Let's talk about Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, and how unbelievably fucked up this all is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u52Oz-54VYw

Look what I have been posting in this fucking thread over the last year and a half and call me a defender of the racist system again and I will not hesitate to call you a fucking moron, no matter how hard you are grieving. Attack the jury system, attack the presumption of innocence, and the pigs smile. "The Justice System" is a joke concept latched on by dumdums. A racist legislature, racist police and racist prosecutors conspire to set Zimmerman free, and you think people who aren't calling for the destruction of one of the few judicial systems in the world even a ghost of a chance of avoiding or escaping an unjust conviction are the ones going "ho-hum, omelettes and eggs", then you are a dummy and a dupe and a lot of prosecutors can't wait to shake your hand as they help you fuck yourself.

Participting itt is nagl tbh, and ive posted in it maybe five times

Still don't think the "they're all racist" argument is needed, because it's not an outlandish, head-scratching verdict if you look at the evidence and burden of proof. The fact that GZ killed the only eyewitness and that allows him to get off is more upsetting to me. I really don't see what is achieved by accusing jurors of being racist cause hey they're mostly old and white and the said not guilty.

thing is, i see this case as a metonym or synechdoche as much as a thing that exists in isolation. the police handling, prosecution and verdict all contribute to undeniably racist patterns in the american legal system. so we can say that the verdict is obviously, manifestly racist as it relates to the system as a whole -- even if we can't say with equal confidence that these particular jurors are racist themselves (B37 aside).

yeah i'm more cynical than you, as much as an acquittal is plausible here (and hence i guess necessary w/ 'reasonable doubt')(and again i didn't follow the case closely - it's a horribly sad case, i never thought he would be convicted - call it cynicism call it privilege maybe cynicism is a kind of privilege (lol 'maybe') and i haven't read any thorough analyses of the case cuz that's appeasement and i haven't watched anything about the case on tv cuz my heart is not comitted enough to justice to watch cable news) if the jury had decided to convict i wouldn't have found any fault w/ that, even if the case were reputed to be much weaker and it was on murder one charge - no sleep lost. i'm opposed to the death penalty (cuz among other things our justice system is very flawed, sometimes now only do guilty ppl walk but - get ready to have yr mind blown clover - sometimes innocent ppl are convicted) but if he'd been sentenced to the death penalty i wouldn't have have been too outraged, i might've said 'o well the death penalty is bad yknow' but in reality i'd be thinking (or feeling) 'fry that fucker', the same way i might've said 'well gee to delight in a death is savage' but at the same time felt pretty gleeful when bin laden or breitbart died and the same way i might say and think and believe and generally feel that 'justice should be sought within the justice system, not without it, that we should favor the standard applied to zimmerman over the standard he applied' and whatever other rational abstractions but if someone gunned him down tomorrow (or hell today, there's time) i wouldn't feel outraged or saddened or even abstractly opposed, i'd feel pretty fucking giddy and on some level, maybe a level some here aren't as shielded from by privilege/cynicism, it would feel like justice.

xpost

Participting itt is nagl tbh

feeling this, and i'm among the worst offenders

(x-posts) Reverend, thank you very much for replying. I won't forget your words.

glad to know thinking we shouldn't toss out nearly half the bill of rights on the basis of a flawed legal system and the sudden awareness that juries can deliver bad verdicts makes me like hannity. i know you just heard his name for the first time this weekend clover but you should read up on the guy, he agrees w/ you on alot of things about our courts though his intentions aren't quite as noble. first name is 'sean' if you're googling.

Look what I have been posting in this fucking thread over the last year and a half and call me a defender of the racist system again

― Three Word Username, Monday, July 15, 2013 9:32 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

nobody called you that? lmao.

i'd expand but it would just double down the clusterfuck.

instead let me just point out that there's not some sliding scale of rights and granularity of justice where on the one hand zimmerman walks and on the other hand innocent ppl go to jail.

instead we have zimmerman walks _and_ innocent people go to jail because the justice system is not this thing that apportions things evenly to all with some false positives and false negatives as though it were a 95% certainty ratio in a clinical trial. it is one thing for some people, and another thing to other people.

this may be of interest http://www.theroot.com/views/why-zimmerman-jury-failed-us

You know what, I no longer want to participate in or read this thread. Fuck you all.

I am seriously not interested in reading yet another article attacking the verdict without one word about the racist prosecutorial and police misconduct in this case, let alone a defense attorney that took a case a third-year law student could have won while maintaining some fucking dignity and used it to spew racist filth across the USA, and says "damn juries". But it was a short article and I'm up with a touch of indigestion anyway, so I read this one. I would almost always rather go after the fuckheads in suits and uniforms who are taking taxpayer money first in reforming any racist system, but I guess I'm a running dog who doesn't know how to rage right.

x-post right back at you.

tbf discussing police misconduct in this case is appeasement

Slicing this shit thin is important because if you are hollering "BLEEARRGH!!! EVERYTHING HERE IS COMPLETELY AND EQUALLY FUCKED!!!!!" and aren't carrying a torch and throwing bombs yet, you are in a fucking shitty position to be calling anybody a passive co-conspirator.

x-post right back at you.

― Three Word Username, Monday, July 15, 2013 9:57 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Whoa, dude. Rev is not one of the people itt who deserved anybody's rage. I feel bad for fanning the flames that lead to this and just wanna say Rev, for my part, I'm sorry.

passive cynicism that uses moral superiority to stop any discussion of or attempt at reform is one of the more luxurious forms of privilege one can indulge in, it's even got a theme song (from right around the time the left stopped actually accomplishing anything in this country) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u52Oz-54VYw

jesus christ 3 word what's wrong w you?

moderator on aisle this shit

The casual suggestion that the defense of the rule of law might be an aspect of white privilege fucking burns my toast. The casual suggestion that defense of the rule of law is a sign that I am not concerned about the terrifying effects of this case (and the many, many others like them) on black men in America fucking burns my toast. The fact that the scumbag prosecutors in this case got exactly what they wanted (nobody's suing Florida or its cities, nobody's talking about systemic reform of the cops, people ARE talking about weakening defendant's rights) REALLY fucking burns my toast. Reverend has an absolute right to have his pain respected and I do respect it. But "fuck me? fuck you." is also a truth.

I made signs with and marched with a black community group yesterday and even though some people were mad at the all-white jury and SYG which wasn't even used and etc, I would not board lawyer a single person for a thousand fucking dollars, we do not value black lives and every single particle of fury about that cannot be overstated. You all know I can barely stop my mouth from being open what with all the opinions I have about everything, and I have to tell you, I have no powers of opinion--nothing but silent acknowledgement--in the presence of people of color who know this threat in their daily lives and in their bones. If someone wants to be like, Nice of you to show up to this reality in your own sweet time, white person, who made this YOUR problem? that's fair, I deserve that.

Is that stupidly naive and all "I HAVE FEELINGS" and too earnest for this intellectual thread? I'm not saying that the legal particulars don't have a place, I'm saying it feels like they're being played as a trump card over top of the personal convictions people have in this matter, and insisting that they aren't and that the legalities are paramount right now, while this is a fresh wound, is a kind of cruelty even if it makes you feel better for "understanding" how something so wrong could happen.

If someone wants to be like, Nice of you to show up to this reality in your own sweet time, white person, who made this YOUR problem? that's fair, I deserve that.

This is totally otm.

Actually the entirety of both of your posts is all the way otm.

in orbit otm

won't someone think of the innocent toast

ok if everyone wants to take a break at getting outraged at how everyone else here is processing this, here's something idiotic but not quite as depressingly idiotic as a plurality of white americans believing the american justice system is biased against whites - https://medium.com/i-m-h-o/10d425badda8

twu, I know you're in the middle of this right now but that's not even really directed at you, it's for whole internet where ppl are rushing to locate the blame in specifics, not wrongly, but it feels cruel, it feels like another assault. And for the person who sent me the link I posted yesterday about how everyone is mad about the wrong things and, oh noes, won't someone tell the black people how to be mad about the right things before they damage their own credibility, because I am on the side of Righteousness, don't u see, and I want them to only have substantive objections, and I felt this rising sense of rage while I was being sold this bill of goods but I couldn't figure out right away WHY, because rationally it seemed like he was right.

Nice of you to show up to this reality in your own sweet time, white person, who made this YOUR problem? that's fair,

That's fucked up. That's not fair. That assumes stuff like this doesn't make me sick to my stomach, or fearful for my friends and their children. There are people who bear the greater brunt of racism, but racism is everybody's fucking problem. When I look at my girls, I am hopeful that their generation will see less and less of this shit, but I never want them to forget what kind of world we live in, or how horrible some people can be. This is everyone's problem, because it affects the would we live in. It's like pollution. It's in the air we breathe.

it's hard for me to imagine a legal system w/o reasonable doubt standard that doesn't effectively INCREASE the impact of racial bias

also yeah juries can be fucked up. i sat on a jury in a wrongful termination case and there were at least three other jurors who either/both

1) just wanted to go home. one guy in particular started yelling at us b/c he was self-employed contractor and losing business as we deliberated.

2) just shared their own thoughts on the general issues (sexism/sexual harassment in the workplace, workplace romance, city budgets, etc.) rather than attend to the specific details of the case.

i could say more but i think i've done so on another thread. anyway it was an enlightening experience and made me a fair bit more pessimistic than I had been.

also phil ochs otm but i still can't stand his voice at all :(

in the same sense that jury nullification can override an unjust law to acquit, juries retain the right to convict even when the evidence seems shaky or the law doesn't otherwise seem to apply. we forget this, but as i understand things, juries are ultimately bound by nothing but their own hearts and minds. they get to decide which doubts are reasonable and which are not. they get to decide which witnesses and supposed "facts" they want to believe. they even get to decide which laws they think are just - and which are not.

― twerking for obvious reasons (contenderizer), Monday, July 15, 2013 8:55 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually, they don't. You can appeal a conviction based on insufficient evidence. The state can't appeal an acquittal. The power to acquit and the power to convict are very decidedly not equally weighted in our system.

which is as it should be, i think, despite how i feel about this particular case.

actually, they don't. You can appeal a conviction based on insufficient evidence. The state can't appeal an acquittal. The power to acquit and the power to convict are very decidedly not equally weighted in our system.

― i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Monday, July 15, 2013 8:56 PM (5 minutes ago)

sure, but i wasn't talking about what might happen after a verdict is rendered, only about the basic right of juries to render whatever sort of verdicts they see fit.

nullification obviously carries more power

fuck, was gonna abstain. out.

actually even in trial courts there's something called a Judgment Notwithstanding the Verdict, where a judge can overturn a conviction (but not an acquittal) that "no reasonable jury" could come to.

I only have a personal angle to this, one that may sound kind of trite but idk, maybe personal is what helps this thread be more useful.

I have been nerding out on civil war stuff lately, and had just finished watching the Ken Burns episode tonight when Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. and for the 900th time in this series I heard Battle Hymn of the Republic, but it was a jubilant choir singing the final verse...and I glanced at my phone to check zing for updates and read some more posts ITT, and I was thinking about Trayvon and the song just kinda kicked me in the stomach and I was caught with this feeling of, holy shit are we really here, are we really this far *nowhere*

it just fills me with a deeper level of despair...that, laid over the despair I have thinking about so many *other* aspects of our place in the world...

and I don't know where we are. or where we are going.

Let me start with a quick apology to Reverend. That was dumb and mean of me to shoot back personally to a generalized cry of grief, and I hate dumb and mean.

I have just read a bunch of reasonable white guy articles by reasonable white guy lawyers explaining reasonably and whitely how we cannot blame the courts and now that we all know Zimmerman was disproved to be a racist black folk should all go home and heel quietly and the articles made me want to vomit. I also haven't changed my opinion that the courts may have been the only part of the dreadful Florida government that didn't fail in this case. I haven't seen anyone on this thread say "DON'T FEEL!!" but I have read a couple of "THINKING TOO MUCH IS RACIST" posts, and that is very uncool. Someone in my close circle died a drug related death a few years back, and a very few of us saw it coming and grieved before his death, and others didn't and were shocked and freaking out in his last days. There was tension and fighting among us, and I understand it.

I should also say that when I moved to Europe in 1998, I had been given a legal guarantee of voting rights in the country I now call home by 2004. Last week, the government changed the law (as they have repeatedly over the last decade and a half, always to my detriment) again to deny the possibility of my having any voting rights before 2020. People read my name and hear my accent and judge my intelligence, my trustworthiness, my criminality on that basis alone and react to me accordingly. I thinkI have some clue about what not having white privilege is like.

"heel" was a typo, but a fitting one.

No, thinking too much is not racist.

Shouting down and talking over black people on a subject where black voices are sorely needed is racist.
Putting arguments into the mouths of black people so they can be useful for you to make arguments completely tangential to what they said is racist.
Ascribing ulterior motives to black people who dare question your authority is racist.
Minimizing the reality of the psychological trauma that racialized violence creates for black people is racist.
Prescribing a course for black people to undertake rather than allowing to come to their own conclusions is racist.
Thinking your status as a white American in Europe gives you true understanding of how black people are treated in America is racist.

Good night.

Apology withdrawn.

:)

"Shouting down and talking over black people on a subject where black voices are sorely needed is racist."

I agree. Fuck you if you mean me.

"Putting arguments into the mouths of black people so they can be useful for you to make arguments completely tangential to what they said is racist."

I agree. Fuck you if you mean me.

"Ascribing ulterior motives to black people who dare question your authority is racist."

I agree. Fuck you if you mean me.

"Minimizing the reality of the psychological trauma that racialized violence creates for black people is racist."

I agree. Fuck you with an extra "Christ, you're dumb" if you mean me.

Prescribing a course for black people to undertake rather than allowing to come to their own conclusions is racist.

I agree. Fuck you if you mean me.

Thinking your status as a white American in Europe gives you true understanding of how black people are treated in America is racist.

I agree. But since you clearly mean me here, fuck you. Christ, you're dumb.

TWU, it would be best for all of us, including you, if you just forgot this thread exists and never revisit it.

It would be best for everyone if ILX didn't exist, yet here we are.

ILX is often an enlightening and beneficial community, and then things like you participating in this thread happen.

I mean the swift wrath of the dogpile of the sensitive majority is surely coming, so I won't have to forget it -- but I think I can draw a distinction between outcries of well-earned grief and rage and specific accusations of me being a racist. And if someone would like to show me that the latter is not what I just got a from the Rev, I'm all fucking ears.

TWU, rev was looking for a space wherein which to grieve over this verdict - and earlier in the thread, he had already decided that this was not it, and vented a little about it. you thought he came after you personally, and decided that you had to respond. okay - a misstep! you later apologized. but it was very important for you to show to everybody in your apology that you didn't have racist intentions, that you, a white american living among white people in europe, understand what it's like to be a black person living in america. okay...? so the rev came back, and called you out on it. you know, you don't have to respond to everything that is directed at you on the internet. you are entitled to post a reply if you'd like, but you are also entitled to walk away. you sound like you are very confident in your position. if that's so, then maybe you can let your words in this thread stand alone for everybody to judge, instead of deafening us with invective.

"but it was very important for you to show to everybody in your apology that you didn't have racist intentions, that you, a white american living among white people in europe, understand what it's like to be a black person living in america."

Horseshit. It is very important to me to respond to deliberate distortions of what I have actually said, and this is one. Words have fucking meanings and the meanings of words are fucking important. I said I have some idea what it is to like not to have White privilege because of my status in Austrian society, and I meant exactly that. I am denied certain legal and societal privileges in the country where I live because of where I was born. I did not say I understood what it is to be Black in America, and wouldn't, and fuck you if you say I did or would. I was not saying "I'm not a racist!" because that would have been irrelevant and is one of those rare sentences that becomes a lie the moment you utter it; I was saying that as I do not live in a country where I am protected by white privilege, it is not purely theoretical for me to have some idea of what it is like to be the subject of societal and legal scrutiny different from what people who enjoy white privilege can imagine. I really don't want to put my business out into the world, but my discussion of comparative law systems is not come from a theoretical basis and is not the blabla of a board or other attorney.

thank you for your rebuttal, counselor. you may rest.

I do not recognize your authority.