“What’s going on in
Florida?” (RE: Trayvon Martin …) Part II …
Maybe Zimmerman really did just shoot down Trayvon Martin
because Trayvon was in the wrong place at the wrong time, which would be
inexcusable, and for which Zimmerman should be charged with murder or at least
manslaughter.
Or maybe it happened the way Zimmerman says it did and he
was just defending himself and got beat up in the process.
Some videos seem to support Zimmerman’s claim; others make
his injuries appear far less serious.
Audio of the cries for help points – according to a couple of experts –
to Martin as the source, not Zimmerman.
There are conflicting eyewitness reports.
At this point, the only people who really know for certain –
because they were there – are Martin and Zimmerman. Martin is dead, and Zimmerman has his
account, so now it’s up to the forensics people.
In the meantime, the circus continues.
From the beginning, too much of the coverage of this event
has been about stereotyping – the poor black kid shot merely for being in a
largely “white” gated community at night while wearing a hoodie.
The hoodie has become a symbol of support for the Martin family’s claims, with
the subtext that you can’t judge someone’s intent simply by the clothes they
wear. Even the POTUS weighed on this,
when he said that if he had a son he would look like Trayvon.
Apparently, just because someone dresses like the people you
always see in security footage of convenience store robberies, you have no
rational reason to be at least a little suspicious.
From now on you’re not supposed to infer that that some guy
behind you at the ATM at midnight wearing a hoodie pulled down to hide his face
might be up to no good, for example. Go
ahead and pull out a bunch of cash.
Everything’s good. Nothing to
worry about.
Come on. If you see
someone with a shaved head and swastika tats you’re going to quickly infer that
the person is a skinhead, and probably a Jew- and black-hating racist. Right or wrong, that’s what you’re going to
think – the probability that the same person is a mild-mannered, Prius-driving florist
who belongs to the local synagogue is pretty slim.
Now people have the right to wear whatever they want. They can also decorate their bodies any way
they like. It’s a free country. And someone’s appearance is certainly no
excuse to shoot them.
But it’s unrealistic to think that how someone appears
doesn’t leave you with an impression about them. If you intentionally send off visual vibes
that you’re a gangsta or gangsta wannabe – regardless of whether you think it’s
nothing more than a fashion statement – you can’t expect others to know your
motives. You look like a gangsta, you’ll
be perceived as a gangsta, and people will react accordingly.
Which leads to the use of pictures in this case.
The media has gone out of its way to paint Martin as this
skinny, likable young man by using the smiling pictures of him in his
high-school football uniform, with his family, and what seems to be his class
picture from junior high. Zimmerman’s most-used
picture, on the other hand, shows him scowling in what appears to be a police
mug shot taken years ago when he was heavier.
Neither accurately portrays Martin nor Zimmerman the way
they were at the time of the shooting.
In reality, Martin was not some skinny kid; he was about 6’3”
tall and about 200 lbs – a rather formidable young man at 17. Zimmerman is 28 years old, not a big guy, and
not a racist by any accounts according to his neighbors; in fact he is the
product of a mixed marriage of a white father and a Hispanic mother. There are pictures surfacing now that show
Zimmerman as a smiling, affable kind of person.
Now more recent pictures are also emerging of Martin that
show him with a lot of tats, gold veneers on his teeth, and others of him wearing a hoodie and a
gangsta expression.
The media hasn’t shown those much because that might water down the persona of
Martin they and Martin’s family – which BTW is moving to trademark his image
and “I am Trayvon” as well as “Justice for Trayvon” – have been carefully
cultivating.
Go figure.
The tragedy in all this is that a 17-year-old guy was shot
and killed. Which is sad.
That so many people continue to try to take advantage of
this to further their own personal and political agendas makes it sadder
still.
Eventually we may learn what really happened that
night. We can only hope.
In the meantime, everyone needs to back down the rhetoric, the
accusations and the manufactured outrage and marches so the investigators can
do their jobs.
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