The Trayvon Martin Case, Update 36.7: I Have A Dream…

WELL, THIS WILL HELP THE CAUSE OF RACIAL HARMONY! From Brietbart.com: 

A mural of a man who looks like George Zimmerman shooting a likeness of Trayvon Martin was unveiled Friday at the state Capitol of Florida.

A mirror sits in the spot under a hoodie where Trayvon Martin’s face would be, bordered by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s face decorated with streaks of blood.

Miami artist Huong created the 10-foot mural, which carries the message, ‘We are all Trayvon Martin.

What small-minded, angry people strive to stir up hatred and division.  We would be well served to remember the words of Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural addess:  “With malice toward none, with charity toward all…”  There was a cause.  The continuing deification of Trayvon Martin serves no purpose other than keeping America in a perpetual state of unwarranted and destructive outrage.

And whatever happened to good taste?

HIP HOP HYPOCRISY: Most modern cultural “movements” are, sadly, harmful.  All too often they exploit the passions of the young for profit and for no cause other than an anarchic desire to see destruction and misery.  They hold up as praiseworthy that which is least worthy of praise.  From the CBS affiliate in Tampa, Florida: 

Artistic Element’s Roman Abrego – the tattoo artist for rapper and reality TV show star The Game –shared through Instagram video The Game’s new tattoo. It shows Martin’s hooded photo in permanent ink on his leg. The hooded picture of Martin has been a sign of symbolism at different protests, where many wore one dedicated to the victim…

While the Martin family, famous politicians and protesters fight to have the ‘stand-your ground’ law removed, others are using their entertainment status to make a difference.

A difference?  Ah!  They’re calling for calm reflection?  A rational study of the law?  Recognition of our common humanity?  Acknowledgement of the real personal and social pathologies that cause so many young black men to kill each other?  Naaah.

Martin’s hoodie was merely a garment he happened to be wearing.  It had no real significance beyond that in the Zimmerman case. Florida’s “stand your ground” provision had nothing to do with the case.  Race had no bearing on the case.  And any rational examination of Martin’s behavior and crudely expressed thuggish interests reveals that he was anything but an example of admirable, promising youth.

But there is a buck to be made and celebrity to be had…

FOOTBALL NOT COVERING ITSELF IN GLORY: At one time, college football coaches were people who were respected because they upheld the virtues of honor, hard work, dedication and integrity that have always been essential for an informed, decent citizenry.  They labored to inspire young athletes to grow up to be admirable, respectable men and contributors to society.  Not any more.  From espn.go.com:  

The Florida A&M Rattlers have named Trayvon Martin’s father an honorary captain after a moving speech he gave the team on Sunday, coach Earl Holmes told the Orlando Sentinel.

Tracy Martin will perform the pregame coin toss for FAMU’s season opener against Mississippi Valley State on Sept. 1, as part of the honors, the Orlando newspaper reported.

Coach Earl Holmes gushed about Martin’s speech:

He had some inspiring words and the guys played off of that. And we’re going to keep pushing for him and his foundation. He’ll be an honorary captain for us this year and he’s welcome anytime.

The Orland Sentinel was equally mushy and culturally clueless: 

I think what he’s doing with the foundation is big and it speaks volumes and I want the football team and FAMU Nation to be part of that.’

The purpose of the foundation, according to its website trayvonmartinfoundation.org, is to create awareness about how violent crime impacts the families of the victims and to provide support for those families.

‘At the end of the day, whether it’s good, bad or indifferent, a parent lost a child. He can live through us and we’re going to push on for him,’ Holmes said. ‘That was very, very powerful meeting and a powerful message he gave to the kids. You could see it . . . the guys’ eyes just lit up.

Let’s review: Tracy Martin (that’s him, second from the right) was, at best, an absentee father, and when he was around, he apparently helped Trayvon to buy illegal guns.  Tracy was the type of “adult” who flashed gang sign and hung out with people living that life.  And Trayvon is going to “live though us,” the football team, and they’re going “to push on for him.”  Push on to what purpose?  Drug use?  Speaking crudely of women? Burglary?  Assault?  This is what made “…the guy’s eyes just [light] up”?  No wonder more and more professional athletes end up as felons.

Bernard Goldberg

MEDIA CRITICISM:  Bernard Goldberg had a long career at CBS News, and is now a media critic.  In writing about the Zimmerman case, even he got some of the facts wrong, but he is right about the media’s treatment of the case.  He writes: 

Television host Tavis Smiley, who also is black, was also on television Sunday morning.  He told George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s This Week,  “For many Americans [the verdict] is another piece of evidence of the incontrovertible contempt that this nation often shows and displays for black men.”

Stephanopoulos, being a polite white liberal man, of course didn’t say, “Black men are doing a pretty good job of showing incontrovertible contempt for each other in our nation.  Have you checked the crime statistics for Chicago on any given weekend? The Ku Klux Klan isn’t killing those young black men.  Black thugs are.”

So-called civil rights leaders, like Al Sharpton, painted a picture of a black teenager walking home and being attacked by a white vigilante for absolutely no reason except that the boy was black – and, of course, because the shooter was sort of white.  If Sharpton and the others talked about the fight that immediately led up to the shooting, I missed it.  Instead, they preferred to peddle a fairy tale version of what happened.  They left out the ugly stuff – that there was plenty of reason to believe Trayvon Martin was on top of George Zimmerman pummeling his head into the concrete sidewalk right before Zimmerman fired his gun.  And, of course, none of the mostly white, mostly liberal anchors, said, “Hold on, you’re leaving something very important out of your story.”

This is what is known as showing good racial manners.  It’s how white people behave to show that they’re not bigots like all those other white people.  Never mind that treating black people like delicate flowers is a kind of soft bigotry all by itself.  All that matters is that white people – white liberals, mostly – feel better … about themselves.

Goldberg speaks to media hypocrisy and its desire to pedal The Narrative:

Every weekend in big cities across America numerous black kids shoot and often kill each other.  None of these stories get very much national media attention and none of them get wall-to-wall TV coverage the way the Zimmerman trial did.  Is this because liberal white journalists don’t put the same value on black lives as they do on white lives?  It sure looks that way.

Let’s end by stating the obvious:  The single biggest reason the trial got so much attention is because it played into a narrative, a false one to be sure, but one that many blacks and many white liberals love to perpetuate.  It’s the Great American Drama about how white people get away with not only oppressing black people, but even get away with killing them.  Isn’t that what Tavis Smiley meant when he said, ““For many Americans [the verdict] is another piece of evidence of the incontrovertible contempt that this nation often shows and displays for black men.”

Someone needs to tell Mr. Smiley, the Reverend Sharpton, the civil rights establishment and white liberals both in and out of the media that we are no longer living in 1955 Mississippi. If there is a crime involving two races today, the victim is most likely going to be white and the criminal is most likely going to be black – not the other way around.  That may be one more thing polite people aren’t supposed to say out loud – and certainly not in public.

NO PUBLIC DEBATE IS COMPLETE WITHOUT THE INPUT OF QUEER FEMINIST SCHOLARS: Or at least, that’s what I’ve always thought.  Campusreform.org provides the information, but predictably, no enlightenment from Dr. Erica R. Meiners, who is a professor at Northeastern Illinois University in the–c’mon, guess!  I know you can do it!–that’s right, in the “Gender and women’s Studies Department.”  Speaking on a panel of “queer feminist scholars,” she said: 

[T]he web of interconnected histories and contexts that made it possible for George Zimmerman to shoot Trayvon Martin and walk away cannot be separated from white supremacy, colonialism, heteromasculinity, and capitalism.

These killing threads shape the world we inhabit.

An article published in the Windy City Times, titled ‘Event looks at Trayvon Martin case through queer, feminist eyes,’ pointed out that all of the panelists were ‘queer and feminist scholars.

Oh dear.  Well, I’m heterosexual and male, so I guess that can’t be separated from white supremacy, capitalism and colonialism and the interconnected histories and contexts arising therefrom which probably also leads to calling oneself odd names, shaping the world with killing threads, and spouting incomprehensible academic drivel.  We really pay people like this to teach in colleges?  Oh yes, gentle readers, and we pay them very well.  You might want to check out this on Ward Churchill to get a taste of this sort of person.

DAMN THE DOUBLE JEOPARDY: FULL RACIAL GRIEVANCE AHEAD!

A new motion has been filed in the George Zimmerman case.  Hey, wasn’t he acquitted of the murder charge?  Quite so, but a motion has been filed nonetheless.  Andrew Branca at Legal Insurrection tells us: 

An amicus curiae brief has been filed in support of a motion to re-try George Zimmerman for second-degree murder. The full brief is embedded at the bottom of this post.  (“Amicus curiae” literally means “friend of the court”, not a party to the action.)

Not only that, the brief argues that the prosecuting team should be found guilty of professional misconduct (no argument there), that they should therefore be disqualified from re-trying the case, and that a new prosecution team should be selected for this re-trial. And by whom should this new team of prosecutors be chosen? Why, by Martin family lawyer Benjamin Crump and cohorts. Naturally.

A PDF of the brief may be found here, for those in search of legal yuks, and/or the truly masochistic.  And who has filed this brief?

Before we get to the merits (ha-ha) of this brief, it might be worth taking a look at who authored this legal filing. Certainly not Angela Corey’s team who are called out as incompetent in the document. Was it Governor Scott, finally recognizing the enormous blunder that was the assignment of Corey to this case? No. Was it perhaps the Federal Department of Justice, seeking to relieve Sharpton’s racist tumescence by any means necessary? No, after some early jawing the DOJ has pretty much disappeared from this matter, as anticipated. Was it perhaps even Benjamin Crump himself? No again.

The filing was made by someone identifying themselves as Cleve L. Molette, residing at 4552 Old Dixie Hwy #272, Forest Park, GA 30297. Curiously, there was no bar association number, which lawyer’s routinely include on their filings, suggesting that Mr. Molette is not himself an attorney. Laughably, Mr. Molette includes as his email address “imtreyy@yahoo.com”.  (Get it? “I am Trayvon.”).

Mr. Molette, it turns out, is a registered sex offender in Georgia (access his file here)  and the prototypical jailhouse lawyer.  I normally wouldn’t mention such things, but Mr. Molette–surprisingly enough–happens to be black–not that that has anything to do with this case or its aftermath, not at all.

The news of a new motion filing in the case set off quite a stir for a time, and Mr. Branca provides all of the pertinent legal issues in his article.  Suffice it to say that once the state has taken its shot and failed, as it did in spectacular fashion in the Zimmerman case, that’s it.  There is no second charge and trial regardless of the reason.  It’s that darned Fifth Amendment getting in the way of social justice again!  Sorry Mr. Molette—oh and Mr. Crump and the other members of the Scheme Team as well.

SO IT REALLY WASN’T ABOUT RACE? The Zimmerman case was not, of course, about race at all.  Even the Prosecution, desperate to use any underhanded tactic possible, couldn’t quite bring themselves to play the race card, though they did give it a few bad tries on the margins.  Yet the usual racial and progressive suspects will never allow truth and fact to get in the way of The Narrative.  John Hinderaker at Powerline comments:

Who could have imagined that the summer of 2013 would be largely dominated by stories about racial conflict? To be sure, today’s stories aren’t exactly like the original long, hot summer of 1967, when race riots burned sections of major American cities. And no one is getting lynched or barred from attending school.

Today’s race stories are odd in that they don’t seem to have much to do with race at all. First on the list, of course, is the George Zimmerman murder trial. The case was cast as one that was all about race, but it wasn’t, as the jury recognized. It was a case about a misbehaving teenager who had been suspended from high school for burglary and thought he was a tough guy, who made the mistake of attacking a man who was carrying a gun and beating him to a point where he was in fear for his life. The encounter would have ended the same way had Trayvon Martin been white or, like Zimmerman, Hispanic. And yet America’s ‘civil rights’ leadership grabbed hold of the Martin-Zimmerman case like a life preserver.

Quite so, Mr. Hinderaker.  I have a dream that one day, little white bloggers and little black bloggers will no longer have to write about the dishonest and race hustlers (but I repeat myself) using the Zimmerman case to push disreputable agendas and making utter maroons of themselves.  It will be awhile, but one day…

IT’S FOR A GOOD CAUSE, SO WHAT THE HECK: LETS LIE OUR ASSES OFF! The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence has never allowed the truth to stop them in their efforts to deprive the law-abiding of Second Amendment rights, and like carrion eaters everywhere (see Rahm Emmanuel and Barack Obama), they see the Zimmerman case as just such an opportunity.  Legal Insurrection has the embedded video.

In brief, their video uses actual audio from the Zimmerman non-emergency dispatch recording layered over an entirely deceptive video  “recreation” of the shooting.  It shows a standing Zimmerman figure drawing his handgun while standing some distance from a standing Martin figure, and shows what appears to be hundreds of prostrate bodies on the ground.

Several examples of the aural deception (all of the video elements are a lie):

With ‘Stand Your Ground’ (aka ‘Shoot First’) laws, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and its partners in the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) have turned 3,000 years of jurisprudence on its head. Now you can provoke a fight, and if losing that fight, kill the person you attacked.

This is, of course, absolutely false.  Not only was Florida’s stand your ground provision not relevant to the Zimmerman case, the CSGV completely and maliciously misstates the law and its application.  Zimmerman was the victim of a criminal assault, and wasn’t losing a fight, he was being beaten to death.

The NRA’s laws represent a dangerous and unprecedented escalation in the use of force in the public space, allowing individuals to kill when they merely fear ‘great bodily harm’ (i.e., a fistfight, shoving match, etc.).

This too is entirely false and misstates the facts of the Zimmerman case where there was never a fight.  The laws regarding the use of deadly force in legitimate self-defense apply equally in private and public spaces, and suggesting that an irrational fear of harm justifies deadly force is grotesquely false.  If that were true, why did George Zimmerman have to stand trial for second-degree murder?  That, the expenses involved, and the life-long consequences he and his family will endure are hardly the consequence-free ability to kill the CSGV so blithely suggests.

Those of us who have been following the Second Amendment debate for decades know that no misstatement, deception or lie is out of bounds for anti-gun forces.  This may be, in its own category, a new low, however.

NO! THE MEDIA WOULD NEVER DO THAT! Oh yes they would.  In following this case I’ve been dismayed, but not surprised, to see the Orlando Sentinel’s coverage.  Reporter Rene Stutzman often got the facts right, but ignored almost all reporting that might have been favorable to the defense, and the paper’s progressive bias often shone brightly.  It now appears there was a very specific reason.  The Conservative Treehouse reports: 

When Rene Stutzman, a reporter for The Orlando Sentinel, informed me about the editorial board deciding ‘what’ content would be ‘permitted to be discussed’, within the Trayvon Martin reporting of her newspaper, I had no idea the Senior Vice-President / Director of Content was African American.

Nor did I know the editor she was talking about, Mark Russell, was also African American.

It just never crossed my mind to ask.

Now I see two articles (here and here), discussing who was actually behind those decisions she was speaking toward, it all begins to make sense.

The editor in charge of the Sentinel was Mark Russell. Obviously, based on the extreme position taken by the editor and shared with me via Stutzman, the position was such that no aspect of Trayvon Martin’s background would be covered by the paper.  It was clearly a racial position.

A position amplified by the fact the Director of Content, Avido Khahaifa, would also be the key decision maker, and who was/is also demanding his reporters filter the news on the basis of race first.

Some people think that media people get together in editorial meetings every morning and actively discuss how they’re going to screw conservatives and further progressive causes.  This is rare indeed, not because such people would never do such a thing, but because it’s simply not necessary.

Indeed, there have been some obvious exceptions to this general rule, such as the “JournaList” debacle.  Ezra Klein of the Washington Post was exposed as the driving force behind an e-mail listserve–JournoList–where liberals, including reporters across the nation, discussed and established progressive talking points and the strategies necessary to use them.  When its existence and purpose became widely known, lo and behold, it became obvious that the same liberal talking points would mysteriously appear in media across the nation after they had been discussed on JournoList.  Imagine that.

That was an exception to the rule.  Such daily, or even regular, discussions are not necessary because newsrooms are full of like-minded people, often without a single conservative or even middle-of-the-road political thinker to be found.  When everyone thinks precisely the same way about political and social issues, indeed, when they can’t be hired or remain employed if they don’t, it’s just not necessary to discuss such matters.  Everyone knows what to do, as most of the media did in the Zimmerman case.

But at the Orlando Sentinel, the editors actively controlled the content of one of the biggest stories the paper had ever seen, and of course, in the service of The Narrative.

By all means, read the whole thing.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

George Zimmerman visited the Kel-Tec plant in Cocoa, FL recently.  It was a Kel-Tec 9mm handgun Zimmerman used to save his life.  Due to Eric Holder’s DOJ, that handgun is currently being held in case the DOJ decides to try Zimmerman for–something or other.

Kel-Tec KSG, 12 Gauge Shotgun

Zimmerman reportedly inquired about the Kel-Tec KSG, a bullpup configuration shotgun.  This is truly a non-story, which ABC News actually more or less admitted:

Zimmerman’s brother, Robert, told ABCNews.com in an email that the visit is a ‘non-story.’

‘Grown men buy guns or shop for guns or visit gun manufacturers every day,’ he said.

In the days after his acquittal, Zimmerman’s lead attorney, Mark O’Mara, said that his client had no regrets about carrying a gun the night he killed Martin and that Zimmerman intended to rearm himself and ‘needs it now more than ever.

Some are suggesting that Zimmerman should essentially become a hermit.  If he only found a cave somewhere in a remote mountain range and disappeared for the rest of his life, that would somehow be an appropriate lifestyle.  Others are outraged that he has actually appeared in public from time to time.  What kind of person, after being acquitted of a criminal charge that should have never been brought in the first place, would dare show his face in public.  Why, it’s, it’s indecent!

George Zimmerman is a relatively young man thrust into extraordinary circumstances.  He was forced to take a life to save his life, something no one should ever have to endure, but something everyone should be prepared to do.  That does not, for a moment, mean that the aftermath is easy, or that everyone living through it will always act with the grace and dignity of a saint, particularly when the media just won’t let go of the non-story and millions are more than willing to express their opinions of Zimmerman and his actions, whether the information that forms the basis of those opinions is accurate or not.

George Zimmerman should be allowed to do outrageous, dastardly things like shop for groceries, drive a car, complete his education, or even visit a gun manufacturer or dealer, particularly visiting a gun manufacturer or dealer.  If anybody ever needed to exercise their liberty under the Second Amendment, it’s George Zimmerman, and all for saving his life within the boundaries of the law.

Isn’t it passing strange that anyone would find that–living a semi-normal life or saving one’s life–remarkable or objectionable?  Isn’t it odd that anyone would make a living writing about it?