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

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The Questlove thing comes from the right place, but is totally rong. He just finished writing about what an exclusive place he lives in, full of famous people, kids of royalty, "mafia goombahs," etc. Hmm, I wonder if there could be any reason why this woman wouldn't want anyone to know what floor she lives on? I mean, I can imagine Madonna blindfolding her best friends before bringing them up to her place. This could have been the wife of a "mafia goombah," or the mother of some kid of royalty. Or a hooker going to any of the above. People live in these places because they want total privacy and discretion, and few of them are as cool as Questlove.

A much better Questlove anecdote was in the New Yorker, the story of not buying a big flashy SUV because he didn't want to be lopped in with the drug dealers he grew up around. So he drove a Scion or something. And he tells the story of getting pulled over three times late one night, then eventually asking what the fuck is up. And the cops tell him that they figured this large black guy had just stolen some college kids' dopey little car. Damned if you do ...

Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 13:41 (ten years ago) link

collardio g otm

IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 13:42 (ten years ago) link

i learned that questove weighs 300 pounds today!

k3vin k., Wednesday, 17 July 2013 13:58 (ten years ago) link

said Goetz, a noted authority on shooting unarmed black teenagers

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 14:15 (ten years ago) link

and he uses the phrase 'pain in the arse' xo

wow I'm surprised at how strongly Curtis Silwa comes out for Martin in that article

“Because I deal with the wannabes who want to join the Guardian Angels, I see right away what this guy Zimmerman is: a self-appointed guardian. It’s him determining who is and is not a threat. Forget laws, forget standards, forget the police. Goetz had already been victimized, thrown thru a plate-glass window (in an attemped day-time robbery on Canal Street in 1981). When the four guys began to surround him on the train, to do that dance that many of us were used to back then, when the predators would sniff you out and maybe they’d rob you but they would empower themselves and you’d be completely emasculated and realize there’s nothing you can do if these guy pounce––but this time he got the jump.”

Those trying to suggest Martin was likewise some sort of thug who brought on his own death because he smoked marijuana or bragged with friends about fighting, “they should impale themselves," said Sliwa. "Here’s a kid, goes out at half-time to get Skittles and iced tea, puts his hoodie on because it’s starting to rain, doesn’t say anything to anybody, isn’t eye-fornicating anybody, just minding his own business. He doesn’t have a M.O. He doesn’t do home invasions. What the hell are you following this kid for? Goddamn right he fights back. The same law that says you can stand and defend yourself in Florida—Martin is defending himself against a guy approaching him with a gun and confronting him.”

i don't even have an internet (Hurting 2), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 14:19 (ten years ago) link

that article does a pretty good job in highlighting the differences between the two cases, although it actually makes Goetz look sympathetic in comparison

Nhex, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 14:24 (ten years ago) link

trying to stay away here but let me make one point about the Questlove piece. There is maybe a 3% chance that this social interaction wasn't about race, but about secret mob mistress or some bullshit. That's generous. But think about this -- every interaction, even if there is always some chance of an innocent explanation, there's no way they're _all_ innocent. And everywhere you go in life, every time something happens, you never know. you have to walk around all day every day saying "was it because? i hope not but..."

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity."

stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:15 (ten years ago) link

not an awkward interaction every now and then, but always, ever-present. ines-fucking-scapable. try to understand how exhausting that is.

stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:16 (ten years ago) link

All I'm going to say about the reaction to the Questlove piece is "stop telling black people how to experience racism".

"Post-Oven" (DJP), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:17 (ten years ago) link

my mind is blown that the rxn has been anything other than 'questo otm' but i guess it shouldn't be after this week

BIG HOOS aka the denigrated boogeyman (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:20 (ten years ago) link

good point & well said, clover.

sometimes tough juggling sympathy for women's 100% legit awareness of sexual threat in the rape culture w/ sympathy for black people's 100% legit awareness of racism in murderland. but not every thought need be voiced...

IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:26 (ten years ago) link

hoos otm - I'm bummed that there's blowback on the Questo piece

set the controls for the heart of the sun (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:38 (ten years ago) link

I had a friend who lived in an upper east side nice place. I went to visit him once, and I got so many stares and weird looks in or near the elevator bank it made me feel weird and out of place. I am neither black nor huge, so I can only imagine, but I think many people who live in bubble-world doorman buildings in NYC are just totally weird. I wouldn't be surprised if along with his mafia dons and supermodels his building is filled with just your usual array of antisocial freaks.

Anyway, whether or not his anecdote reveals racism is irrelevant, because the same situation arrises for him again and again, and many of those situations are undoubtedly the product of racism. Quest is entirely justified to feel how he feels. It is not in my place to tell him otherwise.

Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:39 (ten years ago) link

DJP otm

crüt, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:40 (ten years ago) link

otm. and questlove otm, and JIC too. all around.

IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:42 (ten years ago) link

I think stevie wonder's had the best idea so far and an organized boycott of florida until syg is repealed might actually have some effect

iatee, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:45 (ten years ago) link

I mean there are good reasons to boycott florida regardless so

iatee, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 15:46 (ten years ago) link

friend of mine showed up to a rally saturday night with a BOYCOTT FLORIDA shirt she had ironed-on for the occassion

BIG HOOS aka the denigrated boogeyman (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 16:01 (ten years ago) link

Miami heat should move to Chicago

SEN. MORBIUS CALLS FOR WATERFACE TO RESIGN (Sufjan Grafton), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 16:02 (ten years ago) link

an economy so dependent on tourism is actually a pretty good boycott target

iatee, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 16:03 (ten years ago) link

Gah, who needs a boycott when "you could get shot there for no reason" is reason enough to avoid Florida? There are a lot of places I'm currently "boycotting."

Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 16:39 (ten years ago) link

Florida's a little more fucked up than most of the rest of the country, but I feel like all this "boycott florida" shit is missing the picture that there isn't a state in this union that this couldn't have happened in (except maybe Ohio). I've been seeing so much smug "fuck florida", "fuck the south" and "let's let florida and texas secede" bullshit on FB, particularly from bay area friends. This on the same weekend as Fruitvale Station's release in theatres, which is about a similar case where a BART cop in Oakland shot an unarmed black man who was cuffed and lying face down on the ground and only ended up getting 2 years in prison, this with multiple eyewitnesses and video footage.

Fetchboy, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 23:06 (ten years ago) link

can't boycott california, i live here

the late great, Wednesday, 17 July 2013 23:49 (ten years ago) link

that's true, fetchboy, but it helps to chose targets, to narrow the focus. florida seems a good choice in part because of its relationship to a case that's very much in the public eye, and in part because it seems to have worked so actively to create this exact situation. the murder of trayvon martin isn't something that just happens to have occurred in florida. it's the natural result of florida's decisions & culture. it's the goal.

IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Wednesday, 17 July 2013 23:56 (ten years ago) link

the murder of trayvon martin isn't something that just happens to have occurred in florida. it's the natural result of florida's decisions & culture. it's the goal.

with terms replaced, the same thing is true in Oakland. American racism is the problem. noplace is exempt imo.

tight in the runs (underrated aerosmith bootlegs I have owned), Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:03 (ten years ago) link

okay, fair enough. florida's been extra flagrant, imo, but not uniquely so. still, i don't see anything wrong with seizing the moment in order gain some leverage. not that i'm all fired up on the "ban florida" bandwagon. just sayin.

IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:06 (ten years ago) link


http://25.media.tumblr.com/4aaed3909d9de30c9e35497a51b80859/tumblr_mpwlznMPEa1rwttbfo1_400.gif

Fuck this image and the whole sentiment behind it, the “it’s not us, it’s them!" nonsense that people think makes they’re above this. It ain’t Florida that’s the problem. It never was. It’s the white supremacy that infests every aspect of American life from top to bottom. It’s a government that is beholden to corporate interests over its own people. It’s a country that has been taught that black lives ain’t worth a thing, and that playing the “race card" is an actual thing that happens, as opposed to some nonsense some white douchebag made up.

America and white Americans have consistently and strategically engaged in terrorism and genocide against whatever stands in its way. Black bodies were commerce, and when that stopped being feasible, Americans found another way to hold them down. When that became an issue, America granted a few rights, paid some lip service to the idea of equality, and then assassinated the people who were trying to force it to be better, shipped so many brown faces to Vietnam and brought them back with emotional trauma and addictions, shipped guns and money and support directly to the people who were poisoning the ghetto, and then, after murdering men, women, and children, blames the victim for their death and skates scot-free.

Try harder. This basic nonsense doesn’t cut it anymore.

http://tumblr.iamdavidbrothers.com/post/55410053903/fuck-this-image-and-the-whole-sentiment-behind-it

乒乓, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:07 (ten years ago) link

I thought I heard someone on TV say that the NRA/weapons manufacturers basically own Florida regarding the gun laws, stand your ground, et al...they seem like the hidden hand moving all the pieces in this. Handing out the guns and making the laws that give blanket permission to go vigilante...

Side question: is it completely nuts to wonder if the prosecution threw the case? Mark Geragos made that claim last night on CNN and Jeffrey Toobin (does he always smirk? he was unwatchable) basically said you're nuts. Still I wonder....

Iago Galdston, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:16 (ten years ago) link

xp to dayo: if you are inclined towards the "we are all guilty" axis of argument in discussing w/e social ill, the fact that, even so, florida (in this case) draws special attention is or is not worth considering iyo?

mundane peaceable username (darraghmac), Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:19 (ten years ago) link

Not really worth considering insofar as it makes people think that this is something that can just be 'quarantined' to a specific place, not when it pretty much happens in every state in the US, SYG laws or not

乒乓, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:25 (ten years ago) link

Like somebody in liberal paradise NYC pointing at florida and shaking their heads and forgetting about amadou diallo and sean bell

乒乓, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:28 (ten years ago) link

I've not heard of those cases, i've heard a huge amount about this one, and the coverage has often made a point of syg etc.

mundane peaceable username (darraghmac), Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:30 (ten years ago) link

use the google, please.

stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:31 (ten years ago) link

more recently, less noted, Kimani Gray

stefon taylor swiftboat (s.clover), Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:32 (ten years ago) link

The point is opposite to that.

mundane peaceable username (darraghmac), Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:32 (ten years ago) link

xpost to darragh's 3rd to last
This case deserves special attention as a symbol of the moral bankruptcy our entire country has re:race. We don't need to just fix FLA. We have a laundry list of things we need to do if we want to stop young black men from being walking targets in America:
end the war on drugs
get serious about gun control
fight these stupid stand your ground laws
demand better representation of blacks in the media (even seeing the trailer for Captain Phillips, which is based on a true story, made me ill yesterday. we don't need any more white fucking heroes fighting black villains)
stop biting our tongues when friends/relatives/coworkers say racist things
etc
etc
etc

Fetchboy, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:33 (ten years ago) link

sorry, "stop young black men from being walking targets" was worded very poorly.
more like "stop asshole america from treating young black men like walking targets"

Fetchboy, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:42 (ten years ago) link

florida is a good boycott target because

a. lots of people across the country and world have already focused on it and would be willing to participate
b. there is a fairly achievable goal/endpoint (getting rid of a law that even many people in florida aren't behind)
c. its tourism industry actually gives people who don't live there a lot of leverage

ie it's a good choice because it could actually succeed, not because it's more racist than alabama or nyc cops or w/e

iatee, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:46 (ten years ago) link

So how many poor black/latino people are gonna get put out of work before this boycott convinces hardheaded rich white men in power to concede?

Fetchboy, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:47 (ten years ago) link

14

iatee, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:48 (ten years ago) link

i think it might be worth concentrating on florida during this particular moment for two reasons: 1) florida really is out there at the front of the pack. with its laws and this verdict, it seems to have declared itself a hunting ground. 2) florida is simply the current focus of public attention.

i guess i'm trying to seize republican tactics -- take any chance to get people on board & engaged. symbols are powerful tools. small, symbolic targets are valuable in that they're easily grasped and communicated. better yet, they make huge, systemic problems seem manageable. if public outrage could be productively gathered against florida's "stand your ground" laws, it could perhaps then be turned against similar statutes elsewhere, against the gun lobby, even against american racism in general.

IIIrd Datekeeper (contenderizer), Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:49 (ten years ago) link

Well, then, let's just set up a kickstarter for those 14 and start boycotting.

Fetchboy, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:49 (ten years ago) link

Don't mean to be a jerk or anything but isn't Florida up "at the front of the pack for race-oppression" because black people actually live there, as opposed to Wyoming or New England

flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:54 (ten years ago) link

Black people actually live in most of the US.

Fetchboy, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:56 (ten years ago) link

dayo's link otm, of course

flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:57 (ten years ago) link

Actually, this is more accurate

Fetchboy, Thursday, 18 July 2013 00:58 (ten years ago) link

Mass is 85% white and is the most "diverse" of New English states.
Wyoming I mentioned because it's the most gun-violence-per-capita state and it is 90% white.

flamboyant goon tie included, Thursday, 18 July 2013 01:00 (ten years ago) link

Side question: is it completely nuts to wonder if the prosecution threw the case? Mark Geragos made that claim last night on CNN and Jeffrey Toobin (does he always smirk? he was unwatchable) basically said you're nuts. Still I wonder....

― Iago Galdston, Thursday, July 18, 2013 12:16 AM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

apparently the prosecution's opening was so strong that the defense attorneys lost their minds and improvised a knock knock joke, so I doubt this.

Matt Armstrong, Thursday, 18 July 2013 01:01 (ten years ago) link


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