MirageMaybe waiting for facts instead of emotional releaseWed Mar 28, 2012 01:4263.194.75.2Well the President said to do some soul searching, so I have, and it's awfully hard to do when there are so many conflicting articles from major papers, so many rumors, so many facts that are not being released in part because the victim was a minor and in part because the investigation is ongoing. The story depends on which sources you believe, and both sides have all kinds of political and sociological reasons to be biased or even outright distort it, in both directions. I've followed this story and right now, it's still a Rorschach test. I don't have much faith in those but I looked all over the place, read all sorts of commentary from people who knew him and people who didn't, from families, from police, and I did my usual substitutions, imagining their positions reversed, what if anything changes. I puzzled over obscure bits like that Zimmerman registered Democrat but the far left is claiming he is a right-wing racist, and that his family says he has black family members. I decided it's irrelevant what Martin did to get suspended 3 times since Zimmerman could not have known about that, but that it may be relevant that Zimmerman was apparently the victim of a major violent assault in the past, the details of which have not been released by police. That may possibly have factored into their decision that he believed he was acting in self defense. It may also explain why he made the tragic decision to carry a gun and his zealousness in the Neighborhood Watch. I keep wondering why, why why, like everyone else. Why is especially important here because the hate crime charge is starting to look likely.
The neighborhood is apparently a high crime neighborhood. One article I read said that the police were called to that neighborhood over 400 times in a year. If that's anywhere near truth you've got neighbors living there who are probably constantly on edge, and some of them are minorities. It seems to be a fairly multiracial and multi-ethnic neighborhood judging by the witnesses I have seen quoted. Neither man involved considered himself "white" but Hispanic/Latino people have been officially declared white now and a lot of them still reject that label. It's unclear who started the physical confrontation but it's looking like they both participated to some degree in a verbal and physical confrontation before the shot occurred. Both sustained injuries, but Trayvon's gunshot wound was fatal and George's head wounds weren't. Unless George injured his own nose and head after the fact, this means we have a mutual combat scenario. Nobody seems to have seen the actual shot fired. Some believe George was crying, some insist the Trayvon was crying. One witness who stated that it was George on the ground being pounded was able to identify the color of shirt he was wearing (red) but witness memory is not very reliable. The existing autopsy would clarify a lot, but it's sealed. It seems entirely possible to me that at some point in the event *both* of them may have felt they were acting in self defense, but not one news story I have seen has mentioned this possibility. It's even possible both of them did have legally justifiable grounds to claim self defense. For example, if George pulled a gun in self defense because according to phone records he had saw that Trayvon had a hand in his waistband (might have a gun) and then Trayvon attacked him because he believed he was going to be shot, and then George shot him...you see my point. Whatever happened, I think it's fairly clear from the phone calls they made that both men felt threatened by each other on sight, and I believe that is probably at the root of the tragedy. As far as I understand the state self defense law, feeling you are in danger is enough cause to use fatal force. Now, to the religious aspects.
Should the white clergy, or perhaps all clergy be decrying this tragedy as a race murder? Depends on whether it was, and that's unclear to me. Believe me, I wish I knew. There are serious racial tensions in that state and always have been. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-sanford-florida-20120323,0,1679914.story?page=1
However people who knew the hispanic/white watch captain say he wasn't a racist. His family says that, his friends say that, and a black former television reporter who is a friend of the family also says that he never felt any racism coming from him. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/25/joe-oliver-george-zimmerman-trayvon-martin_n_1378390.html
Some sources say he mentored black kids, but nobody seems to have elaborated. Other sources say he used racist slurs, but that too is disputed by someone who was present when it is alleged he used the slur in a phone call. Witness says says he used a different often-but-not-always-derogatory term which happens to rhyme with the antiquated unforgivable c word (goon, a much more common word http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=goon). Any or all of the people who knew him, including the black journalist, could be wrong or lying, but maybe they aren't. How can we know? Was the watch captain using profiling? Probably. Police do the same. It would really help matters if the Neighborhood Watch program did not encourage untrained volunteers to use profiling. Profiling may help solve crimes under narrow circumstances, and I will admit this, but I am personally unconvinced it isn't just guilty until proven innocent applied to an entire group. I don't think it is worth the price.
Christian clergy are supposed to avoid judging but sometimes don't. I actually kind of admire the clergy of all colors who have refrained here, because the picture that is slowly emerging is full of awkward questions, messy grey distracting backstories, and pre-existing local issues people on both sides of the case are studiously ignoring to make their points. Both men had a history of past problems which are variously and nebulously explained, and both had apparent dreams of doing something better with themselves. No surprise here, neither of them appears to have been an angel but both of the families see things differently of course. Clearly what happened should not have happened and is incredibly tragic but we may never know exactly what happened that resulted in a gunshot killing Trayvon Martin or why George Zimmerman had grass stains on the back of his shirt and the back of his head and his nose were bleeding. If I were a clergyperson about the only thing I could justifiable say right now is that I wish as citizens we would learn to be less terrified of each other and also less confrontational. America today is a place where it is not safe to trust strangers too much, but neither is it safe to assume the worst of them. Either can lead to tragedy.
My gut feeling is this fatal conflict wasn't fundamentally about race on either side even if one or both of them was prejudiced, but about fear of strangers, which can at times end up at the same bad places. Maybe our clergy should be questioning whether having a Neighborhood Watch is a good or bad thing for the soul of a community?
Given that the autopsy results are still sealed, we cannot know at this point who initiated the violence and whether Zimmerman was on the ground crying for help at the time or Martin was, as their respective lawyers assert. Until then I have suspended my initial assumption that this was a hate crime and that Zimmerman coldly intended to shoot Martin, who was not threatening him whatsoever. During all this I realized too that Zimmerman has a usually-Jewish last name and that he is also Hispanic. There is about as much stereotyping of both of those groups in America as there is of African-Americans. When there is an autopsy report released, I think we'll see a lot more talking and soul searching by clergy in general. I do understand the pain of the African America community. Trayvon is a symbol of much much more. If it turns out this case is not as simple as it initially appeared to be, that will not change that what it symbolizes does exist and many Americans must endure it every day. It makes me very sad that it takes a young man's death to remind all the people who don't.
- Maybe waiting for facts instead of emotional release — Mirage, Wed Mar 28 01:42
