I think there’s too much discussion about whether George Zimmerman is racist. I don’t care. I don’t think it matters. What matters is what Zimmerman did (and lest we forgot: suspect, pursue, shoot, and kill an unarmed and innocent Trayvon Martin). Part of the problem is the racism is too broad of a label. Since there’s no simple definition, it’s…
Tag: race
Gotcha!
I’m always amused whenever conservatives get to play “gotcha” when some liberal says something politically incorrect, or expresses a belief more in tune with Republicans. Because you know those same conservatives don’t really care about the issue; it’s just a brief moment when they finally get to win a round in a game they never wanted to play (hell, they’re…
Protesting Black-on-Black Violence
I’ve written (sarcastically) how nice it is that in the wake of the killing of Trayvon Martin, some conservatives are suddenly very concerned about black-on-black violence. The actual voiced argument goes that blacks (and liberals) only care about black-on-black violence when it comes at the hands of a white person. Of course that’s not true. Just because you refuse to…
Couldn’t have said it better myself…
…on the attempts to justify the actions of Zimmerman because on Martin’s appearanceand social media posts. So I’ll just quote Ta-Nehisi Coates. First there is the interesting case of The Daily Caller, one of the organizations leading the charge to defame Martin. Coates says: The Daily Caller is published by Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson is a man who once informed…
Show me the blood?
Video of Zimmerman entered the police station has been released. I don’t see any blood. I don’t see any grass stains. I don’t see anybody who looks faintly like they were on the loosing end of a fight. The clothes look neat and unripped and he’s walking well. I don’t see how it coincides with the police report. All that…
Conservatives on Trayvon
I’m a little shocked to see so many conservatives (on social media, mostly) not exactly defend the killing of Trayvon Marin, but try and turn the tables or say, “what’s the big deal?” I’ve heard or read all of the following: 1) Zimmerman had his nose broken before he shot. 2) Blacks kill whites all the time. 3) Holder is…
You Can’t Blame the Police
I wrote in the New York Times: Much — though by no means all — of the disproportionate rate of blacks stopped, frisked, arrested, convicted and imprisoned is a simple reflection of violence in poor African-American communities. Like robbing banks because that’s where the money is, the obvious reason police focus so much of their attention on the young male…
A black man catching a cab in New York
The other day I saw a young black man on the corner of 32nd Street and 6th Avenue with his arm up, trying to hail a cab. He wasn’t particularly well dressed, but he didn’t look like a hoodlum (the same could have been said of me). “How many empty cabs are going to pass him by before one stops?”…
Hating the Lovers
Speaking of issues I thought we had long since decided (like slavery, segregation, suffrage, medicinal bleeding, etc.), a poll found a plurality of Mississippi Republicans believe interracial marriage should be illegal. Forty-six percent oppose, 40 percent support, and 14% are “undecided” (as if they’ve weighed the pros and cons of this timely issue, but still need a few more days…
Mistaken-Identity Police Shootings in Black and White
The death of a Nassau County police officer got me thinking about cases of police officers shot by other cops. There’s the belief out there that black officers are much more at risk of being mistaken for suspects than are white officers. It’s also been said (by me?) that such accidental mistaken-identity shootings almost never happen to white officers. Officer…