Well, it took them a little while, but the folks at Men’s Rights hate site A Voice for Men have finally figured out an angle on the Trayvon Martin case. According to regular AVFM contributor August Løvenskiolds, the whole thing can be blamed on a woman — specifically, Rachel Jeantel, the friend of Trayvon Martin who was on the phone with him just before he was killed.
According to Løvenskiolds, who seems to know more about what happened that night than it is in fact possible for him to know,
During a post-trial interview with Piers Morgan on CNN, Rachel Jeantel, the reluctant phone witness who was talking to Martin just before Martin assaulted Zimmerman, finally revealed that she had warned Martin that Zimmerman might be gay, or even, a gay rapist preparing to approach Martin.
This isn’t news; Jeantel said in her testimony that she told Martin she was afraid the man following him might be a rapist. But Løvenskiolds moves quickly from “sworn testim0ny” to “making shit up.”
Martin freaked out over the idea that Zimmerman might have sexual designs on him or his family, and this seems to have precipitated the attack on Zimmerman – which, of course, would make the attack a violation of Zimmerman’s human rights as a (purportedly) gay man, and make Jeantel the proxy instigator of the attack.
Yes, that’s right, the whole thing was “violence by proxy” instigated by an evil homophobic woman.
Would you like some armchair psychoanalysis to go with your unfounded speculation?
So, Trayvon Martin was killed in the act of gay-bashing (in Jeantel’s and his own minds, anyway). The fury of Martin’s sudden turnabout attack is now explicable (he had been avoiding being followed up to the point of the introduction of the gay rapist idea) and it indicates the degree of Martin’s revulsion that he went from flight to fight mode in so short a time.
And this of course makes it all All About The Menz Rights.
The men’s human rights issues related to a woman (Jeantel) being held blameless for using gay/rape threats to precipitate man-on-man violence ought to be obvious.
It’s always a woman’s fault, isn’t it?
Elsewhere in the post, Løvenskiolds seriously suggests that when a police dispatcher told Zimmerman that “we don’t need you” to follow Martin, that was Super Seekret Man Code for “we actually DO need you to follow him.” No, really.
Such negative suggestions are as clear to savvy men as this: “Honey, you don’t need to buy me roses for Valentine’s Day” – meaning, of course, “if you know what is good for you, I’d better get flowers AND chocolate AND jewelry AND a nice dinner AND…”
The fact that the dispatcher further expected Zimmerman to meet with officers – drafting Zimmerman into the militia, as it were – made it clear to Zimmerman that his continued pursuit of Martin was expected by the police as well.
The societal expectation of militia service by all able-bodied adult males is certainly a men’s human rights issue and an indication of inequality between the genders that needs to be redressed.
MRAs may not be good at much, but they’ve got mental gymnastics down to a science.
EDIT: I added a graf after the first quote from Løvenskiolds clarifying that Jeantel says she did in fact tell Martin that she thought Zimmerman might be a rapist.
I added a graf to the piece clarifying that bit about Jeantel saying she thought ZXimmerman might be a rapist.
Argh, ok, but that in no way changes any of the um, “inconsistenties” of Zimmerman’s account. Or the MRM’s desire to only acknowledge minorities of any sort when they can spin it to be about them.
I will admit I am not American nor do I know the full story. But from what I’ve read, and what the fella has told me (as he’s read up more than I have), the issue is pretty clear: A white dude saw a black dude, assumed he was up to no good because racism, followed him around, stalked him, terrified him, and then shot him when the black duded confronted him.
Yet, over on GMP (where I also lurk a lot), the MRAs (and I’m only guessing they’re MRAs because they’re the same people who hijack any post about women and make it about them), are very intent on letting me know that this is not a race issue.
I guess the question is, why are they so intent on convincing themselves and others this isn’t a race issue? I can completely understand why racists would. I don’t see the correlation between Men’s Rights though. Unless, as David’s post suggest, they are just trying to dismiss all other causes so they can somehow blame women for this.
“Totally bat-guano” has a nice ring to it…
@David: You really have to wonder about their reading comprehension or just their literacy in general – especially with comparing themselves to Watchmen. I wouldn’t be surprised if (assuming they actually read it at all) they associated themselves with Rorschach (given he’s a homophobic, misogynistic, sadistic murderer who doesn’t mind assaulting police or breaking into people’s homes unapologetically – always backed-up by twisted logic), which (again) would show how much they just don’t get the point.
I “love” the sudden concern for gay people (well, gay GUYS, at most) that will evaporate as soon as they can’t blame a black woman for conspiring to murder her friend by… somehow making a dumbass grown man shoot a kid armed with uh.. he was wearing a hoodie and he might have had candy on him? How exactly does this play out in the brainpan of anyone even semi-sane? Therefore the weirdly scared shitless must retreat into elaborate conspiracy-theories.
@Mongoose
Some people are real fucking invested in the idea that it’s everyone else who’re making this about race, see this woman. Unfortunately, this is nothing new, Sean Bell taught me that.
Saintnick86, it’s the same with idiot wannabes hanging Scarface posters on their walls, which was a scourge in my late teenage years. I always felt like going, “Uh, I think you missed the point”. And sometimes I did, but it’s like trying to explain to a toad that Apocalypse Now isn’t about Wagner and the smell of napalm.
Rachel Jeantel did say that, eh? Strange, but nowhere near as strange as the twist the idiot brigade’s given it. Somehow “I’m worried for your safety” is the message I’d get from it, even if it’s a strange take – I’d have thought the possibility of Zimmerman being a racist wanting to attack a young black man would be more in someone’s mind than the possibility of him being a rapist. But I don’t know their circumstances or background, so really can’t say (and unlike the MRM, I lack mind-reading powers). “Get into a fight” is definitely not what I’d read into it.
@Mongoose: An MRA, a racist, an anti-vaxxer, a Randroid, a climate change denier, and a conspiracy theorist walk into a bar. He orders a drink.
Or in other words, if someone’s an MRA, there’s a good chance he’s a racist as well. Shitty thoughts tend to attract shitty people.
So let me get this straight: AVFM thinks that a woman, seeing the opportunity, got her friend to fight another guy who, in terms of size, had a pretty huge upper hand over him, so that her friend could get killed and she could get no blame for it. For absolutely no reason. She just wanted to get her friend killed/to kill another.
I honestly think that AVFM has never been this ridiculous in history.
And here I was trying to find a better way to put it… But heh, that’s just wow, I’m gonna steal that. Except, Mongoose isn’t american, and all idiocy doesn’t break down as neatly all over the world. Well, there are familiar patterns, but some countries have more than two parties.
Maybe because he’s racist? I dunno, just a guess.
kitteh — somebody on the last page (sorry but I don’t recall whom and my iPad will spit if I check) commented that “he might rape you” makes sense as a concern a women would have — she wouldn’t be worried about getting beaten up, or shot, she’d be worried about being raped.
Still a bit weird that she’d say he might be gay and thus rape her friend, but depending what exactly she said, the logic does sort of follow. Toss in the whole under stress part and I can see the logic on it. Was it homophobic? Quite possibly, depending what she said. Was it “you should fight him”? No, almost certainly it was more like “run, now, just fucking run”.
Yeah, I mean, I’m white like my KKK great grandfather was. I also find his views replusive. Funny how that works.
Oh and I approve of “brain full of bat guano”, I’ve long hated the association between guano and mental illness considering guano is explosive and thus a pretty good analogy for assholes like this.
/comment spam
Curious – I’d be afraid a female friend being stalked would get raped, but a man? No, that’s not what would come to mind at all; I’d be worried he’d be attacked, especially if there was a racial element, but sexual assault wouldn’t be in the picture for me.
Which just shows that the hivemind ain’t what it used to be.
Argenti, did you approve or disapprove of the head full of bat guano idea? Your post seems to contradict itself.
Argh – just as I typed that, Fribs did an explosion of cat guano. But she had to, of course; dinner’s just been served.
Kitteh — sorry that should read “I’ve long hated the association between bat shit and mental illness considering guano is explosive”
Subtle but important difference lost on my BAC (why is remaining slightly tipsy so much work? One of these days I’m going to find a good combination that I can just dip leisurely)
The way it sounds in the interviews is that Trayvon was ALREADY freaked out by the grown man following him. Thus why he mentioned over the phone that this big man was following him.
And she said: “You have to take it as a parent, when you tell your child, you see a grown person following you, run away, and all that.”
So, run not fight was the message.
Mongoose: I think that along with the race issue you also have to understand the culture of guns and the “hero complex” that is fostered in this country. Have you seen Die Hard? Well there are many people in this country who think that it’s a documentary. OK, not really, but the downside of American individualism is that people take on the idea that they can’t depend on anyone but themselves.
Instead of dissuading these fears, the political system tends to stoke them. Because scared people are people who buy things and vote. The buy guns, and gold (because the financial system is going to fail and you will need gold in our new Mad Max society), and canned food, and doomsday bunkers. Zimmerman is one of these guys (at least a little bit). He wanted to be a cop. He thought that he was one of the good guys. He sees someone he doesn’t recognize walking through the neighborhood who matches his image of what a thug looks like (this is where the race part comes in). Instead of waiting for the police he gets out to handle it himself. This is the part that probably doesn’t make sense to a non-American. Why not let the police do this? Because. The hero complex.
We don’t know what happens next. According to the jury, when Martin knocks Zimmerman down. Which, honestly, if someone had been following me I’d probably do the same thing. Anyway, Zimmerman thinks that Martin is going to seriously harm him in the attack and so he pulls his gun. That’s why it’s self defense according to the jury. Because the jury thought that Martin threw the punch which escalated things and at that point Zimmerman could react with deadly force. But we don’t know what happened in that fight. Maybe Zimmerman started things. In any case, I think for the story to make sense you have to include the role of the hero complex that led Zimmerman to be out there with a gun in the first place.
” “Honey, you don’t need to buy me roses for Valentine’s Day” – meaning, of course, “if you know what is good for you, I’d better get flowers AND chocolate AND jewelry AND a nice dinner AND…”
“If you know what’s good for you”…..?
In MRAland women abuse men all the time and it’s totally ignored. So “if you knew what’s good for you” is probably in that vein.
Having a fondness of rap, it certainly gets annoying how much Tony Montana is used as some sign of being “gangsta” – even though the whole thing was basically a morality tale warning people against such a lifestyle. It’s about a man who wanted it all and got it but remained miserable, leading to his death. Seems to me like the point was that you shouldn’t be like him, that this “American Dream” he pursued was simply an illusion. The last scene was less “going out in a blaze” than karmatic retribution for his bad decisions.
Another example are the Space Marines from Aliens. It’s befuddling why they were so popular because, within the context of the film, they were incompetent morons who made things worse due to overwhelming arrogance and machismo. Almost all of them die due to being reckless and not taking the situation seriously. The only reason they live is because a civilian woman who dealt with them before acted sensibly and got them out of there. Only she and a young girl, who was probably hiding from the Xenomorphs for months, ended up coming out of the situation physically unscathed.
I remember a scene in Jarhead where they have a bunch of soldiers watching Apocalypse Now and cheering when those military helicopers are blowing up a Vietnamese village. If they actually understood what the point was to that and even the rest of the film – it would (though it SHOULD) be depressing.
Part of me can’t help but think it’s due to an increasingly atomized culture where many live in something of a personalized bubble. People often project their own attitudes in the fiction they see than figure out the creator’s point, since trying to get into someone’s head to understand them and their perspective (empathy) is a big part of narrative analysis. A lot of people like to claim “interpretation”, but that can only go so far and it doesn’t apply to all stories. You certainly couldn’t claim the “Boy Who Cried Wolf” was really about how people should listen to warnings, even if they are lies, and expect others to not feel incredulous towards such.
Sorry for the rant: storytelling is big interest of mine. It’s why I like and defend Anita Sarkeesian when dealing with detractors because – next to TvTropes – she’s actually bothering to observe such things (in videogames nonetheless) with some kind of intellectual approach. I wish more people did so from another angle/perspective instead of bitching about how she’s “mocking” videogames and gamers…which, of course, is besides the point (because they take shit way too personally like many male nerd/geeks do when it comes to their interests). It’s also funny to hear them state that she should “just make” a videogame instead – as if any of them have done so or know how much resources that takes up. As if you can’t buy and play a game then have any sort of opinion on it afterwards unless it is considered acceptable by some Council of Fanboys. It’s just a passive-aggressive way of saying “shut up” from people who supposedly love FREEZE PEACH (but only for themselves, of course – ’cause that isn’t hypocritical or anything…).
Gah, there I go again…
I think instead of mocking them, we should be grateful that the MRA can zero in on the real injustice here and bring it to our attention.
The real injustice is that Trayvon was murdered. We all know that. The MRAs are just flailing in the corner.