StrangeSox

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 02:46 PM) Its gonna get really ugly if Zimmerman walks scot free, especially considering the jury racial make up. I hope not.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 02:47 PM) But the guy with the gun picked the fight. Martin was running away, Zimmerman chased him. You keep conveniently forgetting that Martin tried to run away to start and Zimmerman escalated a simple situation by chasing. This cannot be pointed out enough.

QUOTE (zenryan @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 02:36 PM) Then I must be a racist every M-F by your definition. For my job, there are times I visit accounts in areas that arent the greatest. There is one particular store where I get hit up for spare change quite often. They all have the same story, just got out of jail, dropped off at the bus stop across the street and doesnt have any money. They also all look the same even though I've been hit up by white,black and hispanic people. They are usually wearing jorts or worn down pants, a t-shirt, for the most part tatted up and usually appears to be wandering around the parking lot with no certain direction. So when I'm headed back to my car and see a guy atleast looking respectable and neat then I have no worries. But when I see someone as I described between my car and looking around then I get my excuses ready. And I'd say the overwhelming majority I'm correct on my assumptions. It's easy to just call it racist. I think its more along the lines of profiling. You're adding in a bunch of context that isn't present in this case or in my statement. You are judging them by their shoddy clothing, their tattoos, their aimless wandering, asking you for change. You're not judging them solely because they're black and some crimes are committed by black people. Profiling based on demeanor or actions isn't the same thing as profiling based on skin color. If you read the summaries of the crimes reported in that neighborhood, you'll find that there were 8 burglaries reported in 14 months. In four, there were no suspects. In three, the suspects were black males. In one of those cases, it turned out to be a neighbor and his friend. In another case, it was three black kids and a white kid. It wasn't one person or one group going around committing these crimes. It wasn't solely black people. In 50% of the cases, the perpetrator is unknown. In 25% of the cases, the suspects were different people and were caught. That's the background against which George Zimmerman decided any black kid in his neighborhood that he didn't know was probably a criminal and called the police on them. Martin wasn't the first.

By all accounts, it sounds as if the prosecution is putting on a pretty terrible case.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 01:59 PM) But also not technically illegal. How the law exists right now, maybe not. I'm not a lawyer and I don't know enough to say for sure. How it should be? It should at least be manslaughter to do what he did. If not for numerous poor decisions and errors in judgement on his part, Martin walks home with his candy or, at worst, gets questioned by the police because of a dumb neighbor.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 01:47 PM) Its a tough one. I just dont like the idea that someone can follow me around and if I get nervous or try and protect myself, he may then have the right to shoot me? It just seems circular. I also think (and correct me if Im wrong) that the fact 911 told Zimmerman to stop pursuing should be strong evidence that Zimmerman should face some consequence. If he had just listened multiple lives arent ruined. The only time you should be a hero like that, is if you actually see a violent crime taking place or imminently going to occur. Zimmerman is likely just a scared guy who freaked out once a real fight started and maybe even legitimately believed he was going to be killed. The situation just should have never happened. Yes, and that's why people need to understand that Zimmerman's actions, from start to finish, were not reasonable.

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 01:35 PM) Zimmerman made his mistake being too aggressive. I think his actions (being suspicious not pursuing TM) were justified considering the circumstances. I just think he lost his composure due to the criminal activities and took things into his own hands. He probably thought TM was going to just lay down. He was wrong, there was a scuffle, and the kid got shot dead. GZ could have used context clues and tact to diffuse the situation but I imagine they both went into meathead mode. 2nd degree murder is just the wrong charge. Maybe negligent homicide or manslaughter (they might be the same, I'm no lawyer). What were the circumstances here, really? Over the previous year, there had been a few break-ins by some black males. He sees a black male walking down the sidewalk minding his own business. How is that reasonable or justified suspicion? This is where I have to very strongly disagree. Racism is much more than open KKK-style cross burnings an lynchings. It's public policy, it's subconscious prejudices and snap judgments, its treating people differently, even if subtly, and it's seen in the vastly different incarceration and sentencing rates for similar crimes, employment gaps regardless of educational level, prejudice in hiring based on 'funny' names on a resume, etc.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 01:38 PM) And young, and very new to the neighborhood, and there had been burglaries committed by people matching that description. Any halfway decent cop would have plenty of reason right there to stop him and talk (which Zimmerman isn't, obviously). It's not that he's black, it's that he matches a general description. Sorry, man. That's how it is. Descriptions are what get people caught. The 'description' was "black guy." That's it. That doesn't justify stopping any and every black guy walking down the sidewalk. Knowing how this tends to play out in reality, this happens much, much, much more frequently to minorities than it happens to white people. Simply being black while walking down the street should never be a reason to stop somebody, assume they're a criminal and question them as such. That's how systemic racism works, how distrust for the police is built up, how some communities get targeted and policed much more heavily than other communities.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:59 AM) Not at all. When added to all the other descriptions of the people committing the burglaries, a person also concealing more of their identity raises suspicion. he's black and wearing a hoodie while it's raining, therefore he's probably a criminal. Great police work. relevant: http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/06/2...ies-too-little/

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:31 AM) And if you can't see the importance of the context here, with Zimmerman being personally exposed to crimes committed by black teenagers in his neighborhood, then i'm not really interested in a conversation with you about this either. It is simply not as simple as "Zimmerman saw a black kid and called the cops on him." The context absolutely matters. Assuming all black people are criminals because some black people broke into a few homes is racist as f***, not to mention paranoid, and leads to really s***ty reasoning and results. Like shooting an innocent person to death.

QUOTE (HickoryHuskers @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:23 AM) This was our wedding plan: The official photographer was hired for 25 shots. 14 were shot pre-wedding and were all photos of the bridal party and/or family that didn't require both bride and groom. 6 were shot during the wedding. 5 were shot post-wedding. We got a pretty good deal because we had a 1:30pm wedding and the photographer was able to book a second wedding for that evening since we didn't take long to finish up after the wedding and didn't require him to work the reception. We bought disposable 24-shot Kodak cameras for each of the tables at the reception. All the rest of the photos were taken on those by guests. My cousin was our DJ at the reception. He did it for free in lieu of getting us a gift. All we had to pay for was to buy him 2 CD's of songs we wanted played at the reception that he didn't already have. We had a photographer (family friend's relative or something) at our reception, but for our actual wedding we just relied on our guests. Had over 1000 pictures. And no tedious staged shots.

QUOTE (Milkman delivers @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:27 AM) But with a hoodie pulled over his head, it definitely adds to the suspicion. this has to be sarcastic, right?

QUOTE (MexSoxFan#1 @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:21 AM) These last two pages are proof Americans really really don't know s*** about their neighbors to the south...We all look the same!! FYI, my mother was fair skinned with blue eyes (she was white and Mexican amazingly enough! Might have something to do with the fact that here parents were from Spain, hint, it's located in Europe). My second son has blue/grayish eyes and could be considered "white". Among my friends, there is Italian, English, Arabic, French, Chinese, German and Portuguese ancestry along with the obvious Spanish/Amerindian mix. We are ethnically diverse. One example? Former President Fox is of Irish ancestry. Lots more examples I can come up with but I think you get my point. We're not all "brown and short". I don't know how that study SS posted came about their results but we are much more diverse than what Y2HH and others like him think...He's been to Mexico a bunch of times, I've only lived here for half of my 42 years. To the thread subject, Zimmerman has to pay for his idiocy at the very least. They combed through data from encyclopedias, CIA World Fact Book, did surveys, etc. It's a little old now, 2002, but when it was published it was, by far, the broadest and most comprehensive study of its kind that had been done.

btw could a mod please fix my typo in the thread title?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:13 AM) Clearly I don't think it's racist. If YOU want to label it as racist, that's what I don't care about nor do I agree with you that it's wrong. And the end result had nothing to do with Zimmerman calling the cops and tailing Martin. It could have ended a thousand different ways after that "racist" move. If you can't see how assuming that an unknown black male is probably up to no good, even though they're just walking down the sidewalk and talking on the phone, simply because they're a black male is racist as f***, one step short of donning the hoods for a good ol' fashioned lynching, I'm not really interested in a conversation.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 11:04 AM) I see what you're saying. I just think that such a chart doesn't adequately reflect a key point you made in that the US is a country of assimilation (for the most part), where others are not, and go out of their way to avoid such assimilation. So of course, such a reflection of Mexico would make it appear to be more diverse, but I don't think it truly is. It's only more diverse because we've assimilated to the American way, where those living there refuse to do so, regardless of how long they've lived there. If people have ethnically assimilated into American culture, than they're not ethnically diverse. That's just tautological, really the definition of assimilation. And again, this is ethnicity, not race. You could be ethnically the same but racially different or vice-versa. First-generation immigrants living in Chinatown and reading Chinese newspapers everyday are ethnically and racially diverse from you and me. Third-generation Chinese immigrant who grew up in Plainfield and doesn't speak a lick of Chinese is racially different but probably ethnically the same as his peers. In Mexico I don't think it makes sense to talk about people "refusing" to assimilate. I'm not exactly up on my ethnic Mexican history, but maybe there's just never been a dominant ethnicity to assimilate to. If various ethnic groups haven't really assimilated, then they really are more diverse than groups that have. I don't see why this is controversial? Maybe there's some ambiguity between "ethnicity" and "culture" or "subculture." My subculture in Chicago suburbia is different from the subculture in Englewood is different from the subculture in Atlanta is different from the subculture in rural Arkansas etc. I don't know, personally, that I'd say I was ethnically different from any of those other groups, but I might be inclined to say I was culturally different.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:58 AM) I prefer being prejudicial over having crime continue in my neighborhood, so whatever. Get off my lawn. You prefer being racist and making really, really s***ty decisions based on your racism that lead to innocent people being harassed by the police or, in this case, shot dead. Zimmerman's enthusiastic racism, which you happily embrace, did not catch the "f***ing punks," as he put it, who had committed a few break-ins in previous months. But, see, based on how things actually happen in reality, people are much, much quicker to jump to broad racist assumptions about a random black person probably being a criminal than they are about a random white or asian person. They're much, much quicker to jump to a conclusion that a random hispanic person is probably an illegal than a random white immigrant. It's racist. And this is where my conversation with you ends, where you explicitly say that, even if this is racist, it's not wrong. In a case where Zimmerman's racism winds up in an innocent kid being shot to death, you still think his racism was a good thing, something you would hope that your whole community would embrace.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:47 AM) But that's comparing Apples to Oranges. Because the US has multiple generations of whites living there, they're being conveniently classified as the same, but when regarding other countries, they're not. Seems like cherry picking data to make a point. It's just looking at ethnicity. I don't know what sort of bias or motivation you're assigning the research here where they'd be skewing the data, intentionally or subconsciously, to get some desired result. If (some) whites are ethnically non-diverse because they've developed their own white American culture over several generations, why shouldn't that be reflected? Again, this wasn't looking at race but ethnicity. from the article: You can't judge ethnicity based on physical appearance. here's a key point from the study: Ethnicity, like race, is a social construct. How you self-identify and how you perceive others is a key component of it. If you view your Polish neighbors as different from you ethnically and you were part of this study, the results would reflect that. I don't view my wife's Italian family and my Irish-German family as ethnically different because they're all 3rd+ generation immigrants and we all grew up within probably 50 miles of each other near Chicago. wikipedia tabulates the research here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_count...al.27s_analysis America remains a fairly ethnically diverse country, but we're a country of assimilation for the most part. And you're dead-on about Sweden being damn near perfectly homogeneous.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:42 AM) Well, I'm an equal opportunity racist because that person doesn't have to be black, they can be any color and i'm going to be suspicious of them. Am I going to follow them and try to be a cop about it? Nope. But if Zimmerman wants to be that proactive more power to him. This isn't downtown Chicago. There aren't 10,000 people a minute walking down the street. It's a gated community that had a year long problem with black teenagers committing crime. It's a fenced community with open roads and sidewalks. It's not guarded. They had a problem with some black males breaking into a few homes. This does not justify assuming all black males in the neighborhood are probably criminals. As we've clearly seen, this can lead to judging a completely innocent black teenager and wind up costing him his life. I'm also doubtful that the same scrutiny would apply to any white teenager walking around this neighborhood if some white teenagers were suspected of breaking into some homes. I doubt this based on overwhelming evidence of how our justice system and our society actually function and how many young black males are assumed to be criminals or likely criminals simply because they are young black males.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:44 AM) That's exactly my thought. Because there is simply no way this is true. They're only getting these results by lumping all whites as exactly the same...which is f***ing ridiculous. So you've read the referenced study then to conclude this or?

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:37 AM) I don't buy it. Been to Mexico, out of the resorts, and no it f***ing is not. I think the way they're doing this is by segregating everyone but whites. Example, a white german american is the same as a white irish american. But a chilian isn't the same as a mexican, isn't the same as a Venezuelan. Despite looking very similar. That chart is bulls***. They're looking at ethnicity here, which would relate back to culture more closely than back to race, though race and culture are strongly correlated geographically. So, ethnically, Chileans and Northern Mexicans and indigenous Mexicans and Guatemalans are probably pretty diverse even if they "look" similar. Whereas a white American of German descent and a white American of Irish descent (both five generations back) are probably indistinguishable culturally, just as a black American of Nigerian descent and a black American of Ivory Coast descent (both five generations back) are probably indistinguishable culturally. Since we frequently lump the huge ethnic and racial diversity of an entire continent into "African," that sometimes gets missed.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:34 AM) This is actually what bothers me about the whole Zimmerman/Martin case, the fact that Martin was on the phone. I mean, how many criminals looking to commit a crime are walking around talking on the phone? I mean, not that I have much experience, but if I was going to try do to something criminal, I wouldn't be looking to make extra noise by gabbing away on the phone while doing it. This small but specific point bothers me. You probably wouldn't be strolling down the sidewalk just sort of looking around on your way back home, either. But, because he's black, he's probably a criminal in the minds of many.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:33 AM) Yep. Happily. And I would hope all of my neighbors would be equally racist towards anyone that fits the description of teenagers committing crime in my neighborhood that they don't know. The description being "black male," you're embracing and encouraging viewing any unknown black male as a criminal simply because they are a black male. This is racist as f***. Like, short of shouting "WHITE POWER!," you can't get more racist.

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:28 AM) Well, this would happen everywhere, but in most places, the odds of such a "meeting" happening are quite low in comparison to the US. Take Sweden for example, odds of such an occurrence are low since almost everyone is white and blonde. Or Mexico, where most everyone outside of a resort towns is...well...Mexican. But here in the US, these situations are WAY more common than in most areas. It's a problem, but it's a problem we have to deal with FAR more than the rest of the world. And the sheer numbers are going to equate to more of such occurrences. Mexico is more ethnically diverse than the US. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldv...erse-countries/ But within the US, many communities remain deeply segregated. White flight from cities in the mid-20th century created many almost-all-white suburbs and left many almost-all-minority urban neighborhoods. Chicago is the most segregated city in the country, which is why your earlier Englewood example could work: http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2008-12...y-neighborhoods

QUOTE (Y2HH @ Jun 28, 2013 -> 10:25 AM) Agreed then. I agree that THIS would be racism/prejudice speaking. And this is exactly what Zimmerman did and what jenks said he'd "happily be racist" about. Assuming that simply because he's an unknown black male, he's probably a criminal. He wasn't lurking in alleys, he wasn't walking up to doors and trying the locks, he was walking home talking on the phone to his friend and eating some candy. Even in the best-case scenario, simply because he's black, someone calls the police and he gets stopped and questioned. This is exactly the sort of systemic racism that jenks would deny even exists, yet here he is in this thread saying he'd happily perpetuate it.