Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Add Reply
Trayvon Martin
Topic Started: Jul 14 2013, 05:01 PM (1,866 Views)
caissier
Member Avatar
Administrator
Posted Image

Acquittal seemed very likely in the circumstances. It is a tricky case given there was no witness and a verdict of manslaughter was available, but it seems obvious that George Zimmerman was responsible in some way to some extent.

On the Guardian comments section his American supporters have an odd way of combining obfuscation and abuse in arguing his case, usually doing both in long sentences ...... <erm>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/14/open-season-black-boys-verdict
Edited by caissier, Jul 14 2013, 05:07 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
rumbaba
Member Avatar

I wanted to post something on this but I really don't know what to say, other than, 'I'm not surprised'
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Caro

We have mostly only got the basics of this case here so I was perturbed to hear more details from an American commentator today. He said every benefit of the doubt went with Zimmerman and none with the black kid. So the boy was drug tested, the man wasn't. Zimmerman has had protection orders taken out against him by women (note the plural), and he has charges/convictions for assaulting the police. The commentator said the more people tried to say this was not a race issue, the more obvious it was that it is, just as when you drive through a place with signs saying "This is a drug-free area" you know that it is anything but. (I don't think we have such signs in New Zealand.)

I gather the young black girl who testified has been crucified by the media, one thing mentioned that she said she could not read cursive writing. I have been typing up a soldier's letters and just before I read that, I had been thinking that kids nowadays, brought up to print rather than write cursively (not that I used the word 'cursive' in my mind, which seems to me quite a sophisticated word), would not be able to translate this letter. I was hoping there would always be someone around who could. Even with a lifetime of reading and writing, there are words I struggle to understand (partly a fault of lighting - usually if I take the letter and stand under a bright light I can work it out. But writing is not at all like typing - a written word could often be several different words and it's only by context that you know what it is).
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
becky sharp
Member Avatar

From The Independent.

American face of casual racism, anti-Semitism and sexism laid bare in US Big Brother


White housemate flipped black contestant's mattress over before goading her saying 'What you gon' do, girl?'

Next month marks the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights March on Washington. Yet as America debates the acquittal of Trayvon Martin’s killer, George Zimmerman, it is clear that the nation’s long conversation about race is far from over. And though President Barack Obama spoke in measured terms on the news channels last Friday, on reality TV, that conversation remains raw and unsettling.

CBS is presently airing the 15th series of the US version of Big Brother. Historically, the network has shied away from showing its contestants’ racist behaviour, often removing all trace of bigotry from the show’s prime-time broadcasts – because, in the words of executive producer Allison Grodner, the programme-makers “don’t want to put hateful things out there”.

This summer, however, avid viewers of Big Brother’s internet live-stream have spotted even more racial slurs than usual in the house. “Why not show these people for who they actually are?” demanded reality TV blogger Andy Denhart, of realityblurred.com.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/american-face-of-casual-racism-antisemitism-and-sexism-laid-bare-in-us-big-brother-8732628.html
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
caissier
Member Avatar
Administrator
Yes ..... this news story - with Zimmerman being found partly justified - seems part of a trend towards dropping resistance to prejudice. It's like saying .... "Oh, come on! We all know the truth here - in our guts. Let's not be afraid to say it." ...... and previously unacceptable diatribes against minorities of several kinds, not least people on benefits and immigrants are being uttered openly and tolerated.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Rikiiboy
Member Avatar

On the 50th anniversary of the MLK dream speech the only thing that appears to change Is the date.
http://www.biography.com/people/emmett-till-507515
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
three

http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/15/justice/michigan-woman-shot-charges/

Another kid killed for skin color. Perhaps these white folk can feel the tide turning on them. Waking up to becoming a minority, they dig their heels in and get rabid.
Yes, I know I used rabid twice tonight. I like the word.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · International Affairs · Next Topic »
Add Reply