Ah. I get it now.
First of all, it's wrong. Blacks are targets more than gays, hippies, the poor, whoever..by far.
Second, us losing our shit doesn't preclude other groups of people having a major beef. "Well, I shouldn't get too upset, because other folks get a raw deal" ain't gonna fly here.
edited 4th Apr '12 11:44:51 AM by TheStarshipMaxima
It was an honorExpanded.
The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.You act as though these things are mutually exclusive.
The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.There's thing called internalized racism, and some black police officers actively invoke it. There's actually a character in the movie Boyz in the Hood that serves as a pretty realistic example of how authority and internalized hatred can blend into one another. And of course, we have numerous examples of this occurring throughout history such as black slave catchers hunting down members of their own tribe, Jews selling secrets to the Nazis in exchange for safety, etc. Humans Are Bastards, The Quisling and all that jazz.
De Marquis made a good point about what I believe is the nucleus of this issue. Race relations, age relations (more specifically, the disconnect between the young and the old) are both important factors to consider, but the main conflict here seems to be that we have a problem being able to tell the difference between self-defense and excessive use of force. Of all the martial arts seminars and classes I've attended and taught, it never ceases to amaze me how people will invent reasons to use excessive force.
I also don't believe it's entirely coincidental that this incident falls on the heels of a fairly volatile societal dynamic in which we probably haven't been more paranoid since the Cold War. 9/11, the subsequent Patriot Act, rising tensions on issues of gay marriage and religious tolerance and an exhaustive war on two fronts have all contributed to a particularly trigger-happy, fear-induced general public. It's anecdotal, I know, but I've seen enough students in class to assert this belief. The number of people taking classes in hand-to-hand fighting has steadily risen since 9/11 along with firearms purchases and food stockpiling. That whole 2012 nonsense isn't helping, either.
What does this have to do with Zimmerman? I'm not sure, honestly, but we might be overanalyzing his motivations for shooting Martin, and it really could be that he just got some sort of high or adrenaline rush from following and shooting him. It would morbidly exciting to do something like that. I have a few reservations about Dave Grossman, but his research on what he calls "killology" demonstrates many interesting elements that might explain the incident we're discussing. Violence in the modern American imagination is quite different from the kill-or-be-killed prehistoric stereotype of our ancestors, and there is some immense confusion about the subtle legal and moral definitions of justifiable self-defense. More importantly, now is a good time for us to start asking some difficult and uncomfortable questions about the average citizen's capacity for discerning justifiable use of force, and right now, it's looking pretty bleak.
Got ninja'd.
edited 4th Apr '12 12:00:34 PM by Aprilla
I haven't seen any of that.
And punctuation. Dude, it's not optional.
edited 4th Apr '12 12:00:00 PM by inane242
The 5 geek social fallacies. Know them well.18.5% were black. The black population was 12.6%
Are you saying that there are a higher saturation of black hate criminals because the statistic of the ones that do it is higher than the number of blacks proportionate to whites?
Because I don't think statistics work that way.
edited 4th Apr '12 12:26:21 PM by KingZeal
"No, a group of white people literally conspired to make slaves exclusively blacks followed by years of white people growing up with the notion that they are inherently better than blacks." -Dead man
You obviously don't understand how the slave trade worked. A portugese ship visited Africa and was sold slaves by a AFRICAN TRIBE. Then from there it built up. While, obviously, it wouldn't have existed without Whites buying slaves, neither would it have existed without Blacks enslaving each other.
On the topic at hand- the stats merely show that Blacks commit racist acts proportionally more often than whites. Make of that what you will.
edited 4th Apr '12 1:59:33 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaackWe still have almost no clue. Consensus is that the Police screwed up some and should have at least held him longer.
It's still unclear if he struck first. There was an unclear video that supposedly disproved injury to Zimm, but an enhanced version showed a cleaned-up wound to the back of his head and the police reported a broken nose and head injury. The cries of help that were recorded have been proven as mostly likely not being Zimmerman, but with no recording of Martin they cannot be sure it's him.
Other than that nothings really changed, unless you count the Black panthers putting a bounty on Zimmerman.
edited 4th Apr '12 2:08:24 PM by Joesolo
I'm baaaaaaackWhich isn't really relevant. There's also the phone call which Martin was having with his girlfriend leading up to the altercation, indicating that Martin was trying to get away from Zimmerman.
Very big Daydream Believer. "That's not knowledge, that's a crapshoot!" -Al Murray "Welcome to QI" -Stephen Fry

No, a group of white people literally conspired to make slaves exclusively blacks followed by years of white people growing up with the notion that they are inherently better than blacks.
The systematic oppression of blacks by the police is not exclusive to blacks. The oppress everyone. The poor, the gay, etc. The police are not composed of a single group of people. They are very diverse and so are the victims.
Please.