friends who were "disappeared." Upon further prying, he indicated that after completing his schooling he will probably stay in the United States. "It is very corrupt and dangerous in Argentina; things are a lot better here." When I passed my draft tests for the Vietnam War (followed by getting a parental deferment), another person being tested was from Ecuador. He was a bit bemused by the formality and regular procedures of the American draft process. "In Ecuador, when they need people for the army, they just send a few soldiers out to round young men at random. I have a card that is supposed to protect me from being street-drafted, but they are likely not to bother looking at it." Not to make light of this terrible incident, but if you are going to mourn our (real) sins, don't neglect the abundance elsewhere.
- skahn
March 20, 2012 at 11:51pm
skahn, thank you for the eloquent posts. Meanwhile though we haven't gotten over color and Obama being elected has brought out the crazies. This Zimmerman, it sounds to me that he was hunting. He was hunting a human being. Why isn't he in jail?
- Sophia
March 21, 2012 at 2:55am
Following upon roidubloi's comments, it would seem to me, speaking as a non-lawyer, that the fact that Zimmerman pursued Martin against police instructions would invalidate a self-defense claim. If I rob a liquor store and the owner pulls a shotgun from under the counter and if I then shoot him, I cannot claim self-defense even though it might very well be the case that I would have been killed had I not fired. I unlawfully created the circumstances in which my use of deadly force became inevitable. It seems to me that Zimmerman's use of a firearm to pursue and threaten another person was itself a crime just as the robbery was in my hypothetical scenario, and even if Martin moved aggressively towards Zimmerman--which I doubt--self-defense shouldn't apply. And in case anyone argues that I'm just rephrasing what roid said, I'll simply point out that the charge laid in death-in-the-course-of-a-felony cases isn't manslaughter usually, but murder.
- AaronW
March 21, 2012 at 3:41am
ironyroad, you're quite right but why didn't McWhorter simply say as much? "In context" (as I stressed) and as a native speaker would have it, one does not 'wreak' mass protests, occupations, and civil disobedience. Speaking for myself, I would entirely (not 'a part of me') support (not 'understand') as before (not 'for the first time in my life') those actually organizing (not 'might be moved') such brave measures as you suggest. You can argue the semantics of all this ad infinitum--I used the word 'ellision' rather in a rather cavalier manner myself, in fact--without convincing me that McWhorter's hedging carries ugly implications. And there's simply no excuse for that sort of writing: lazy, deliberate, or otherwise.
- jraimo
March 21, 2012 at 6:11am
jraimo, I think that "wreak" is a striking verb to use as it's generally followed by "havoc" or "vengeance," and I believe the latter is present, if not openly admitted, in McWhorter's thoughts. But combining "wreak" with "civil unrest" is at least an unusual formulation, almost oxymoronic in fact. It has something of an accidental slip about it, but could also be deliberate.
- ironyroad
March 21, 2012 at 11:00am
Roi's post underscores how corrupt Florida is for not arresting this thug right after it happened. The cops in every state that these "stand your ground" (what macho horseshit) laws passed have been vehemently opposed to them. Why does the NRA buying off Congress get to trump what the police want for public safety? Could that be any more corrupt? I won't set foot in any state that has these laws, way too dangerous - made more so by the free advertising this case gives to any gun toting psychos out there. This country is insane.
- WandreyCer
March 21, 2012 at 12:12pm
Interesting thought: a connection between the NRA and stand your grounds laws. Is there evidence of that?
- basman
March 21, 2012 at 2:18pm
Funny you should ask: http://mediamatters.org/blog/201203210004 aarrgghhhhhhhhhhh. The fact is, a) I think, yes and b) the law might actually protect the aggressor, Zimmerman. CNN reported that "justifiable homicides" are up 40% in Florida since this law was passed.
- Sophia
March 21, 2012 at 3:45pm
Thanks and how ugly is this.
- basman
March 21, 2012 at 3:57pm
The problem is that unless you stack the court, Zimmerman is probably going to be acquitted, and that will inflame passions even more than taking no action against him.
- JohnEMack
March 22, 2012 at 9:58am
I wouldn't assume at all that Zimmerman would be acquitted. But if that inflames passions more, so be it. That means to me that passions need to be a lot more inflamed as the criminal justice system in Florida is a farce and the result is a license for bastards like Zimmerman to hunt black kids. With some serious inflammation, nothing will change. I am hard-pressed to think of anything in America that has repelled me as much as this, particularly the thought of that kid pleading for his life with Zimmerman standing over him with a pistol. Sickening.
- roidubouloi
March 22, 2012 at 10:04am
"Without some serious inflammation, nothing will change."
- roidubouloi
March 22, 2012 at 10:56am
Oddly enough, if you just gave the basic account to someone who hadn't heard anything else about it, and told them about Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, I'd bet that their reading of the story would have Trayvon Martin, not Zimmerman, as the innocent citizen "standing his ground" in the face of an attacker with a weapon.
- ironyroad
March 22, 2012 at 11:54am
I don't doubt that, irony. The whole notion that Zimmerman was standing his ground against attack is ridiculous. We are to believe that this kid, much younger, outweighed, attacked Zimmerman with a bag of Skittles and a soda can and Zimmerman was so threatened he had to kill him while the kid was pleading for his life? The whole think makes my blood boil.
- roidubouloi
March 22, 2012 at 12:13pm
Here in New Orleans, the Chief of Police had the recent policy of including the criminal records of murder victims as a way showing that 95% of murder victims were previously convicted of some crime. It's been rather controversial here because it dehumanizes the victim and does nothing to solve the issue of crime and only make the Police feel better about making folks feel that random murders are random and if you're not a criminal you have little need to worry about being gunned down. Unless of course you are a black male, in which case, here in New Orleans your chances increase. In this particular case, I've heard on the news that Trayvon was on school suspension the day he was shot. I'm sure that Zimmerman's defense will be that Trayvon was not some innocent kid with a bag of skittles but some presumed scofflaw that needed constant watching. That Trayvon was talking on his cell phone the entire time and had expressed concerns to his girlfriend on the phone that he was scared and being followed by a guy. She told him to run but he refused to run and tried to walk on and loose the guy. That Zimmerman made a concerted effort to track down Trayvon and steeping in a seething inner-hatred towards this black youth laying on the grass pleading for mercy, shoots him point blank dead says much about the animosity Zimmerman held for the anonimous black youth. That "other" whom he thought was up to no good. One can only hope that the Feds and Florida make the situation right and prosecute Zimmerman to fullest extent of the law and force Floridians to clarify their 'Stand Your Ground Law' so that future incidents like this won't happen again.
- singlspeed
March 22, 2012 at 3:39pm
"loose" should read "lose"
- singlspeed
March 22, 2012 at 3:40pm
I seems to me that there is an argument for some regulation of neighborhood watch groups. For example, if they are going to be permitted to wear guns, shouldn't they have some training requirements? And shouldn't there be some background checks before they have an untrammeled right to stop others? There is nothing wrong with the neighborhood watch program per se -- in fact, I think it is a good idea -- but if they are to have most of the powers of a real police force, at least the leaders of the group should have some of the credentials and training of real police.
- JohnEMack
March 23, 2012 at 12:44pm
We have a right to defend ourselves. Defense easily slips into offense and predation. As we are such dangerous and contentious creatures, we invent rules (called laws); we hire and train specialists in defense; sometimes called police; sometimes called soldiers. All tools are dangerous. Yesterday my wife and I cut down some crowded trees in our forest with our chain saw, a useful and dangerous tool. I could as easily have hurt myself or my wife as I removed a tree. When we hire a police officer, we have created a useful and dangerous tool. When a person appoints himself as a police officer, the danger increases exponentially.
- skahn
March 26, 2012 at 10:23am
QKorean American couple attacked, robbed March 19, 2012|BY JULIE SHAW, Daily News Staff Writer IN YET ANOTHER home invasion of an Asian business owner, an Oxford Circle man says that he and his wife were ambushed as they pulled into their back driveway Sunday night in their black Lexus. The husband, a 42-year-old Korean American who goes by the nickname Kenny but did not want his name published, Monday showed the Daily News a home surveillance video that captured the attackers as they pounced from behind a fence, surprising the couple. The man and his wife had just returned home from their West Philly beer-distribution business, which also sells lottery tickets. About 7:05 p.m., the first thug rushed with a gun toward Kenny - who was walking to the other side of his car - and yelled, " 'Don't move,' " Kenny said, and took the $3,000 that Kenny had in his pocket. A number of accomplices then ran to the passenger-side door and took $4,000 from the man's wife. The video showed six thugs wearing hooded sweatshirts. They forced the husband to open his rear basement door. Soon after, his wife was seen in the video, crawling on her knees and pushed to the door by one attacker. After they were inside the house, on McKinley Street near Castor Avenue, a seventh assailant appeared in the driveway. When a neighbor's garage door opened, he fled. The robbers, four with guns, were in the house for about seven minutes. They fled with about $30,000 in cash, including the $7,000 stolen outside. In the driveway, they also took the husband's handgun, which he had on his hip and which he had a legal permit to carry. Inside the house, the robbers kicked Kenny on the ground in his side and head and hit him four times with a gun in the back of his head. One thug said he would count down from 5 and then shoot, Kenny said. The attacker counted, "5, 4, 3, 2, 1," and Kenny told them they had already taken the couple's money outside. The thug then counted down again, and Kenny said he then told them the money was upstairs and they should "take anything." Meanwhile, his 40-year-old Korean American wife, who had been taken to an upstairs bedroom by other attackers, had a gun pointed to her head, Kenny said. He said he didn't get a good look at the robbers' faces because they were wearing masks, kept yelling, "Don't look at me!" and ordered him to close his eyes. He described them as African American and in their 20s. In the video, about 7:12 p.m. a neighbor rang the couple's rear doorbell. Shortly after, the six thugs ran out the back door. Police have a copy of the video. Kenny said the house had been burglarized three times before, when he and his wife were not home. Less than $5,000 was taken, and no one has been arrested. With this latest attack, Kenny and his wife plan to move. Sunday's robbery follows a January meeting held by law-enforcement authorities with Asian Americans to warn them that some criminals have targeted Asian business owners because they believe the owners carry large sums of cash. Deputy Police Commissioner Jack Gaittens, the department's liaison with the Asian community, said Monday that he didn't think Sunday's attack was part of a bigger trend of home-invasion attacks on Asian business owners, as had occurred in 2008 and 2010 in Philly, Delaware and Montgomery counties. Contact Julie Shaw at 215-854-2592 or shawj@phillynews.com.
- JAIMECHUCH
March 26, 2012 at 6:21pm
I have seldom seen such a blatant lynching mob. Irresponsible behavior of the extreme left neofascists. Shame on TNR for publishing such bigoted racist incitement. No wonder that the extreme left is going down the drain. And you will see the reaction they will come and personally attack me. Standard procedure of the extreme left neo fascists. The uncontrolled hatred expressed on this article is pure evil.
- JAIMECHUCH
March 26, 2012 at 6:31pm