Zimmerman verdict: A green light for racist vigilantes

Salon ^ | July 14, 2013 | Rich Benjamin

[2ndDivisionVet]

Just weeks ago, I returned to New York City from Fire Island on a Sunday evening, and decided to stop by my office.

After I let myself into the office, I noticed some Caucasians mingling around. I paid them no mind, since our office often has off-hours visitors who rent the common space.

“Can I help you?” said a middle aged white man, testily.

“No,” I shot back. “But I can I help YOU?”

“What do you mean?”

“I work here,” I said. “This is MY office.”

“Oh,” he said, stepping back slightly. “I saw you and just wanted to make sure things are OK.”

“Thank you, George Zimmerman,” I said.

Weeks later, my sarcastic one-off is more painful to me than I could ever have imagined. George Zimmerman’s acquittal leaves me feeling so nauseous.

This office exchange has been common to me my whole life. A testy “Can I help you?” doubles as a passive-aggressive demand for me to justify my presence even where I belong. Thankfully, I have never encountered an armed white person on the other end of that presumption.

Trayvon Martin paid for that common presumption with his life.

Zimmerman’s stooges and apologists claim that his deadly encounter had nothing do with race. And that his trial and acquittal have nothing to do with race. His defenders effectively portrayed him as a hapless Samaritan who got in over his head. Meanwhile, they tarred Trayvon as a menace who failed to properly justify his existence.

These presumptions colored every moment of the Police Department’s botched initial reaction and the trial.

How does an armed adult defy the policy, chase down a youth, kill him, and then turn around and call it self defense? Defense from what? A fleeing kid? Was Trayvon Martin seen for his humanity? Or as a “f**king punk”? Are black men seen for our humanity or as three-fifths of a f**king punk? This verdict will have devastating consequences. It is an implicit green light for every paranoid, sub-intelligent, vigilante racist to go on victimizing black youth. Trayvon Martin is dead for no reason other than being black.

Why do Zimmerman and some Americans feel entitled to police black and brown people like vigilantes? Why did the Sanford Police Department test a dead boy’s body for drugs in “standard operating procedure,” yet failed to test a live man’s body for alcohol or drugs? Why did the Sanford Police Department fail so miserably during the critical immediate hours after arriving on the scene?

Since our juridical Establishment often turns its head – or even winks – at the prevalence of racial profiling and police brutality against black and brown people, why should anyone be surprised by Zimmerman’s chase? Or by his acquittal? Implicitly and explicitly, the law condones his racial paranoia. The so-called rationales used to design and peddle “Stand Your Ground” laws and “Stop and Frisk” laws, and immigrant policing laws, fuel a vigilante mentality allowing some Americans to feel entitled to self-police others.

Even before the verdict, the Police Establishment warned black people not to riot – as though that were a foregone conclusion – without delivering Zimmerman’s supporters the same warning. The warning not to riot – in its substance and tone – recirculates the dogma of “black men as menace.” The chase, the trial, the warnings not to riot, the acquittal all compound the passive-aggressive profiling of black and brown people.

And yet. Legions of white people are heartbroken by Trayvon’s death, and Zimmerman’s acquittal. Legions of white people do not make it their business to self-police people of color. Many people of all races feel solidarity with the boy. “We are all Trayvon.”

This sordid affair has everything to do with race, but not race alone.

Not just a cautionary tale on racial profiling and vigilante justice, Trayvon’s needless death is a devastating lesson on the paranoid logic of gun capitalism. Zimmerman claims he didn’t feel safe. Did Trayvon feel safe? What about his safety? After all, the youth was shot by a multi-racial vigilante assailant – with a troubling history with law enforcement — in a multiracial gated community.

When will we muster the resolve to stop deaths from gun violence? For goodness sake: Why wouldn’t the Aurora shooting and the Newtown massacre force us all to confront the illusory sense of safety in our communities?

Regeneration Through Violence, The Fatal Environment, Gunfighter Nation: Richard Slotkin’s masterful historical trilogy on this country’s long-standing love affair with vigilantism, cruelty, and gun violence reveals as much about Zimmerman and this tragedy as does his trial transcripts – or any news media. This tragedy rips bare all the thorny issues Richard Slotkin exposes in that brilliant trilogy.

The questions demand: How does a legal establishment maintain justice in a world getting browner by the day? And in a nation that feels the need to “regenerate” itself through violence? What will this country do to keep young people safe?

Slotkin trilogy shows us how America’s frontier myths still dominate our violent politics and culture. So, in painful ways, the man who occupies the Oval Office, in all his blackness, is irrelevant.

From the highest levels of power designing our drone policy to the inept local trenches of Florida policing, we remain a gunfighter nation. From Trayvon to the kids in Newton, young people are vulnerable to mentally ill or paranoid or racist adults with guns. The acquittal is yet another frank reminder of who writes our laws, who enforces our laws, and the very presumptions guiding our laws.

Zimmerman’s acquittal is a blunt reality check about how power works in America.

[Billthedrill]

The author has it backwards, but I do think he knows what it really means. It means that despite a media full-court press and a racist President, you can still fight back against Gansta Culture. The scam has reached its high-water mark and is receding, and a whole lot of fast-talking racist punks are going to be left high and dry. The author finds that threatening. He should.

[nathanbedford]

If you want respect as a black individual before the law you are entirely entitled to merely by virtue of your existence.

If you want respect from your fellow man, you are not entitled to it but you must earn it.

If you want respect as an individual from other individuals merely because of your race, then you had better be very particular about which race you choose to be associated with.

Identity politics has proved lucrative in every sense for those who practice it. It has had the consequence of degrading our politics, our governance, and our society. This writer evidently wants to reap the rewards of identity justice. He declares:

Trayvon Martin is dead for no reason other than being black.

This conclusion is so counterfactual as to be utterly absurd. Let me quote myself to establish a conclusion which enjoys the advantage of having a relationship to the facts as established in the trial:

The unvarnished truth is that Travon Martin got exactly what he deserved. He committed a sneak, unprovoked, atrocious assault which was interdicted only by the use of deadly force. If he had not been shot he might well have killed George Zimmerman. One more blow to the head, one more bash of the head against concrete, one more attempted suffocation might well have been the murder of George Zimmerman. If Travon Martin had succeeded in getting possession of Zimmerman's gun, it is very likely he would have used it because he had already threatened Zimmerman's life before he commenced to beat Zimmerman within an inch of his life.

There is no plausible evidence contrary to these conclusions.

Why is it that the author feels free to make a wild assertions of fact which have no demonstrable connection to the facts adduced at trial? Because the author is practicing identity justice. Evidently he also practices identity lifestyle as he described in his encounter with white people at his office after his excellent adventure on Fire Island. The author wanted respect from people he did not know and from whom he could not possibly have earned respect. They owe him no respect, they owe him only their legal duties. Respect comes from earning it but the author wants it merely because his skin is black.

Identity justice, of course, is an oxymoron, the polar opposite of justice. Identity justice asks not whether the facts of the case are proved, but what is the skin color of the parties? Is this latter question which preoccupies the author and which entitles him entirely to ignore the facts as adduced at trial. If and when America descends into the pit of identity justice the author will then begin to see the real terrors of vigilante-ism. Vigilante-ism at least the kind the author complains of having to do with race- is really the privatization of identity justice.

The irony, the pathetic irony, of the author's position is that he wants to practice racism in the courts and mete out juridical privilege to a racial group which is demographically the least deserving of presumption of righteousness and most deserving of presumptions of guilt. He complains of profiling, he complains of forwarnings of riots, he complains of "racial paranoia" but he does not explain, as so many FReepers have pointed out, why that racism is not directed against the Amish?

It seems the Amish are particular about what race they choose to be.

The author is fond of drawing conclusions and making pronouncements for which he has utterly no factual basis. This one is fairly revealing:

Not just a cautionary tale on racial profiling and vigilante justice, Trayvon’s needless death is a devastating lesson on the paranoid logic of gun capitalism. (Emphasis supplied)

The Frankfurt school has taught the left well. Saul Alinsky has honed skills. There is not a scrap of evidence adduced by the author to support the idea that capitalism had anything to do with the reasonable and necessary use of deadly force proved in real litigation against Travon Martin. But if we can use racism, no matter whether real or only imagined, we can bring down capitalism and bring down the legitimate American system. If the rule law sustains capitalism in America, attack the rule law. If alleging racism attacks the rule of law, allege racism. Destroy the building blocks of an orderly society, and let socialism sweep over the rubble.

Identity politics

Identity justice

Nathan Bedford's first Maxim of American politics: all politics in America is not local but ultimately racial.

If the author has a son who looks like Travon Martin (concededly an unlikely event given the author's predilection to visit Fire Island) he does not have to convert his son to the Amish religion but be should consider teaching his son to obey the law, earn the respect he craves, eschew drugs, refrain from burglaries, and, above all, keep his fists to himself.

[DaxtonBrown]

“Zimmerman’s stooges and apologists”

Yoles, what a venomous racist hateful diatribe.

[papertyger]

Muggers hate to lose....

[2ndDivisionVet]

“And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.”
– II Thessalonians 2:11-12 (KJV)

[flaglady47]

From Wiki (he appears on Fox Cable programs a lot lately):

“Rich Benjamin is an American cultural critic, mulit-media journalist, and author.

Benjamin is perhaps best known for the non-fiction book Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America.[1][2]

He is also a lecturer and a well-known public intellectual, who regularly discusses issues on NPR, MSNBC, and FOX News. His writing frequently appears in The New York Times and Salon.com.[3][4] Benjamin’s work focuses on US politics and culture, money, class, African Americans, Whites, Latinos, LGBT issues, public policy, and demographic change.

Benjamin is currently a Senior Fellow at Demos.[5]

[flaglady47]

P.S., Rich Benjamin is a tiny little fellow, emphasis on tiny. He weighs about 2 ounces, and is mostly hair, which sticks straight up, probably in an attempt to look taller.

[Louis Foxwell]

Someone got the color wrong. It should read “Zimmerman verdict: A red light for racist vigilantes.”

[montag813]

Trayvon Martin paid for that common presumption with his life.

No. Trayvon Martin paid for his ASSAULT of an armed man with his life. Funny how the author managed NOT to assault the Whites (fags, likely, since it's Fire Island) that he claimed confronted him.

[SuzyQueIN]

Martin’s supporters refuse to acknowledge that he began the physical confrontation by attacking Zimmerman. If they do admit it, they then rush on to state that Z’s wounds were minimal and not worthy of even being concerned about.

Here’s a bottom line for you: Assuming Martin thought he was being stalked and was fearing for his life and for whatever reason didn’t try to run to his father’s girlfriend’s house — why didn’t he call 911 instead of Rachael Jenteel?

[meyer]

To the contrary, the Zimmerman verdict gives a green light to defend ones’ self against racist criminals. The message is quite clear - don’t attack people, even if they look like a frail, easy target, because they WILL defend themselves.

[SauronOfMordor]

The homosexual flight attendant spread HIV all over the US at each destination his plane stopped at.

[AnAmericanAbroad]

Actually, the person identified as ‘Patient Zero’ in the USA was Robert Rayford, a 16-year-old (possible male prostitute) from St. Louis, MO. He died in 1969, having likely contracted the disease, by his admission, sometime in late 1966.

Yes, you read that right.....1966.

Interestingly, the young man in question never left the Midwest region; how he contracted AIDS is still somewhat of a mystery, though doctors at that time did strongly suspect he was a “hustler”.

Here’s the whole story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Rayford

[WildWeasel]

The trial exposed who had racist tendencies in the situation and it wasn’t Zimmerman.

[JoeProBono]

[tanknetter]

Here’s a bottom line for you: Assuming Martin thought he was being stalked and was fearing for his life and for whatever reason didn’t try to run to his father’s girlfriend’s house — why didn’t he call 911 instead of Rachael Jenteel?

There's actually a possible good answer for that (explanation, not an excuse): because he'd been conditioned by his "community" not to trust "The Man's" institutions, like 9-11/the police.

Of course it's also possible that, having two of the three components* of Purple Drank in his possession he didn't feel it was a good idea to call the cops ...

(* on that note, I have to wonder if, years from now, someone in that neighborhood near where Zimmerman defended himself will be doing some landscape remodeling and will discover an unopened bottle of Robitussin DM in a plastic 7-11 bag)

[hitkicker]

I’m not surprised by this. I think this is the meme that the progtards are going to use to propel their renewed jihad against self-defense: every gun owner is George Zimmerman. Not the George Zimmerman of reality, of course; rather, the George Zimmerman of progressive fantasy. In their bizarre fantasy he’s an evil monster, blood dripping from his fangs as he stalks neighborhoods looking for poor little black children to kill and eat.

[palmer]

In this whole screed I don’t see a single suggestion about how to deal with black criminality. Apparently it is all whitey’s fault, his hands are tied.

[Altura Ct.]

“Thank you, George Zimmerman,” I said.

Someone remind me again about black crime?

[SECURE AMERICA]

George Zimmerman’s acquittal leaves me feeling so nauseous

So finding a man innocent when ALL the evidence put forth proves that innocence makes you nauseous?
Seems you have issues..........