Picture Of Trayvon Martin At The Scene of The Event

Don’t tell me this had nothing to do with race. I hate to break it to you folks, but most black people don’t go around, sniffing for anything remotely off so they can play the over-hyped race card. We call a spade a spade. If you truly believe that justice was served, that Zimmerman’s hands were clean, then I have a few questions I’d like you to consider.

If Trayvon Martin were white (although let's face it, it's unlikely he'd still be named Trayvon), and you changed nothing else about the events of that night, would George Zimmerman have thought him a fucking punk who looked like he was on drugs, another of the teenagers who had been burglarizing his area of late?

If George Zimmerman told the truth in saying that he only shot Trayvon Martin after a struggle over Zimmerman's gun, but it had been Zimmerman who had been shot and killed, would Trayvon Martin have had the benefit of the doubt had he been tried for Zimmerman's death? Would there be as much credence lent to his testimony that he acted in self defense against an armed man following him in the darkness?

If someone had intervened and stopped the fight from taking a fatal turn, or if one or both of the combatants had backed off, and both had been taken into custody would Trayvon Martin's words in his own defense have made any more of an impact that his echoing silence did in his death?

If George Zimmerman was black, and Trayvon Martin was anything but, and events unfolded precisely as they (allegedly) did, would it have taken a media outcry for him to have been tried? Would his testimony have held as much weight, with the same evidence? Would the outcome have been the same?

Had Trayvon Martin been white, would there have been people scrounging his academic and social media records, and would any marks on the record of his life have been taken as concrete evidence by the worst of us that he was a thug? An animal? A gang-banger, a monster? Would a white Trayvon Martin, for the crime of school suspension and marijuana possession, have been someone that a significant portion of this country would say deserved to die?

If you can honestly, concretely, and with anything resembling certainty, answer any of these questions "yes," then I envy you.

I say this without a trace of animus, bitterness, or sarcasm. I say it with a profound sense of sadness and pain. I envy you. I envy you so much. I envy that your experiences have not hardened you to the ways of the world, that you can believe that this country and its laws are as likely to protect you as anyone else within its borders. That you have faith that you, or anyone else, will not be judged for something that is, was and always will be out of your hands, and that your life cannot spiral out of control in the blink of an eye for something that empirically was not your fault.

I envy you. And I hope that the walls never crack, that your sense of safety never falters, that from here until doomsday you walk through all the days of your life with that belief intact.

Come see me if you have trouble coping if that dome ever shatters.Because I don't have that luxury. I haven't had that luxury since I was fourteen years old, and life showed me in no uncertain terms how the remainder of my days would unfold. Countless people in this country do not, did not, and will never have that luxury. Trayvon Martin did not have that luxury, in life or in death.....

Link for complete text.

for all the people who said that the outcome is not about race please explain to me how zimmerman won please. the counter argument i hear is oh blacks kill blacks everyday but do you see people mentioning it no" white people were NEVER slaves NEVER hispanics, blacks were so when some ass hole kills a 17 year old boy and the media digs deep to make a deceased boy a criminal what do you think people are going to say. every evidence was against zimmerman, the world thought travon would of gotten justice instead what did he get he got to be a criminal after he died good job america.

So by this logic no 17 year old white kid is safe in America because of the killing of Daniel Cicciaro.

I look at it like this; Trayvon and I are around the same age, and I'm also black. Am I so upset that it's a black person that died? No. I'm upset that it was a kid around my age that died. In all honesty, I wouldn't care as much if it were a grown black man and the case would be a little more understandable (I guess). This case, these people, these comments on this thread are what scares me. You mean to tell me that if I was in that situation, me who hardly goes out, me who hardly associates with people, me who hasn't been a fight would be treated the same as this right here what people are doing right now? That's scary. Just gives me less and less faith in the world and humanity.

And yes, I am fully aware that there are still those who would admonish me for even suggesting this case was about race. Not just the defenders of George Zimmerman, with whom I shall deal in a moment, but even the state, whose prosecutors de-racialized this case to a point that frankly was as troubling as anything the defense tried to do. Maybe more. I mean, the defense’s job is to represent their client, and I cannot fault them for having done so successfully. But the prosecution’s job is to make it clear to the jury what the defendant did and preferably why he did it. By agreeing to a fundamentally colorblind, “this isn’t about race,” narrative, they gave away the best part of their arsenal before the war had really started.

Because anyone who still believes that this case had nothing to do with race — or worse, that it was simply a tragedy, the racial meaning of which was concocted by those whom they love to term “race hustlers” — are suffering from a delusion so profound as to call into question their capacities for rational thought. And yet still, let us try to reason with them for a second, as if they were capable of hearing it. Let’s do that for the sake of rational thought itself, as a thing we still believe in; and for our country, which some of us still believe — against all evidence — is capable of doing justice and living up to its promises. In short, let’s give this one more shot.

Those who deny the racial angle to the killing of Trayvon Martin can only do so by a willful ignorance, a carefully cultivated denial of every logical, obvious piece of evidence before them, and by erasing from their minds — if indeed they ever had anything in there to erase — the entire history of American criminal justice, the criminal suspicion regularly attached to black men, and the inevitable results whenever black men pay for these suspicions with their lives. They must choose to leave the dots unconnected between, for instance, Martin on the one hand, and then on the other, Amadou Diallo or Sean Bell or Patrick Dorismond, or any of a number of other black men whose names — were I to list them — would take up page after page, and whose names wouldn’t mean shit to most white people even if I did list them, and that is the problem.

Oh sure, I’ve heard it all before. George Zimmerman didn’t follow Trayvon Martin because Martin was black; he followed him because he thought he might be a criminal. Yes precious, I get that. But whatyou don’t get — and by not getting it while still managing to somehow hold down a job and feedyourself, scare the shit out of me — is far more important. Namely, if the presumption of criminality that Zimmerman attached to Martin was so attached because the latter was black — and would not have been similarly attached to him had he been white — then the charge of racial bias and profiling is entirely appropriate.

And surely we cannot deny that the presumption of criminality was dependent on this dead child’s race can we? Before you answer, please note that even the defense did not deny this. Indeed, Zimmerman’s attorneys acknowledged in court that their client’s concerns about Martin were connected directly to the fact that previous break-ins in the neighborhood had been committed by young black males.

This is why it matters that George Zimmerman justified his following of Martin because as he put it, “these fucking punks” always get away. In other words, Zimmerman saw Martin as just another “fucking punk” up to no good, similar to those who had committed previous break-ins in the community. But why? What behavior did Martin display that would have suggested he was criminally inclined? Zimmerman’s team could produce nothing to indicate anything particularly suspicious about Martin’s actions that night. According to Zimmerman, Martin was walking in the rain, “looking around,” or “looking around at the houses.” But not looking in windows, or jiggling doorknobs or porch screens, or anything that might have suggested a possible burglar. At no point was any evidence presented by the defense to justify their client’s suspicions. All we know is that Zimmerman saw Martin and concluded that he was just like those other criminals. And to the extent there was nothing in Martin’s actions — talking on the telephone and walking slowly home from the store — that would have indicated he was another of those “fucking punks,” the only possible explanation as to why George Zimmerman would have seen him that way is because Martin, as a young black male was presumed to be a likely criminal, and for no other reason, ultimately, but color.

Which is to say, Trayvon Martin is dead because he is black and because George Zimmerman can’t differentiate — and didn’t see the need to — between criminal and non-criminal black people. Which is to say, George Zimmerman is a racist. Because if you cannot differentiate between black criminals and just plain kids, and don’t even see the need to try, apparently, you are a racist. I don’t care what your Peruvian mother says, or her white husband who married the Peruvian mother, or your brother, or your black friends, or the black girl you took to prom, or the black kids you mentored. If you see a black child and assume “criminal,” despite no behavioral evidence at all to suggest such a conclusion, you are a racist. No exceptions. That goes for George Zimmerman and for anyone reading this. (cont).

Timwise.org for complete article.

And that's where the sadness for me, and other young african american kids around his age, comes from.

Last I heard she was stripper...... Who the hell would pay to see that O.O

@batman242: This case, these people, these comments on this thread are what scares me.

I hope you understand that no one thinks Zimmerman is a hero or good guy. He acted foolishly and irresponsibly. But that is not illegal. If you were on that jury, could you have said "beyond a reasonable doubt" that he murdered Trayvon?

@patrat18: every evidence was against zimmerman, the world thought travon would of gotten justice instead what did he get he got to be a criminal after he died good job america.

Sadly, i disagree. You said "every evidence was against zimmerman". the jury was told to disregard all of the things that led up to the killing because none of that mattered. Nothing Zimmerman did and nothing Trayvon did was illegal up to that point. so the events that led up to the shooting are moot. The only evidence that mattered was: did he kill out of malice or self defense? Can you answer that question beyond a reasonable doubt?

i'd toss her a dollar. make up goes a long way.

@pooty: perfect example

@sheenlantern: Show me the tweet.

WTF is that? Is that the guy's daughter?

"Here honey, lie down here while I pretend to murder you"

"Daddy I'm scared..."

"Dont worry honey, I'll just pretend to hit you in the face a bunch of times while I rant at the camera. It'll be ok."

This girl will need psychiatric help for the rest of her life.

@pooty: I didn't say or imply that he was a hero to some people. It's that some people DO NOT see that he acted "foolish and irresponsibly" like you just said.

Me, as someone not in the court, not at the trial can say based off of all evidence before hand, that George killed Trayvon for something unreasonable. Whether it be racism, hatred for young people, him looking suspicious.

@willpayton: @patrat18: Dammit, i can't see video from this computer. I thought it was the cartoon they were going to show in court of what happened according to zimmerman. but judging by willpayton comments its not. If what he is saying is true then that sounds horrible. If it is a little girl being beat up by her father, i don't see how that can be a perfect example. sorry i can't see it.

People are still crying about this?

and Trayvon wasn't racist? Creepy ass cracker isn't a racist remark towards a white person?

@pooty: no the other guy is an idiot, the guy in the vid try to show what happen to trayvon. he did not hit his daughter pooty is just being a jack ass.

@pooty:

'No thug wears skinny jeans'

'and khakis!'

Ummmm.. Are these people f*cking IDIOTS!? So only thugs wear baggy clothes?..

Crybabies.

@patrat18: That video is sick. That guy is sick for using his daughter to recreate a murder.

Is that really the only thing you're gonna address? I agree with you on that part, but can you argue with any of the other points?

@batman242: Yeah. Everyone saying it's all about race and how evil GZ is and how racist he is. Look at my first post.

EDIT: Also, I think GZ is innocent. He had a fair trial, and the jurors decided he was innocent. Time to move on. Are people just going to keep this up until GZ gets murdered? And then drop it?

Dude, it's a video of some guy standing over a young girl reenacting Trayvon Martin standing over Zimmerman and beating him. I didnt say he actually hit her, I said he's "pretending" to hit her. If he was going to reenact this, at least get a grownup and not a little girl.

@nefarious said:

Looks like a flaming racist to me.

His daughter is perfectly aware of the fact that she's helping her father reenact a scenario.

@sheenlantern: 2005, really?..

@sheenlantern: Racist against your own race? You don't see that too often.

I honestly don't think he's innocent. What was Trayvon doing that justified him being killed?

Wow!

@biteme_fanboy said:

Silly me, I should have known racism wears off after a while.

I agree.

It is truly sad that you simply assume that he is white. That is like me assuming that Novi_homines is black simply because he/she is upset by the Trayvon Martin case.

And I can see his/her point as to why he/she would find this racism.

As for me,at the moment,I am still looking.

That is kinda like assuming (and I am not assuming this for jointron) that every white person is racist against blacks...or that there are no black people racist against black people.It is simply ignorant.

To tell you the truth,I wouldn't even be surprised if you assumed that I was white. -__-

And I think that jointron is a bit...racist and draconian in his views...and he's black,not that that really matters.....

Wow....that survey is truly sad....

Sometimes I think I delude myself into thinking that this country is not as ignorant as it seems,but apparently that is (as I suspected) not the case.... I mean,I know perhaps why they would think so,perhaps they had a few bad experiences and only focus on the racist people,but to assume that most or even all are like that....wow. Again,not surprising. And I know that this does not reflect on all people or people of a certain group (that would be an irrational and ignorant assumption,especially since there are people of all groups that think so..)...it's just that,hopefully,they can actually be exposed to different people and see that not all people in said group are that way...I can't even say most. But to assume that most are that way...or to even assume all...it just...wow. Talk about ignorance and bias much....

@batman242: What was Trayvon doing that justified him being killed?

beating zimmerman a$$. zimmerman claimed self defense meaning trayvon attacked him. if that is the case, then zimmerman had every right to shoot.

@sheenlantern: Um, yes. It could. People change. Not saying Zimmerman did, but it's possible. Especially in a 7 year time period. Are you saying once a racist always a racist?

@batman242 The law. He was on top of Zimmerman punching him and pounding his head into the concrete. The Stand Your Ground law in Florida gives you authority to defend yourself which ever way you see fit when you fear your life is in danger.

Now, I am not saying that that law is a good one, but nevertheless, it's still a law. And that's why he is innocent.

@nefarious said:

He's half Peruvian, he is hispanic but he's not Mexican.

Either you didn't do your research or you just made a racist generalization that all hispanics are from Mexico.

@biteme_fanboy said:

WEEEEEEELLL he did kinda kill a guy just for being black.

@batman242: they are not saying zimmerman only is racist but the system. why would you bring 5 white women to be the jury?? the lawyer made a frickin knock knock joke for pete sake a knock knock joke WTF

@sheenlantern: I didn't make a racist generalization.

Don't the phone calls say that Zimmerman was following him, then that he turned around, got his gun, then approached him, then Trayvon fought (defending himself I guess), then got shot.

@willpayton: you are still missing the point of the vid

<sigh>

Again, the intelligence level of discussions on CV amazes me.

I dont care about the point of the vid.

It's some idiot using his young daughter to recreate a murder, where he stands over here and simulates beating her to death. This is child abuse.

@willpayton said:

What, so a guy who kills someone just for being black isn't racist?

Well, honestly, it shouldn't matter the ethnicity of the jury. Because, they should be fair, logical and rational no matter the case.

I don't care about the race thing really, I'm trying to understand why a man killed a child.

What evidence is there to indicate Zimmerman shot Martin because of his race?

@batman242: Zimmerman saw a suspicious figure checking out some houses. The neighborhood had been targetted by a recent chain of robberies. He called the police, then followed Martin down the street to tell the dispatcher where he's headed. Trayvon then attacked him, so Zimmerman did what any reasonable person would do and defended himself.

Zimmerman followed him which is legal

got his gun: which is legal

approached him which is legal

then trayvon fought(defending himself i guess) that is where i all gets blurry. as i said, everything up to that point was stupid on zimmerman part but legal. the prosecution had to PROVE that zimmerman took his life with malice. How can you prove that when Trayvon can't tell his side of the story?

Sorry. I disagree 100%.

He didn't kill a guy because he was black. I don't know what Zimmerman was thinking when he decide to follow Trayvon. It could might as well have been 'Hey that's a black guy, he is up to no good' (even though black people lived in that neighborhood). When, complaints of break ins in the neighborhood were being reported, the guy was doing his job, whether it was a suspicious black, white, mexican, or asian guy.

But Zimmerman didn't shoot Trayvon because he was a 'suspicious black guy'. He followed him, when told not to, Yes I agree that was stupid. He returned to his car when he lost sight of Trayvon. Trayvon approached him (when he should have returned to his fathers g/f's apartment and called the police if he was so upset), a fight started, Trayvon was on top beating the hell out of Zimmerman, Zimmerman shot him.

So, if it was a mexican, white, asian, etc. guy on top of him beating the hell out of him in that same situation, Zimmerman wouldn't have shot them?

Come on, man.

Ahhh, now it makes more sense. The thing with these cases are people only see one side of the story and believe that to be true. Thanks for showing me the other side.... I mean not really the other side, but minus the race and other unnecessary things.

But then see, what are you gonna do if someone comes at you? and I'm not saying with a gun. Just approaches you at night when you just came from the store.

Wow....sadly this is the truth.Racism/Sexism still exists...

I mean,as you said,it doesn't represent everywhere,but it's still the truth that many people are still....biased in some way (race,sex,sexual orientation..etc.The video didn't show and couldn't show the last one,but still,point is is that they all exist).

I mean,it does happen to like every race (contrary to what ignorant people think),but that doesn't make it better.It's just as bad imo.

However,it would've been a bit better (even though it may not have really worked being that they would have suspected something) if they were to have some of the same people,since not everyone is really the same or reacts the same way. I mean some of the people may have been different and regardless of race,would've reacted the same way,while others....not so much.

@novi_homines

My follow up question to that is: If Trayvon were white, but had on the same exact outfit, would Zimmerman have found him to be suspicious? Would he have even gave him a second glance if he saw that his skin were white? Food for thought.

Perhaps he would,perhaps he wouldn't have...I don't really know much on Zimmerman...I have to read up more on the case...