quote:

ORIGINAL: Kana
That is,unless you know lots of 17 year old "boys" (Notes that the state of Fla is more than happy to declare 17 year old adults when it comes to death penalty time, or trying a minor as an adult.)who go around committing A&B on complete strangers.
Which, as has been noted on this thread, is a truly insane thing to do in FLA where 1/2 the population is armed.

quote:

It's all Z's fault, ya see. Because this "kid," he wasn't responsible.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kana
That is,unless you know lots of 17 year old "boys" (Notes that the state of Fla is more than happy to declare 17 year old adults when it comes to death penalty time, or trying a minor as an adult.)who go around committing A&B on complete strangers.
Which, as has been noted on this thread, is a truly insane thing to do in FLA where 1/2 the population is armed.

17 year old boys (yes, that's what I'll continue to call him, because that reflects my experience of 17 year old boys) will tend overreact to provocation and most especially when it comes to pricking their dignity. We know this. And it would of course be inane to say that he acted 'without provocation' outside of a hyper-narrowly legal sense of that phrase.

quote:

It's all Z's fault, ya see. Because this "kid," he wasn't responsible.

Trayvon Martin was on the cusp of being responsible as an adult and non-responsible as a child. It wasn't an all or nothing situation - it wasn't all Z's (ir)responsibility or M's (ir)responsibility. If Martin, and other kids of his age, had been considered fully responsible as adults then presumably, amongst other things that go along with being considered fully responsibly as an adult, he could have been armed with a gun as well, no? In which case this debate might well not be happening now.

Trayvon Martin had an excuse for acting like a kid, because he was a kid. Zimmerman did not, because he was not.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kana
That is,unless you know lots of 17 year old "boys" (Notes that the state of Fla is more than happy to declare 17 year old adults when it comes to death penalty time, or trying a minor as an adult.)who go around committing A&B on complete strangers.
Which, as has been noted on this thread, is a truly insane thing to do in FLA where 1/2 the population is armed.

17 year old boys (yes, that's what I'll continue to call him, because that reflects my experience of 17 year old boys) will tend overreact to provocation and most especially when it comes to pricking their dignity. We know this. And it would of course be inane to say that he acted 'without provocation' outside of a hyper-narrowly legal sense of that phrase.

quote:

It's all Z's fault, ya see. Because this "kid," he wasn't responsible.

Trayvon Martin was on the cusp of being responsible as an adult and non-responsible as a child. It wasn't an all or nothing situation - it wasn't all Z's (ir)responsibility or M's (ir)responsibility. If Martin, and other kids of his age, had been considered fully responsible as adults then presumably, amongst other things that go along with being considered fully responsibly as an adult, he could have been armed with a gun as well, no? In which case this debate might well not be happening now.

Trayvon Martin had an excuse for acting like a kid, because he was a kid. Zimmerman did not, because he was not.

quote:

ORIGINAL: BamaD
And yet that excuse doesn't mean Zimmerman had no right to defend himself, after all he didn't get a chance to card Martin.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kana

So you're saying that you find it 100% acceptable that M assaulted Z w/o cause.
Alrighty then.

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Which sadly, happens far to often to poor black male youths.

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ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

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Which sadly, happens far to often to poor black male youths.

Some people would rather it happen to middle class White elderly Women I guess.

T

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

quote:

ORIGINAL: BamaD
And yet that excuse doesn't mean Zimmerman had no right to defend himself, after all he didn't get a chance to card Martin.

All in all, I can't disagree. But there's a disconnect between rights and duties here - I've always thought the two go together. Zimmerman had duties, but he fucked them up. He had a duty in particular to discriminate between levels of threat, and he got that wrong.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Kana

quote:

ORIGINAL: Termyn8or

quote:

Which sadly, happens far to often to poor black male youths.

Some people would rather it happen to middle class White elderly Women I guess.

T

No.But let's be real. Black American males, poor ones especially, die at an amazingly disproportionate rate. As in, murder is the #1 cause of death for them.
Which is a truly terrifying statistic, one that should concern every American, because it affects us all. The questions we should be asking are what can we do to break this cycle, what can we do to derail a subculture that celebrates violence and machismo, what can we do to better their chances of improvement, of breaking the cycles of endemic poverty that shackle them.

That's a much more pertinent train of thought than looting the local Korean grocery because the verdict didn't satisfy the public's craving for blood...a craving whipped into a frenzy by media lies and slander.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marc2b

GENERAL REPLY:

I've noticed that a lot of people on this thread tend to view racism as an all or nothing thing. They seem to think that someone is either a Confederate flag waving, "let's lynch them all," foaming at the mouth racist or a pure spirit incapable of even having a racist thought. In fact people can be not racist in some situations and quite racist (sometimes not even aware of it) in other situations.

The fact that Zimmerman may have voted for Obama or may have date a black girl in high school in no way means that the fact that Trayvon was black didn't influence his decision to follow him that night.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Marc2b

GENERAL REPLY:

I've noticed that a lot of people on this thread tend to view racism as an all or nothing thing. They seem to think that someone is either a Confederate flag waving, "let's lynch them all," foaming at the mouth racist or a pure spirit incapable of even having a racist thought. In fact people can be not racist in some situations and quite racist (sometimes not even aware of it) in other situations.

The fact that Zimmerman may have voted for Obama or may have date a black girl in high school in no way means that the fact that Trayvon was black didn't influence his decision to follow him that night.

quote:

And the fact that after a year long state investigation, a year long federal investigation, and a criminal trial, there isn't a single shred of valid evidence that could rationally support the assertion that Zimmeramn was acting on racist intentions?

That's not just evidence of absence, that raises the bar to where people making the extreme assertion need to start coughing up some extreme proof.

quote:

ORIGINAL: PeonForHer

quote:

ORIGINAL: BamaD
And yet that excuse doesn't mean Zimmerman had no right to defend himself, after all he didn't get a chance to card Martin.

All in all, I can't disagree. But there's a disconnect between rights and duties here - I've always thought the two go together. Zimmerman had duties, but he fucked them up. He had a duty in particular to discriminate between levels of threat, and he got that wrong.

quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

The tragedy of course is that Martin didn't smash his head like a pumpkin, because then he would have been alive and exonerated by law today.

quote:

ORIGINAL: Yachtie

quote:

ORIGINAL: mnottertail

The tragedy of course is that Martin didn't smash his head like a pumpkin, because then he would have been alive and exonerated by law today.

That's a new low, even for you.