In a disgusting if not surprising development, George Zimmerman has been found not guilty of killing Trayvon Martin. For coverage, see here.
Discuss, post links, etc below.
EDIT: This is a troll-free thread. If you’re coming here to gloat over the verdict, to use the verdict as an excuse to trash women or feminism, or post racist garbage, don’t. If you want to argue that the verdict was just and/or we live in a post-racial society, go somewhere else. None of us are in the mood for that bullshit.
I’ll wait for the transcript of the defense team’s press conference, because I am not going to spend another moment of my life listening to Mark O’Mara’s hateful voice. I had my fill of that soulless creep when he equated sidewalks to weapons in order to convict Trayvon Martin of existing while black.
While I am pissed off, I can’t say I’m surprised.
Killing black teenagers for no good reason is practically an american tradition.
The stand your ground laws, like Colorado’s make my day law, originally had the purpose of protecting people in real self-defense situations because back in the day there were some crazy rulings against homeowners who were ruled to have had a duty to retreat even when they were cornered in their own homes. But these laws clearly need to be refined to exclude Neighborhood Watchers who bring guns along. I feel that area needs to be tightened. Zimmerman was not a certified law officer (and even they are doing some scary things these days, have you noticed all the pet dog shootings?) BTW the Colorado law only applies if a stranger intrudes into your home while you are there. You can’t use it for a neighbor you know, or domestic violence.
He wasn’t an unarmed teen just trying to get home…because he was walking ON A SIDEWALK.
I’m not getting over that anytime soon.
Anyway, in regards to the psychopathy question, it’s really entirely unnecessary. The way our society is structured, it’s entirely typical for neurotypical people to be deficient in empathy along racial lines:
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/racial_empathy_gap_people_don_t_perceive_pain_in_other_races.html
In my experience it’s frighteningly easy for people to hurt (or even kill) if they believe that their victim is somehow not as human as them. :/
Yes, and “othering” is such a major element of human societies – I wonder if there’s ever been a society where it didn’t happen.
So searching for “George Zimmerman hero” gives about 4,930,000 results. A huge portion of those had better use the word “not.”
“George Zimmerman racist” gets about 142,000,000 results. I hope to goodness most of those say “is”.
anadiomene122, Hrovitnir: Amen!
And just in case the “well, it was legally correct and simply an inevitable outcome of Stand Your Ground Laws” crowd doesn’t feel like following up on the Marissa Alexander case, let me just summarize:
like Zimmerman case:
– occurred in Florida
– claimed self-defense under Stand Your Ground law
– claimed that they felt in fear of their life
but unlike Zimmerman case:
– Nobody is dead. The only harm done was a bullet stuck in a wall. This was no accident, either; the defendant shot to miss, choosing to only fire off a warning shot to scare off her attacker. (compare to the Zimmerman case, where an unarmed 17-year-old is dead)
– The person who the warning shot was directed at has admitted on the record that he abused all of his partners except one, and beat Marissa Alexander in specific. This lends credence to her claim that he had previously told he he would kill her, and makes it quite reasonable that she would fear him. (compare to the Zimmerman case, where no prior relationship between Zimmerman and Martin existed that would have given Zimmerman any legitimate reason to be afraid)
– Marissa Alexander had no prior criminal record. (compare to the Zimmerman case, where Zimmerman had a criminal records, including instances of violence)
…and yet, Marissa Alexander got 20 years in jail for not killing anyone, and George Zimmerman walks free for killing a minor. So how does that fit in with “the verdict was simply an inevitable outcome of Stand Your Ground Law?” Clearly, it wasn’t so inevitable for Marissa Alexander. But of course, if couldn’t possibly have anything to do with the fact that Marissa Alexander is black.
@Aaliyah and Everyone
I apologize. The correct term is “Sociopath”, not “Psychopath”. I realised it a few seconds late after posting.
And, no, this not that doesn’t excuse what Zimmerman did. He IS a racist asshole.
Hear hear to J. I want to buy you that birthday hoodie.
Some years ago there was a racially motivated (against our Roma minority) serial arson / shooting case here (I live in Hungary) and in one of the last (or last?*) attack they brutally shot a father trying to save his child from their burning home. What did our media decide to do? Well, to drown out almost all news about it by flooding us with the minute detail of a different case, where a professional athlete (white, but not Hungarian) got mortally wounded when a bar fight escalated. I was like WTF!? Why is this more important?!
And I don’t even claim to not have any prejudiced against Roma (I met too many Roma assholes to not be a bit wary about them), but they definitely rank lower on my annoyance meter than our right wing politicians or women wearing hats**.
* I didn’t follow the case because I was basically off-line at the time… and because of the “unfortunate media coverage” I’m trying to complain about.
** Around my town hat wearing women are exclusively: white, ablebodied, middle aged, middle class, cis-, heterosexual, married or widow, AND privilege blind.
Lensman, the point is that you shouldn’t have been diagnosing him at all. You don’t need any kind of diagnosis to be a racist.
@Dvärghundspossen
I know, I’m not a psychiatrist. I’m just deeply disturbed to witness his complete lack of empathy and remorse over what is essentially the murder of another human being.
I mean… no apology… not even a twitch… nothing!
Lack of empathy != mental illness. Just drop it.
@Yellaine
For some reason, that makes it even more disturbing…
….I mean the idea that a normal person can mentally justify murder of another human being based on nothing more than the color of his skin… and him feeling like he did the right thing afterwards… and the society at large absolving him for it.
…it’s too much…
Googgle search for “white feminists who live in predominantly black neighborhoods” gets about zero results.
…it’s too much…
Maybe so.
But letting him or anyone else say something other than moral failing is involved is giving him – and all the others like him – a get out of jail free card.
Whether it’s the devil made me do it or my brain made me do it, it’s a way of avoiding moral responsibility for your actions.
@Uncle Elmer:
Google search for “Orangutans living in orbit around Mars” gets 644.000.0 results. Logically, there must be cases of this then. Unless that wasn’t the point you were making?
How this and yours relate to the nature of this thread I find too arcane and eldritch to comprehend, and I think maybe you should bow out.
—
Well, this is kind of weird.
I know Elmer is just trolling, but “white feminists who live in predominantly black neighborhoods” actually gets me 53 300 000 results.
lensman: yes, it is disturbing. But we mustn’t pretend it’s not real, or that it just so called “crazy” people who do terrible thing and are terrible people. It’s also neurotypical people, people who look normal and won’t say hi by saying “Heil Hitler”. In the other post David was talking how marital rape used to be seen by many as not a big deal, or not really rape for that matter. When they think they have the right to do something, it’s not surprising that people are destroyed, or even disturbed by what they did. See Hannah Arendt, and the banality of evil (who, at the time, was very polemic because yes, it is very reassuring to think that bad people look nothing like “us”)
Darth Conans
Nope. The only way the Zimmerman Account can be reconciled to the events requires him to have had his pistol in his hand when he went to confront Martin.
That, even in Florida, isn’t self-defense; for Zimmerman. The problem is, fundamentally, Martin isn’t alive to tell his side of the story.
That,and the vast supply of racism which causes black to be convicted in similar circumstances, and everyone says, “justice was done”/
Black man convicted of killing white kid who came to his house, looking for a fight
I’ve got plans today, won’t be about until this afternoon, which is good. I’m really upset, in a viciously disappointed way. That I am more appalled than shocked is almost as saddening as the verdict.
The psychopath argument is a wash (“sociopath” is only slightly better). I’ve done it myself as a knee jerk reaction to my own horror at the behavior of others, but it’s really becoming a term that explains so much that it actually explains nothing. What it does is atomizes human behavior so that any deviant or violent activity can be attributed to the faulty wiring of a single person who is an abberation. This allows us to conveniently ignore all the social, political, cultural circumstances that created or allowed the behavior and lets everyone else off the hook. The psychological literature is pretty clear on the fact that situational factors account for a huge portion of human behavior.
To believe otherwise would be to believe that every Nazi had a genetic condition that made them lack empathy. Nope – they just believed what they were doing was justified, which any tyrant knows is the easiest way to circumvent “natural” empathy.
I admit that I was naive enough to think it might not have gone this way, just on the basis of him being only 17 and unarmed. Just, fuck this.
I have already come up against 2 people claiming that this was ‘legally correct’, and a bunch more people who thought the same about that fucker in Texas.
I am just fucking floored that they don’t even see how this being ‘legally correct’ (if it even was) makes it EVEN WORSE. That not only is someone needlessly dead, but there was no penalty but a bit of inconvenience for the killers. The law allowing for certain groups of people to get away with killing and maiming certain other groups of people is nothing to just shrug your bloody shoulders over and say “Well, that’s life.” Just, ugh, I don’t know how I ended up acquainted with so many people with such a deficiency of empathy.
@anadiomene122
In that case, we have to ask ourselves, just what sort of “social, political, cultural circumstances create or allow the behavior” of people like Zimmerman? Just what sort of society punishes people like Marissa Alexander while justifying and letting people like Zimmerman walk away? And, most importantly… where do we go from here?