It is increasingly upsetting to me how the press incites riots in the United States by mis-reporting on incidents and playing on racial divides. Whether it be the Duke Lacross team that was later proven innocent or many other cases it needs to stop. Let’s dissect the latest such event.
THE PRESS INCITES- Initial reports come out that a racist white man shoots an honor student young man who was simply walking by with a drink and a bag of skittles on the way to his dad’s house. Reports are that he can be screaming for help on the 911 call. The police in Sanford Florida do not arrest or charge this man. What is going on, why is this racist killer of an unarmed black youth not in jail? Picture is posted that we all see over and over – George Zimmerman racist white guy in mug shot, Trayvon Martin when he was 14 and a cute kid, three years ago.
THE RESULTS – As a result, I get tons of facebook posts and emails about this horrible racist and the horrible police. I say I don’t really understand what is going on and want more information first. I am viewed as defending a racist. President Barack Obama says it is an injustice and the man should be convicted. The Black Panthers come out and offer a $1 million reward for the capture (kidnapping) of this man because they do not follow “white man’s justice.” A former black panther Congressman appears on the floor of the House in a hoodie. “Hoodie protests” sweep the nation. Spike Lee tweets what he thinks is the man’s address. He gets it wrong. It is an old man and woman that live there. They are attacked and harrassed and have to leave their home and go into hiding.
MORE INFORMATION: Suppose you had heard the police report first… George Zimmerman, a Mexican-Amercian man and Captain of His Neighborhood Watch was on patrol. There were an increase of robberies in his neighborhood. He had called the police 46 times during previous patrols without an incident. He had taken initial training to become a police officer. In his spare time, he tutors black kids on how to read in his home. He has black relatives. On patrol he sees someone wondering around, not from his neighborhood. He calls the police. While on the phone he follows the man who takes off running. He tells the police he thinks the man might have a gun in his belt. The police tell him to stop following and he does. He goes back to his car.
The youth then follows him to his car and asks, “You have a problem? George replies, “No.” The youth says, “You do now!” he punches George in the face, breaking his nose. He jumps on top of him and begins to slam George’s head into the ground over and over. George is the one heard on the 911 call yelling for help. He is afraid the boy is going to kill him. He asks a neighbor for help, and the man goes inside his house. In desperation as his head is battered, he pulls out his gun and shoots the boy, killing him.
The neighbor confirms the story and tells police he saw Trayvon on top of George beating the crap out of him with George yelling for help. Doctors examine George and find he has a broken nose, his skull is cut open badly on the back of his head from being slammed in the ground, and his clothes are stained with grass on his back. Trayvon had no injuries other than the one gun shot. Tayvon was in the neighborhood because he was under suspension from school for a drug violation. Suppose you had then seen these pictures:
Yes, the same two people. Racism enflamed by the press through guilty until proved innocent and public reputation lynchings are going to result in people getting killed and us being even more divided. When real racist acts occur, we need to jump right on them. But please, try to wait until the facts are out. The Duke Lacrosse players hired a black prostitute to provide them sex. She lied and said they raped her, beat her and drew a swastika on her head and called her the N word. She later recounted and said that was all a lie to get money. But how many of you know that? Most still believe it happened. We have enough terrible racism without fanning the flames of division over events that are not clearly racist.
I don’t know if George fired in self-defense or if he should be charged with manslaughter for over-reacting to a stranger in his neighborhood. I don’t know if he followed Trayvon because he was black. I don’t know if Trayvon attacked him because he was angry for being followed because he thought it was because he was black. I just know it was a tragedy. But the second tragedy is the way the press and our national figures have reacted, inciting hatred, racism and anger without all the facts.
Michael Bradley - Time Traveler 
I think this kind of thing really comes down to the fault of individual opinions following the popularized “news feed” of facebook and similar media outlets now. No one opinion is necessarily going to fully reflect the reality of the situation, but doing some individual research before forming one is certainly a good thrust in the right direction.
One of my favorite (read: infuriating) situations similar to this, recently- the debt accumulation chart, comparing the increase of public debt of the past decade’s presidents to Obama, released by Nancy Pelosi’s office. The chart was relatively quickly discredited, but the chart itself went viral, not the facts. What’s even more impressive (read: disgusting) is that after being widely discredited and its media distribution slowed, there was another upsurge of image-sharing and it went viral… Again! So millions were fooled- not once, but twice- by the same fabricated data.
It just goes to show you that, if trying to swindle a large group of people is your goal, credible information is not the requisite; mass-distribution, originating from a “credible” source, is. Say that graph reached 20 million people when it first went viral and another 15 million the second time. Suppose, of those 35 million people, 20 million did some individual research and discovered that it was incredible (literally) and deceitful information. Well, the majority of those 20 million individuals probably already kept themselves informed enough not to be made sucker by the graph, while the remaining 15 million have still effectively fallen prey to its scheme. Mission accomplished. With great flow of information, comes great individual responsibility to get your head out of your… Facebook news feed. And onto some more credible avenues of information.
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I would love to see the comment from Obama calling for a conviction. From the transcript I saw, he was only offering sympathy. And as far as the audio of “Zimmerman” calling for help, the only thing we have to go on is his word… That’s still very much up for debate as to whether it’s his or Treyvon’s.
Though, I’m with you on waiting for more info. The problem is, there wasn’t going to be an investigation, when I personally think there clearly should be. Whether that results in Zimmerman’s indictment or not.
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Here is the link:
http://www.5min.com/Video/Obama-Remarks-on-Trayvon-Martin-Case-517313284
You are correct he did not call for a conviction, just an investigation. But, he compared Trayvon to his own son were he to have one, and he is the President commenting on a case in Florida. It reminds me of when he did the same thing with the Georgetown Police incident when a black Professor at Georgetown was stopped while breaking into his own house and Obama jumped in without waiting. That resulted in the famous “beer summit.”
My questions for you – Should a President comment on a local criminal investigation just started at all? and Do you honestly believe he would have commented on this case if the person shot was white?
What is a lily white President like George Bush had said, “The kid that got killed looks like he could be my son, we need to get to the bottom of this outrage!” About a white kid killed by a black man. What would the press say about his comments?
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Welcome to the world of news as entertainment. I don’t care if you watch the liars at Fox, the bullshit artists at MSNBC, or the sensationalists at CNN it is all the same. Nothing but noise.
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That was my personal reaction: Wait and get the facts. If the police didn’t see a reason to arrest him, perhaps we should think they knew more about it than we do?
What do I see? An angry young man is dead. Another man’s life has been destroyed. A tragedy.
The usual media pundits and politicians have weighed in, inflaming racial hatreds. Dividing the People. So we can’t come together to heal our land. Because THAT would put the media and the politicians and the greedy crooks at the top out of business.
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Here I am, days after the Zimmerman trial ended in acquittal: Not guilty, but not innocent either.
He walks in fear (armed, of course) because of the apparent injustice of his freedom and the willingness of people with a vigilante mentality (ironically) to wish or cause him harm if given a chance.
Trayvon Martin will never suffer another day. That’s his family and friend’s job now.
While I don’t wish Zimmerman harm, I do hope his example shows the legislatures around the USA that allowing untrained or partially trained individuals to walk around with concealed guns doesn’t enhance public safety, it gives artificial balls to weak individuals like Zimmerman who confuse neighborhood watching with real police work.
He could have stayed in the truck, as requested by the real police, and both he and Trayvon would be free today.
Just my opinion.
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It’s a tragedy all the way around. The worst for me is that it was magnified into a national divide on race. I agree with you that it is a situation of fear and crime. Unfortunately, there are not enough police to call upon, so they actually encourage neighborhood patrols. If we hired police to protect neighborhoods we would have trained people with firearms instead.
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