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

good comma there goole

His lawyer cannot testify as to events, he can only ask questions. xp

yeah exactly. ps killing black men because they're all intent on robbing you is the SAME RACIAL MYTHOLOGY as black men will rape all your white women because they're oversexed brutes.

― horseshoe, Tuesday, March 20, 2012 1:21 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

both these things are about white dudes' property, just to make it explicit

Adding: Opening and closing arguments are not testimony.

the irony that white people think black people are so scary when really black people are terrified of white people because look what happens.

This, this, a thousand times this.

Also, I think we all know what would have happened had Martin been armed and shot Zimmerman: He'd be in jail right now, any self-defense claim would be rejected, and they'd probably be preparing to try him as an adult and lock him up forever (or execute him) because of the vicious nature of the crime of gunning down a community leader who was trying to protect his neighbors.

going to go stare expressionlessly at the wall for 5 hours, brb

the right wing argument is, i believe, zimmerman is actually mexican so it can't be a hate crime.

― goole, Tuesday, March 20, 2012 12:44 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i wrote something about this today and so far the right-wing comments/twitter reaction is "why didn't you specify zimmerman's race, eh?"

goole knows his right wing

i mean even taking away the racial aspect for a second, it's still fucked beyond fucked that some huge dude shot an unarmed 17-year-old kid carrying a bag of skittles

or, deep in the comment weeds, there was an attack earlier this month by two black kids with gasoline on a white kid in kansas city, and "nobody in the liberal media cared", even though the cops a) considered it a hate crime and were b) investigating it! double standards!!

that was nice btw, max, your gawker piece. i don't know what to do with my feelings about this case, but that helped.

His lawyer cannot testify as to events, he can only ask questions. xp

― butvi wouls (Phil D.), Tuesday, March 20, 2012 10:47 AM (8 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

as i understand it, lawyers can and do present theories regarding what happened. they do it directly in summation, and they do it by calling witnesses that will present a certain version of events.

thanks h

[continuing from my xp] i mean, you say that "opening and closing arguments are not testimony", but opening and closing arguments attempt to frame and explain testimony. they provide a narrative that the legal team hopes the jury will accept as the truth.

or, deep in the comment weeds, there was an attack earlier this month by two black kids with gasoline on a white kid in kansas city, and "nobody in the liberal media cared", even though the cops a) considered it a hate crime and were b) investigating it! double standards!!

yow, never heard about this. sounds ghastly.

story promoted heavily on conservative blogs

well, i don't read those, so no wonder. is there any other dimension to it that might make it generically newsworthy, like were the assailants not charged?

goole reads these things so we don't have to

zimmerman's and the police department's racist motives are disturbingly complementary tbh; the police were likely just relieved that zimmerman was not related to any of their officers, that he was non-white was just a bonus

damn max, really love ur piece.

ha i just found that shit now! a case like this i always wonder what the 'other side' thinks. plus it's kind of a case study in information pathways and what have you.

okay i looked at the comments thread and they do like to accuse the reporters of "stirring up racial tensions." not the dude who said "fucking coon," of course. it was max who did it.

great article max

^^

^^

thanks everyone

yeah that was particularly bad ass

some guy set up a twitter account just to tweet at me about how zimmerman is hispanic but it looks like twitter took it down :-(

hey max u suck

Adding to all the love. Max that was prime.

but this is the kind of thing: https://twitter.com/#!/DetroitRight/status/182140941006671872

just keeping your ego in check

meghan mccain tweeting at toure is gonna solve this whole thing

oh wow and i got in a minor twitter fight with this guy.... who proceeded to change his avatar to a picture of me in what i can only assume is meant to be blackface

https://twitter.com/#!/TreborRocker

nice work, max

oh wow and i got in a minor twitter fight with this guy.... who proceeded to change his avatar to a picture of me in what i can only assume is meant to be blackface

https://twitter.com/#!/TreborRocker

― max, Tuesday, March 20, 2012 2:20 PM (37 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

oh my god

Ha. Just came here to post a big textual thumbs up to max's piece. Gonna go spread that love around.

Yeah, max u kick ass! Forgive me if I don't have the fortitude to read the comments, though.

don't worry it's all about serial killers rmde

internet right wing reactions to this remind me of reactions to the DeOnte Rawlings case. mercifully that link doesn't contain the comments, but there were an insane amount of the "if your name was DeOnte you had it coming" variety iirc.

that post headline really undersells the facts, btw; it basically seems like some offduty cops shot a 14 year old boy and then covered it up.

46 911 calls in the last year or since January 1? Repots conflict. Either way, odds are pretty good that Zimmerman made more than a few of those calls INSIDE A GODDAMN GATED COMMUNITY and is too off-center to realize the irony.

(And of course -- great work, Max.)

max, the voice in yr. piece reminds me of a junot diaz short story. intentional?

not really, though i am a fan.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/06/11/070611on_audio_danticat

ha! yeah, i totally see that. this was initially going to be a bit more bloggy "how to" but it needed to be angry instead of sarcastic

46 911 calls in the last year or since January 1? Repots conflict. Either way, odds are pretty good that Zimmerman made more than a few of those calls INSIDE A GODDAMN GATED COMMUNITY and is too off-center to realize the irony.

wondering what % of those calls were irt the troubling presence of black youth

46 911 calls in the last year or since January 1? Repots conflict. Either way, odds are pretty good that Zimmerman made more than a few of those calls INSIDE A GODDAMN GATED COMMUNITY and is too off-center to realize the irony.

on CNN this morning, they were making a big point of the fact (?) that it was 46 calls since 2001; i.e., over an 11-year period. not sure what to believe at this point.