The Case of Trayvon Martin

Started by SakamotoHD, July 14, 2013, 12:17:59 AM

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Cyrano Johnson

Quote from: Slywyn on July 14, 2013, 08:21:00 PM
Look at the post above mine. A whole lot of "Everyone else does such horrible things". Nothing about "Maybe something about this problem comes from within". Sure, it was acknowledged "other people talk about it comes from within" but that doesn't stop the blame being thrown about on any and everyone else in just about every other post.

This is a little like claiming that talking about the responsibility of thieves for theft amounts to claiming that property owners are never responsible for taking security precautions. If someone says that reducing theft necessarily involves systemic punishment of thieves, and policing and legislation and court systems adequate to the task, it's a non sequitur to then come back and claim: "I'm sick of watching you people talk about how nobody should lock their doors. This discussion is all about let's blame thieves for theft, le'ts just blame everyone else for that BlueRay player you lost, and I don't care for this hostile tone." That would be strawmanning.

I leave to you the exercise of working out the applicability of this example to your remarks. Have a lovely evening.
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Neysha

#101
Having not paid attention in the slightest to the OJ, Micheal Jackson, Casey Anthony, Scott Peterson or Jodi Arias trial I must admit ivended up seeing a lot more of this trial comparatively. The near constant live access to the trial on the Racial Tension loving networks (except Fox News) helped but people seemed far more chatty about it as well.

The trial helped spark the mild problem of race relations and a vigorous debate on it. But also on self defense and crime when it pertains to juveniles, gun rights, police response, the politicalized hunt for justice and thanks to media glorification became the central focus of all those stirring topics.

But what I loved about this trial most was that it shows how awesome mob pressure is. Without mobs of people passionately demanding justice, Zimmerman wouldve never seen trial. But he also likely wouldve never gotten the silly high standard of being charged for murder instead of manslaughter or a lesser charge. As Alan Dershowitz stated a year ago, bringing murder charges was a dumb thing to do. But politicians wanted to satiate the publics demand for figurative blood and so murder charges it was. (Manslaughter too but its not surprising they didnt go with that considering how the trial was framed)

So as expected by most, Zimmerman walks and outside of Trayvon Martins immediate circle everyone wins. Lawyers always win. Media wins. Race baiters on both sides win. And so does the public at large. I learned a lot about legal stuff I didnt care learning about before and had so many darkly humorous conversations about it with friends and coworkers that I do feel enriched after its all over.

Hopefully the mob somewhat responsible for the acquittal will be respectful and peaceful in the wake of this as they so far have it seems.
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Kythia

I think part of the problem is there seems - outsider looking in - to be a whole load of codewords for racism in US politics.  I remember in the last presidential election Romney was attacked as being racist for his position on welfare reforms.  I've also heard that mandatory minimum sentences are racist, along with attacks on the HUD.

And honestly, all of those examples have left me going "huh?  What's racist about that?"  Not that Im saying they're not, people who's opinions I trust say it is and I lack the inclination to go further than that.  But it does mean that if you miss the subtext of something like the stand your ground law or any of my above examples then its incredibly easy to, legitimately and in good faith, utterly fail to see what is presumably quite apparent racism.
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meikle

Quote from: Slywyn on July 14, 2013, 12:02:42 PMMartin punching him first is extremely relevant.

The issue is that we don't know that Trayvon attacked first.  We only have the word of the person who put the killing bullet in him to corroborate that.
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gaggedLouise

Quote from: meikle on July 15, 2013, 06:31:54 AM
The issue is that we don't know that Trayvon attacked first.  We only have the word of the person who put the killing bullet in him to corroborate that.

This, and also the presence of threats, challenges and half-open violence in a situation like this one won't always translate into finding out who was the first to punch with their fists or raise a weapon. It's exactly the same with gang rape, by the way; a woman who is surrounded, approached or followed by men who circle her or pretend to be her buddies while really acting half-intimidating is not likely to openly call out for help, nor - if she actually is willing to stand her ground - is she likely to wait until the first real strike by one of them and then suddenly begin to defend herself like a judo girl.

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Trieste

#105
Quote from: Kythia on July 14, 2013, 09:21:37 PM
I think part of the problem is there seems - outsider looking in - to be a whole load of codewords for racism in US politics.  I remember in the last presidential election Romney was attacked as being racist for his position on welfare reforms.  I've also heard that mandatory minimum sentences are racist, along with attacks on the HUD.

And honestly, all of those examples have left me going "huh?  What's racist about that?"  Not that Im saying they're not, people who's opinions I trust say it is and I lack the inclination to go further than that.  But it does mean that if you miss the subtext of something like the stand your ground law or any of my above examples then its incredibly easy to, legitimately and in good faith, utterly fail to see what is presumably quite apparent racism.

It has to do with the perception of who is affected by them. For instance, if you are under the assumption that the majority of people who are receiving welfare benefits are minorities, it's easy to accuse you of being motivated by racism if you put forth the idea of 'reform' (which is generally seen as GOP codespeak for "gut the fuck out of") because you are proposing things that will disproportionately affect minorities.

Now, every statistic that I have seen has said that a majority of welfare recipients are actually white, and according to the US Bureau of Prisons the majority of US inmate populations are white as well. So implementing minimum sentences and gutting welfare wouldn't in actuality disproportionately affect minorities, specifically black individuals*, but due to the perception that the majority of prisoners and welfare recipients are non-white ...

You probably get the picture.

meikle

#106
Quote from: Kythia on July 14, 2013, 09:21:37 PMAnd honestly, all of those examples have left me going "huh?  What's racist about that?"

To cite a really obvious example, did you know that for a long time, crack cocaine the penalties for using, selling, or carrying crack cocaine was 100 times greater than using, selling, or carrying powder cocaine, despite the fact that crack cocaine is the exact same drug, even according to the Controlled Substances Act?

Did you know that the only major difference between crack cocaine and powder cocaine was that crack cocaine was popular among poor black communities, and powder cocaine was popular among wealthy white people? 

This is an excellent example of how our legal system can be and often is racially biased.
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gaggedLouise

@Trieste:
But how about the percentage of the black and white national population, respectively, that's in jail? Surely the share of blacks landing on death row or being on a long prison term is much larger than the corresponding portion of the white population? Then again, that leaves open just why this is happening.

I get the dog-whistle/password politics thing though, and there are similar phenomena in political talk in Europe.

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Trieste

Quote from: gaggedLouise on July 15, 2013, 06:57:04 AM
@Trieste:
But how about the percentage of the black and white national population, respectively, that's in jail? Surely the share of blacks landing on death row or being on a long prison term is much larger than the corresponding portion of the white population? Then again, that leaves open just why this is happening.

I get the dog-whistle/password politics thing though, and there are similar phenomena in political talk in Europe.

I remember being surprised when I was looking over some census data for something else to find that the US is still something like 65% non-Hispanic white, and only about 20% of the population identified as being black. I would have pegged it as much higher. (And yes, something like 30% of prisoners identify as black - the population spread in prisons doesn't reflect the demographic spread of the population in the US in general.)

As I said, it's a complicated thing.

... political euphemisms are hardly a new thing, though, and I would have called shenanigans on you if you tried to say they were strictly a US thing. ;D

gaggedLouise

Quote from: Trieste on July 15, 2013, 07:09:04 AM
... political euphemisms are hardly a new thing, though, and I would have called shenanigans on you if you tried to say they were strictly a US thing. ;D


Decidedly not, though hot shenanigans with someone like Trie might be worth goading for.  ;)

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meikle

#110
QuoteNow, every statistic that I have seen has said that a majority of welfare recipients are actually white, and according to the US Bureau of Prisons the majority of US inmate populations are white as well. So implementing minimum sentences and gutting welfare wouldn't in actuality disproportionately affect minorities, specifically black individuals*, but due to the perception that the majority of prisoners and welfare recipients are non-white ...

This doesn't actually mean that the decisions aren't racially motivated, however.  "White people will vote against their best interests if it means hurting their black neighbors more" is basically the heart and soul of the Republicans' Southern Strategy. 

A Republican political strategist and consultant to Reagan and HW Bush put it thusly:  "You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' — that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me — because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'"

It's not going to be easy for them to shake a heritage of casual racism, and it's hard to suggest (not to say that you did, Trieste) that racism isn't part of the Republican platform when the heroes of the party leaned on it so openly.
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Skynet

#111
Quote from: meikle on July 15, 2013, 06:55:17 AM
To cite a really obvious example, did you know that for a long time, crack cocaine the penalties for using, selling, or carrying crack cocaine was 100 times greater than using, selling, or carrying powder cocaine, despite the fact that crack cocaine is the exact same drug, even according to the Controlled Substances Act?

Did you know that the only major difference between crack cocaine and powder cocaine was that crack cocaine was popular among poor black communities, and powder cocaine was popular among wealthy white people? 

This is an excellent example of how our legal system can be and often is racially biased.

You can thank Ronald Reagan's War on Drugs for that.  Also around this time, Republicans were supporting South African apartheid (and a lot of them were the same ones who were segregationists in the 60s).  And Reagan popularized the Welfare Queen myth: the idea that a black woman multi-millionaire cheated the system and lived in a mansion with fancy cars.

On welfare, Rick Santorum in the 2012 campaign said that he "didn't want to improve the lives of black people with welfare by giving them another's money."  Despite saying this in a state where 80-90% of those on welfare were white, and he singled out African-Americans in particular.

It's pretty scary that the further you look into the GOP, the more you realize that a lot of the "strawman caricatures" about them are true.

Valthazar

#112
Quote from: Trieste on July 15, 2013, 07:09:04 AM
I remember being surprised when I was looking over some census data for something else to find that the US is still something like 65% non-Hispanic white, and only about 20% of the population identified as being black. I would have pegged it as much higher. (And yes, something like 30% of prisoners identify as black - the population spread in prisons doesn't reflect the demographic spread of the population in the US in general.)

Where did you find these numbers?  I looked this up from 2010 census, but maybe you have a more current one, and found that, "African Americans make up 13.6 percent of the U.S. population according to census data, but black men reportedly make up 40.2 percent of all prison inmates."

But I am under the impression that they differentiate between African-American and Hispanic Black, so most likely both percentages are slightly higher - total population and prison population, if simply looking at all blacks.

http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-06.pdf

Trieste

Quote from: ValthazarElite on July 15, 2013, 01:08:17 PM
Where did you find these numbers?  I looked this up from 2010 census, but maybe you have a more current one, and found that, "African Americans make up 13.6 percent of the U.S. population according to census data, but black men reportedly make up 40.2 percent of all prison inmates."

But I am under the impression that they differentiate between African-American and Hispanic Black, so most likely both percentages are slightly higher - total population and prison population, if simply looking at all blacks.

http://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/briefs/c2010br-06.pdf

I was taking them separately, and from memory. I was quoting rough numbers to illustrate the point that the demographic spread in prisons does not reflect the demographic spread in the population in general. My numbers and your numbers agree on this point, the only difference seeming to be the extent to which they differ. The inmate percentage came from the US Bureau of Prisons (most recent numbers here, as far as I can tell) and the percentage of blacks in the US came from the 2010 census, yes. (It should be noted that my memory-numbers were off by various percentages, which was expected and which was why I made it clear that they were estimates. ::) )

The census differentiates between white Hispanic and white, as well as between black Hispanic and black. There was actually a whole section under Hispanic that was six or seven lines long, each differentiating ____ Hispanic. It was really interesting.

Kythia

So, forgive my ignorance, but what precisely makes one Hispanic?
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Oniya

Per the Census Bureau:

QuotePeople who identify with the terms “Hispanic” or “Latino” are those who classify themselves in one of the specific Hispanic or Latino categories listed on the decennial census questionnaire and various Census Bureau survey questionnaires – “Mexican, Mexican Am., Chicano” or ”Puerto Rican” or “Cuban” – as well as those who indicate that they are “another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin." Origin can be viewed as the heritage, nationality group, lineage, or country of birth of the person or the person’s ancestors before their arrival in the United States. People who identify their origin as Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish may be of any race

It's kind of circular, though.
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Trieste

It's kind of a complex question. >.>

Valthazar

You're right, it is a complex question and one that isn't very scientific.  I know the census now has different categories called 2+ races, etc, but they still keep the African-American category.

For example, if a black person and a white person have a kid, chances are very strong that the kid will identify more as being black, and this trend is less strong but still prominent among Hispanic/White, and Asian/White couples. 

Oniya

A lot also depends on how close the parents are to their respective families.  There's a strong cultural element involved as well as the 'simpler' lineage element.
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Callie Del Noire

Whereas there is no entry for 'Mixed scotch/irish/welsh/native american' (aka Mutt) for me.

Luckily though.. not a lot of post decision violence going on from the decision.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/1688197/lester-chambers-attacked-after-dedicating-song-to-trayvon-martin-family
is the only one I've heard.

Oniya

That's a weird song for her to go BSC over...  I hopped over to YouTube to look it up, and it reminded me a little of Cat Stevens' 'Peace Train' the way that Curtis Mayfield sang it.
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Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Oniya on July 15, 2013, 05:42:24 PM
That's a weird song for her to go BSC over...  I hopped over to YouTube to look it up, and it reminded me a little of Cat Stevens' 'Peace Train' the way that Curtis Mayfield sang it.

I don't get why ANYONE at a Lester Chambers event would wig out like that anyway. He's a gentleman.


Valthazar

Quote from: Skynet on July 15, 2013, 06:46:16 PM
Fox News must be so disappointed right now.

What does a statement like this achieve?  Every network is inherently biased in its own way - some of which you may agree with, others which you may not agree with.  I know the majority of people here are more liberal, but when you make remarks like this, you are doing the same thing that you are claiming Fox to be doing.

Oniya

Locked at OP's request.  Further discussion can be continued in a new thread.
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I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
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