Support NeoGAF

[JCreasy]

so everyone was blaming the racist cops, and it turns out it was the state prosecutors that threw up the stop signs?

Well at least one cop was acting appropriately

They still did some jaw dropping racist shit though, like testing the corpse for drugs and NOT the shooter

 

[empty vessel]

What about confronting the disproportionately high black on white crimes being comitted or for that matter the disproportionately high black on black crimes.

I don't think he's the one that needs to confront that. What do you think is the cause of that data?

You've turned this thread into your own personal soapbox on racism in general and then when people don't want to play along, you think it's because you're won an argument or something. So let me just deflate you and then we can move on to something other than reading Tim Wise the Antiracist repeating the same shit we've already read in this thread 1000x.

Do you know where "cultural ideas about black criminality" come from? Look up statistics on violent crime sometime, or look at how some black hip-hop artists WANT themselves to be perceived - as gangsters, cold-blooded killers. You want to confront reality? The reality is that it's not racist whites forcing blacks to invade homes, form mobs to loot stores, pull triggers, or to glorify the thug culture.

In New York City, which is 23% black, blacks committed 66% of violent crimes and 80% of shootings in Jan-Jun 2009. Whites, 35% of the population, committed 5% of violent crimes and 1.5% of shootings. So, if the news reports violent crimes proportionally, there would be thirteen times as many blacks as whites shown. If they limit it to shootings, then it would be 53 times as many. If you have statistics backing up your claim "If you watch the news everyday, you will see a disproportionately high number of black violent criminals and a disproportionately high number of white victims" then please feel free to share it.

You, too. I want to know your thoughts on the cause of the empirical observation that blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites. Note that when he references disproportionately high representations of black crime in media, he presumably means disproportionate to their rate of commission, i.e., it incorporates the disproportionate rate of commission. See also: http://voices.yahoo.com/news-framing-minorities-media-8144406.html

But I really would like to hear your explanation of the underlying data that blacks commit crimes at higher rates than whites. What is the reason for that?

 

[ConfusingJazz]

http://rollingout.com/culture/george-zimmerman-son-of-a-retired-judge-has-3-closed-arrests/

Also, we learned today it was the state attorney that blocked the charges

http://abcnews.go.com/US/trayvon-ma...n-manslaughter/story?id=16011674#.T3JHW2Egcuc



The police leaked this too

Sounds like the police department is sick of getting all of the heat, and trying to shift some of the shit flow on the State Attorney's office.

 

[Zoe]

The race of the kid is the main reason he was stalked in the first place. He was profiled by Zimmerman. Of course race is going to play a big part in this story.

However there's no evidence that the police department's incompetency in this particular case has anything to do with race (looks more like corruption). And their incompetency is why the whole outrage started.

 

[empty vessel]

I never argued that it did, so why would you ask that?

Following someone isn't a crime, though.

Self-defense does not require criminal conduct to justify the use of force.

 

[Derwind]

Well at least one cop was acting appropriately

They still did some jaw dropping racist shit though, like testing the corpse for drugs and NOT the shooter

Standard procedures amirite?

 

[MThanded]

You've turned this thread into your own personal soapbox on racism in general and then when people don't want to play along, you think it's because you're won an argument or something. So let me just deflate you and then we can move on to something other than reading Tim Wise the Antiracist repeating the same shit we've already read in this thread 1000x.

Do you know where "cultural ideas about black criminality" come from? Look up statistics on violent crime sometime, or look at how some black hip-hop artists WANT themselves to be perceived - as gangsters, cold-blooded killers. You want to confront reality? The reality is that it's not racist whites forcing blacks to invade homes, form mobs to loot stores, pull triggers, or to glorify the thug culture.

In New York City, which is 23% black, blacks committed 66% of violent crimes and 80% of shootings in Jan-Jun 2009. Whites, 35% of the population, committed 5% of violent crimes and 1.5% of shootings. So, if the news reports violent crimes proportionally, there would be thirteen times as many blacks as whites shown. If they limit it to shootings, then it would be 53 times as many. If you have statistics backing up your claim "If you watch the news everyday, you will see a disproportionately high number of black violent criminals and a disproportionately high number of white victims" then please feel free to share it.

 

[Zoe]

so everyone was blaming the racist cops, and it turns out it was the state prosecutors that threw up the stop signs?

If the prosecutor told them there wasn't enough evidence, they should have kept working the case to find it.

 

[ConfusingJazz]

You've turned this thread into your own personal soapbox on racism in general and then when people don't want to play along, you think it's because you're won an argument or something. So let me just deflate you and then we can move on to something other than reading Tim Wise the Antiracist repeating the same shit we've already read in this thread 1000x.

Do you know where "cultural ideas about black criminality" come from? Look up statistics on violent crime sometime, or look at how some black hip-hop artists WANT themselves to be perceived - as gangsters, cold-blooded killers. You want to confront reality? The reality is that it's not racist whites forcing blacks to invade homes, form mobs to loot stores, pull triggers, or to glorify the thug culture.

In New York City, which is 23% black, blacks committed 66% of violent crimes and 80% of shootings in Jan-Jun 2009. Whites, 35% of the population, committed 5% of violent crimes and 1.5% of shootings. So, if the news reports violent crimes proportionally, there would be thirteen times as many blacks as whites shown. If they limit it to shootings, then it would be 53 times as many. If you have statistics backing up your claim "If you watch the news everyday, you will see a disproportionately high number of black violent criminals and a disproportionately high number of white victims" then please feel free to share it.

Holy shit.

 

[JCreasy]

If the prosecutor told them there wasn't enough evidence, they should have kept working the case to find it.

oh, good point

They basically did a sloppy job.

I forgot about the piss poor preservation of the crime scene. It seems as though the assumed it was open and shut.

Also, this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6mStv1F7FqM#!

 

[Open Source]

I don't think he's the one that needs to confront that. What do you think is the cause of that data?



You, too. I want to know your thoughts on the cause of the empirical observation that blacks commit crimes at a higher rate than whites. Note that when he references disproportionately high representations of black crime in media, he presumably means disproportionate to their rate of commission, i.e., it incorporates the disproportionate rate of commission.

But I really would like to hear your explanation of the underlying data that blacks commit crimes at higher rates than whites. What is the reason for that?

I read a Rutgers study a while back on that very subject. It's mostly poverty, broken families, and living in shitty neighborhoods, which are somewhat but not completely linked to one another. I also think there's a cultural aspect to it, too, but I don't remember if I got that from the study or not. And I think the correctional system is entirely fucked up, to use a sociological term, making repeat offenses more likely and developing minor criminals into major ones.

Edit: Regarding the statistics, I understand what he means, which is why I would like to see his statistics on the media representations.

 

[Saint Gregory]

Do you know where "cultural ideas about black criminality" come from? Look up statistics on violent crime sometime, or look at how some black hip-hop artists WANT themselves to be perceived - as gangsters, cold-blooded killers. You want to confront reality? The reality is that it's not racist whites forcing blacks to invade homes, form mobs to loot stores, pull triggers, or to glorify the thug culture.

It's funny that you bring up this point. There was a time when Hip Hop music had nothing to do with any of those things. There was a time when the music was mostly positive, spiritual, historical and uplifting. There were always stark depictions of ghetto life but they usually weren't meant to glorify that life but just to express the experience the rapper had living there.

Then something happened. I can't say exactly what happened, MTV maybe, but the artists that produced that type of educational uplifting music were silenced in favor of the most extreme elements of the genre. Musical taste change over time so maybe that's all it was but it seems strange to me that the artists that seem to have the least to say and who are selling the most material goods in their rhymes get the most airtime.

 

[Dreams-Visions]

heh so zimmerman's father is a retired judge. not only that but he had another arrest thrown out as well. wonder if any of those facts will be talked about on right wing shows.

The light begins to show in the dark places...

 

[Fenderputty]

But I really would like to hear your explanation of the underlying data that blacks commit crimes at higher rates than whites. What is the reason for that?

He conveniently ignores the societal roll of class and how it relates to race. He then posts stats from New York. A city with clearly defined class structures.

I'm trying to figure out is the point of his post though. Was it to show that Zimmerman was justified in assuming someone who's black is out to commit a crime?

 

[BruiserBear]

so everyone was blaming the racist cops, and it turns out it was the state prosecutors that threw up the stop signs?

We've already made up our mind about this case, and the facts as we know them. GTFO of here with these new facts.

 

[Fenderputty]

Then something happened. I can't say exactly what happened, MTV maybe, but the artists that produced that type of educational uplifting music were silenced in favor of the most extreme elements of the genre. Musical taste change over time so maybe that's all it was but it seems strange to me that the artists that seem to have the least to say and who are selling the most material goods in their rhymes get the most airtime.

White suburbanite kids started started buying the music in droves once "gansta" rap came out in the 90's. That's what happened.

 

[Big Baybee]

We've already made up our mind about this case, and the facts as we know them. GTFO of here with these new facts.

The police investigation was fucking shitty. You can't dispute that.

 

[JCreasy]

The light begins to show in the dark places...

I've always felt that Zimmermann seemed to have a friend in the Sanford police. Or like they knew him or something. It was a feeling that just kept nagging me.

Maybe it's the fact that he thought it was OK to play cop the way he was. Like he at least thought that he had a real partnership with the police force. He saw nothing wrong with running around with a gun like that. As if he was thinking, no matter what happens, he'd be OK.

And THEN we find out about this. His Dad is a retired judge.

Now I know what the nagging feeling was.

 

[Baconsammy]

Sounds like the police department is sick of getting all of the heat, and trying to shift some of the shit flow on the State Attorney's office.

Was it the States attorney's office that told cops not to take Zimmerman's clothes into evidence after someone got shot and killed? And why didn't cops document Zimmermans injuries at the scene? Cops took his word for it that it was self-defense. If there were any doubt, they would have collected evidence.

 

[JCreasy]

Was it the States attorney's office that told cops not to take Zimmerman's clothes into evidence after someone got shot and killed? And why didn't cops document Zimmermans injuries at the scene? Cops took his word for it that it was self-defense. If there were any doubt, they would have collected evidence.

Good point

 

[Saint Gregory]

White suburbanite kids started started buying the music in droves once "gansta" rap came out in the 90's. That's what happened.

There's definitely more to it than that but that's a topic for another thread. It just annoys the hell out of me when people blame kids' behavior on the Hip Hop culture when clearly the culture got taken over by some other force before a lot of these kids were born.

 

[BruiserBear]

The police investigation was fucking shitty. You can't dispute that.

I don't dispute that.


I guess I'm just tired of the celebrity status this case has taken on, where everyone wants their moment in front of the camera to talk about this case, and assume they know everything that happened, when they really don't.

 

[wonderkins]

You should go, like, protest or something.

 

[bishoptl]

You've turned this thread into your own personal soapbox on racism in general and then when people don't want to play along, you think it's because you're won an argument or something. So let me just deflate you and then we can move on to something other than reading Tim Wise the Antiracist repeating the same shit we've already read in this thread 1000x.

Do you know where "cultural ideas about black criminality" come from? Look up statistics on violent crime sometime, or look at how some black hip-hop artists WANT themselves to be perceived - as gangsters, cold-blooded killers. You want to confront reality? The reality is that it's not racist whites forcing blacks to invade homes, form mobs to loot stores, pull triggers, or to glorify the thug culture.

In New York City, which is 23% black, blacks committed 66% of violent crimes and 80% of shootings in Jan-Jun 2009. Whites, 35% of the population, committed 5% of violent crimes and 1.5% of shootings. So, if the news reports violent crimes proportionally, there would be thirteen times as many blacks as whites shown. If they limit it to shootings, then it would be 53 times as many. If you have statistics backing up your claim "If you watch the news everyday, you will see a disproportionately high number of black violent criminals and a disproportionately high number of white victims" then please feel free to share it.

I'll give you a chance to answer. Never let it be said that I'm not willing to listen before acting.

What does anything that you just wrote have to do with this case?

 

[Complex Shadow]

I don't dispute that.


I guess I'm just tired of the celebrity status this case has taken on, where everyone wants their moment in front of the camera to talk about this case, and assume they know everything that happened, when they don't really.

since you were there. tell me what did happen?

 

[MThanded]

You should go, like, protest or something.

What is this... I don't even...

 

[Open Source]

It's funny that you bring up this point. There was a time when Hip Hop music had nothing to do with any of those things. There was a time when the music was mostly positive, spiritual, historical and uplifting. There were always stark depictions of ghetto life but they usually weren't meant to glorify that life but just to express the experience the rapper had living there.

Then something happened. I can't say exactly what happened, MTV maybe, but the artists that produced that type of educational uplifting music were silenced in favor of the most extreme elements of the genre. Musical taste change over time so maybe that's all it was but it seems strange to me that the artists that seem to have the least to say and who are selling the most material goods in their rhymes get the most airtime.

I remember getting into Ice T and Public Enemy and such when I was in 6th, maybe 7th grade. Right around the time that New Jack City came out. It was fuck-you, anti-authority, do-what-you-want stuff, and it was powerful. And it made you feel powerful. So I definitely know why it became popular.

Flash forward 20 years, and I'm going through every major hip-hop artist that ever recorded, from Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, Eric B. and Rakeem, Slick Rick, Tribe Called Quest and Run DMC to Das EFX, Dr. Dre, Wu Tang Clan, D12, Notorious B.I.G, and more modern stuff like Ludacris and Chamillionaire, looking for music that would fit the kung fu beat-matching game I'm working on. I spent literally hundreds of hours listening, reading each artist's history, lyrics, interviews, etc. to get a better idea of the spirit behind their music. Of course, all the positive and uplifting stuff wasn't a very good fit for a game where's playing people's faces like percussion instruments - it was the songs that made you want to get up and punch things that I wanted - again, songs that give you that sense of power and abandon.

 

[bob_arctor]

It's funny that you bring up this point. There was a time when Hip Hop music had nothing to do with any of those things. There was a time when the music was mostly positive, spiritual, historical and uplifting. There were always stark depictions of ghetto life but they usually weren't meant to glorify that life but just to express the experience the rapper had living there.

Then something happened. I can't say exactly what happened, MTV maybe, but the artists that produced that type of educational uplifting music were silenced in favor of the most extreme elements of the genre. Musical taste change over time so maybe that's all it was but it seems strange to me that the artists that seem to have the least to say and who are selling the most material goods in their rhymes get the most airtime.

Thank you for this post.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

It's funny that you bring up this point. There was a time when Hip Hop music had nothing to do with any of those things. There was a time when the music was mostly positive, spiritual, historical and uplifting. There were always stark depictions of ghetto life but they usually weren't meant to glorify that life but just to express the experience the rapper had living there.

Then something happened. I can't say exactly what happened, MTV maybe, but the artists that produced that type of educational uplifting music were silenced in favor of the most extreme elements of the genre. Musical taste change over time so maybe that's all it was but it seems strange to me that the artists that seem to have the least to say and who are selling the most material goods in their rhymes get the most airtime.

I think the record industry in itself is antithetical to everything that is/was hiphop. And because of this, some would trace the fall of hiphop all the way back to Kurtis Blow.

 

[Professor Beef]

I think the record industry in itself is antithetical to everything that is/was hiphop. And because of this, some would trace the fall of hiphop all the way back to Kurtis Blow.

These are the breaks, I guess.

 

[kame-sennin]

Do you know where "cultural ideas about black criminality" come from? Look up statistics on violent crime sometime, or look at how some black hip-hop artists WANT themselves to be perceived - as gangsters, cold-blooded killers. You want to confront reality? The reality is that it's not racist whites forcing blacks to invade homes, form mobs to loot stores, pull triggers, or to glorify the thug culture.

The idea of black criminality goes back at least as far as the Reconstruction period when vigilante groups like the KKK emerged to protect whites from the 'threat' of black aggression.

In New York City, which is 23% black, blacks committed 66% of violent crimes and 80% of shootings in Jan-Jun 2009. Whites, 35% of the population, committed 5% of violent crimes and 1.5% of shootings. So, if the news reports violent crimes proportionally, there would be thirteen times as many blacks as whites shown. If they limit it to shootings, then it would be 53 times as many. If you have statistics backing up your claim "If you watch the news everyday, you will see a disproportionately high number of black violent criminals and a disproportionately high number of white victims" then please feel free to share it.

http://books.google.com/books?id=dk...representation disproportionate media&f=false

 

[Open Source]

I'll give you a chance to answer. Never let it be said that I'm not willing to listen before acting.

What does anything that you just wrote have to do with this case?

I was responding to arguments that another poster was making. He was trying to make the case that this particular incident was just another incident of the racism prevalent across the country, blah blah blah, and making assertions that were not backed up with evidence.

I challenged him on those assertions using evidence and requested him to provide evidence that back up his assertions in response.

I also pointed out that fear and suspicion can be founded in factors other than conscious racism. When you are conditioned by seeing gangsta rappers and the like present themselves to the world as criminals, you are more likely to react to someone with the same appearance - skin color, dress, speech patterns, etc. - the same way you would to those "gangstas" from pop culture.

 

[bob_arctor]

These are the breaks, I guess.

You can have that pun. It's yours.

 

[Baconsammy]

The idea of black criminality goes back at least as far as the Reconstruction period when vigilante groups like the KKK emerged to protect whites from the 'threat' of black aggression.



http://books.google.com/books?id=dk...representation disproportionate media&f=false

The KKK formed to protect white people from free blacks. "Damn the gubment given dem blacks rights."

 

[Open Source]

The idea of black criminality goes back at least as far as the Reconstruction period when vigilante groups like the KKK emerged to protect whites from the 'threat' of black aggression.



http://books.google.com/books?id=dk...representation disproportionate media&f=false

Do you have stats on violent crime specifically?

 

[Stinkles]

I was responding to arguments that another poster was making. He was trying to make the case that this particular incident was just another incident of the racism prevalent across the country, blah blah blah, and making assertions that were not backed up with evidence.

I challenged him on those assertions using evidence and requested him to provide evidence that back up his assertions in response.

I also pointed out that fear and suspicion can be founded in factors other than conscious racism. When you are conditioned by seeing gangsta rappers and the like present themselves to the world as criminals, you are more likely to react to someone with the same appearance - skin color, dress, speech patterns, etc. - the same way you would to those "gangstas" from pop culture.

So does Goodfellas mean we think white people are gangsters? Does Christina Aguilera make you think all women steal donuts?

 

[The Incarnation]

Do you have stats on violent crime specifically?

So basically your purpose in this thread is the prove that Blacks are more criminal minded, thus Trayvon Martin deserved to die just because.


Because otherwise I see no point in discussing this in this thread at all...

 

[Big Baybee]

I was responding to arguments that another poster was making. He was trying to make the case that this particular incident was just another incident of the racism prevalent across the country, blah blah blah, and making assertions that were not backed up with evidence.

I challenged him on those assertions using evidence and requested him to provide evidence that back up his assertions in response.

I also pointed out that fear and suspicion can be founded in factors other than conscious racism. When you are conditioned by seeing gangsta rappers and the like present themselves to the world as criminals, you are more likely to react to someone with the same appearance - skin color, dress, speech patterns, etc. - the same way you would to those "gangstas" from pop culture.

Ugh

 

[Saint Gregory]

I remember getting into Ice T and Public Enemy and such when I was in 6th, maybe 7th grade. Right around the time that New Jack City came out. It was fuck-you, anti-authority, do-what-you-want stuff, and it was powerful. And it made you feel powerful. So I definitely know why it became popular.

Flash forward 20 years, and I'm going through every major hip-hop artist that ever recorded, from Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash, Eric B. and Rakeem, Slick Rick, Tribe Called Quest and Run DMC to Das EFX, Dr. Dre, Wu Tang Clan, D12, Notorious B.I.G, and more modern stuff like Ludacris and Chamillionaire, looking for music that would fit the kung fu beat-matching game I'm working on. I spent literally hundreds of hours listening, reading each artist's history, lyrics, interviews, etc. to get a better idea of the spirit behind their music. Of course, all the positive and uplifting stuff wasn't a very good fit for a game where's playing people's faces like percussion instruments - it was the songs that made you want to get up and punch things that I wanted - again, songs that give you that sense of power and abandon.

The difference between a lot f the earlier artists that you mention here and some of the newer artists today is that even when there was violence and anger in their music there was still an underlying message that was meant to educate people about the strife of their experiences. What is Luda trying to educate me about exactly? About how rich he is and how much stuff he's got and how many women can't wait to get their hands on him to get to these things?

You simply can't make it as a Hip Hop artist these days unless your selling something, be it sex, violence, drugs or fine upscale mechandise (Jay-Z must have stacks of catalogs with him when he heads to the studio, seriously). This isn't a coincidence, at least not to me.

 

[Devolution]

So does Goodfellas mean we think white people are gangsters? Does Christina Aguilera make you think all women steal donuts?

Wish I could steal some donuts right about now.

 

[wonderkins]

I was responding to arguments that another poster was making. He was trying to make the case that this particular incident was just another incident of the racism prevalent across the country, blah blah blah, and making assertions that were not backed up with evidence.

I challenged him on those assertions using evidence and requested him to provide evidence that back up his assertions in response.

I also pointed out that fear and suspicion can be founded in factors other than conscious racism. When you are conditioned by seeing gangsta rappers and the like present themselves to the world as criminals, you are more likely to react to someone with the same appearance - skin color, dress, speech patterns, etc. - the same way you would to those "gangstas" from pop culture.

Your bigotry is your problem. Not conditioning.

 

[theignoramus]

You've turned this thread into your own personal soapbox on racism in general and then when people don't want to play along, you think it's because you're won an argument or something. So let me just deflate you and then we can move on to something other than reading Tim Wise the Antiracist repeating the same shit we've already read in this thread 1000x.

Do you know where "cultural ideas about black criminality" come from? Look up statistics on violent crime sometime, or look at how some black hip-hop artists WANT themselves to be perceived - as gangsters, cold-blooded killers. You want to confront reality? The reality is that it's not racist whites forcing blacks to invade homes, form mobs to loot stores, pull triggers, or to glorify the thug culture.

In New York City, which is 23% black, blacks committed 66% of violent crimes and 80% of shootings in Jan-Jun 2009. Whites, 35% of the population, committed 5% of violent crimes and 1.5% of shootings. So, if the news reports violent crimes proportionally, there would be thirteen times as many blacks as whites shown. If they limit it to shootings, then it would be 53 times as many. If you have statistics backing up your claim "If you watch the news everyday, you will see a disproportionately high number of black violent criminals and a disproportionately high number of white victims" then please feel free to share it.

you wanted to sling black crime statistics about waaay earlier in the thread, but couldnt because it would've been too obvious. newsflash: you're still fucking obvious.

 

[Open Source]

So basically your purpose in this thread is the prove that Blacks are more criminal minded, thus Trayvon Martin deserved to die just because.


Because otherwise I see no point of this discussing in this thread at all...

Incorrect. My point was to counter a claim that someone else made.

I have no opinion on whether Trayvon Martin dseerved to die because I wasn't there to see what happened, and not enough evidence has come out (to me, anyway) to make a solid judgment.

I will say I am glad that the case was re-opened, though.

 

[bob_arctor]

Does Christina Aguilera make you think all women steal donuts?

 

[Dreams-Visions]

Trayvon Martin, White America and the Return of Dred Scott

For a while now we’ve known that there were significant numbers of white Americans who wanted to “take their country back” to some mythical period of the nation’s hagiographic past. We’ve known it because they’ve told us so, as often and endlessly as their lungs will allow.

Little did we realize, however, that for at least some in the white community that prior era of glory was not merely the too-often-nostalgized 1950s — with its misremembered innocence still fresh in their minds — but rather, the 1850‘s. Not 1957, the year in which the CBS television network gave us Leave it to Beaver, but instead, 1857, the year in which the Supreme Court gave us its decision in Dred Scott.

But now we know.

It was there, after all, that the nation’s brightest, most accomplished and yet most ethically decrepit jurists reminded the nation that blacks “had no rights which the white man was bound to respect.” They could never be citizens, “entitled to all the rights, and privileges, and immunities, guaranteed by (the Constitution),” because the framers of that document (to whom the Court referred as “great men,” “high in their sense of honor”) had never intended them such. And much like today’s conservative theorists, who are equally enamored of the so-called “jurisprudence of original intent,” the highest court, beholden as it was to the insipid moral views of 18th century white supremacists, insisted things must stay that way.

As the decision noted:

“[T]he legislation and histories of the times, and the language used in the Declaration of Independence, show, that neither the class of persons who had been imported as slaves, nor their descendants, whether they had become free or not, were then acknowledged as a part of the people, nor intended to be included in the general words used in that memorable instrument (the Constitution).

They had for more than a century before been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race, either in social or political relations; and so far inferior, that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect…This opinion was at that time fixed and universal in the civilized portion of the white race. It was regarded as an axiom in morals as well as in politics, which no one thought of disputing, or supposed to be open to dispute; and men in every grade and position in society daily and habitually acted upon it in their private pursuits, as well as in matters of public concern, without doubting for a moment the correctness of this opinion.”​

Importantly, and this is what is particularly relevant for our current discussion, the Court opined that blacks were clearly never intended to be considered citizens, for had they been so, such designation would have extended to such individuals the unacceptable right “to go where they pleased at every hour of the day or night without molestation, unless they committed some violation of law…”

And this is what brings us to the terrifying present, a period some 155 years later, but during which time it appears there are still far too many in the white community (and even some among persons of color) who would return us to the logic of Dred Scott. This they make clear from their hateful and bigoted musings about Trayvon Martin, a 17-year old black male who made the mistake, in their mind, of forgetting that he had no rights which white men (or even Latino white-male-wannabes like George Zimmerman) need respect. No right to go where he pleased, “without molestation,” no right to be treated like a citizen, indeed like a human being. No rights to due process, to peaceably assemble on a public street, to free speech (which he foolishly tried to exercise by asking his pursuer, Zimmerman, why he was following him), to be free from cruel and unusual punishment (such as extra-judicial execution for being black in a hoodie and thus arousing the suspicions of a paranoid negrophobe). No rights at all.

And not even the well-established right to self-defense — the very right Zimmerman would now claim for himself, but which apparently did not extend to the young man whose life he ended. And so we hear (whether true or not — it remains to be seen) that Zimmerman had a broken nose and head injuries, that Martin attacked him: never mind that Zimmerman took out after Martin, that Zimmerman accosted Martin and asked him what he was doing in the neighborhood, that, according to witnesses, it was Zimmerman who pinned Martin down. We are supposed to feel sorry for the shooter because even in the light most favorable to him, his victim might have actually fought back! Imagine that, fighting back against a total stranger who attacks you. That Martin would still be alive and Zimmerman would never have suffered the indignity of a broken septum, nor the anger of millions aimed in his direction had he just kept his stupid ass in his SUV like the police told him to do apparently matters not. Because, as some wish to remind us, Trayvon Martin had been suspended for school on suspicion of marijuana possession (an allegation so weak that he received no citation for the incident); and because Trayvon didn’t have a receipt for those Skittles he had in his possession when he was murdered (as if any 17 year old asks for a receipt when they purchase candy like they were going to need it for an expense report); and because Trayvon posed like a gangster on Facebook. Oh no, sorry, wrong Trayvon, but racists are like the Honey Badger–they don’t give a shit.

The active and putrescent campaign of defamation now in full swing against this dead child is a reminder of just how little black life matters to some. No matter the facts, their deaths are always justified.

These are the ideological soul mates of those who insisted Emmett Till really did say “Bye Baby” to that white woman, as if such an offense could even theoretically justify shooting him, tying a cotton gin fan to his neck with barbed wire, and tossing him in the Tallahatchie River.

No rights which the white man is bound to respect.

They are the iniquitous heirs of the white reprobates who insisted against all logic and evidence that Dick Rowland really did attack Sarah Page in that Tulsa elevator, and thus, it was necessary to burn the black Greenwood district of the city to the ground in retaliation.

No rights which the white man is bound to respect.

They are the fetid philosophical offspring of those whites who stood beneath the swinging bodies of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, whom they had lynched, content in their own certitude that they had — again, evidence be damned — raped a white woman.

No rights which the white man is bound to respect.

They are the vile and reeking progeny of those who insisted that even disrespecting white people was sufficient justification to affix black bodies to short ropes dangling from tall trees, to burn them with blowtorches, chop off body parts and sell them — or pictures of the carnage — as souvenirs.

No rights which the white man is bound to respect.

They are the odious inheritors of a time-honored and dreadful tradition, in which virtually no misdeed the target of which is black can simply be condemned for what it is, and then have such condemnation followed by a period at the end of the sentence. No, it is forever and always the case that such condemnations, when and if they issue at all, will inevitably be followed by a comma, and the word “but,” and the attempt, however clumsy and craven, to all but erase the condemnation in a word salad of imbecilic rhetoric and exculpatory exhortation.

They are the carelessly cogitating companions of those who seek to brush aside the killings of Amadou Diallo, Patrick Dorismond, or any of the hundreds of other folks of color, who comprise the disproportionate share of unarmed persons killed by law enforcement in city after city across America over the years. They are always to blame for their own deaths.

If they had just put their hands up, like they were asked.

If they had just not run.

If they had just answered the questions put to them politely and quickly.

If they had just not grabbed for their keys or wallet.

If they had just understood that the men dressed in plainclothes, pointing guns at them were police.

If they had just not worn those clothes, or that hairstyle.

If they just hadn’t seemed nervous.

If they just hadn’t fit the description of some criminal the police were looking for, and by “fit the description” we mean had they not been black or brown, between 5 foot 8 and 6 foot 6, walking upright.

Nothing is unacceptable to these people. Nothing. Their fear of blacks allows them to smooth over every bigoted crease in their racialized narrative, to make the indefensible defensible, in the name of their own perceived safety. Their pathological inability to look at black people as anything other than an undifferentiated mass of criminals, rather than encouraging us to condemn them for their utterly stupefying lack of discernment, and mentally diseased dysfunction, is to serve as a defense to every racist act. Black people are to bear the burden of everyone else’s mendacious and morally supine stupidity. Black people are to continue being profiled, suspected, and occasionally killed, so long as those conditioned by white supremacy are afraid of them. And that, we are to believe, is the fault of black people, not the rest of us.

Because black people have no rights that the white man is bound to respect.

A black president will have to prove, again and again, to the utter dissatisfaction of cretinous bottom-feeders, that he is really an American.

A black college student will have to prove, again and again, to the utter amazement of benighted white undergrads that he or she really does belong in the University community to which his or her entrance was secured.

A black teenager will have to prove that he isn’t a criminal, to the satisfaction of anyone who might think otherwise, lest they be tackled and shot.

And some of us will continue trying to prove — as if there could, any longer, be a question about it — that white privilege is real. That any feeling, remotely thinking person could dispute it, when no white mother is having to have the talk with their sons that black mothers across America are routinely having with theirs (both before and after the killing of Trayvon Martin) tells you all you need to know about denial and its impermeability. It tells you all you need to know about the America of 2012, relative to that of 1857. For however much things have changed since then, one thing remains the same.

Black people still have no rights which the white man is bound to respect.​

quoting for the evening crowd.

 

[Imm0rt4l]

You simply can't make it as a Hip Hop artist these days unless your selling something, be it sex, violence, drugs or fine upscale mechandise (Jay-Z must have stacks of catalogs with him when he heads to the studio, seriously). This isn't a coincidence, at least not to me.

Nope.

 

[Arde5643]

Man, this thread keeps bringing out the bigots trying to justify the killing.

 

[Open Source]

you wanted to sling black crime statistics about waaay earlier in the thread, but couldnt because it would've been too obvious. newsflash: you're still fucking obvious.

I did? That's news to me.

It's funny - when one guy throws up a bunch of assertions without any data or evidence, it's fine. When I counter those assertions with evidence, I'm a racist.

I guess some assertions aren't open for debate.

 

[Devolution]

quoting for the evening crowd.

Been watching some gender talks between that and this I forget just how blind the privileged are.

 

[Log4Girlz]

Been watching some gender talks between that and this I forget just how blind the privileged are.

Do you have any statistics to back that up? lol