Forums → WEPR → George Zimmermann Found Not Guilty
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That's 150 years ago, folks. Think about it. That's only yesterday
Not quite. That's about 5 generations for most. Why should I feel any amount of responsibility for what those slave owners did, based solely on my skin color?
I know people whose great-grandparents were slaves still
If I find that some of my ancestors were slaughtered or wrongly imprisoned during the Crusades, would I have a legitimate case for reparations against the Catholic Church? If I find that some ancestors were slaves in Ancient Rome, should I expect special treatment from Italy? Where do you draw the line for exceptions based on lineage?
150 years is actually closer to 54,750 yesterdays ago when you do the math. Saying that just b/c my great great great grandfather hurt yours doesn't give you license to get pissed off at me.... especially since I'm pretty certain that I too am a black man. Oh its there! I only have white skin, blue eyes, and blonde hair.... but I do have a black ancester supposedly on my grandmother's side somewhere down the road. DOWN WITH THE WHITE DEVIL!!! Where are my reparations for my ancestral suffering? Would you deny me my reparations simply because the color of my skin? Racists...
there was a typo in my second to last statement.
it was supposed to read
"so that everything that's not black on black crime is white on black crime"
that is all
Since the tribes were often culturally different, I'd say it's more similar to a group of Irishmen attacked by a group of Brits being called "white on white violence". They're very similar, but culturally different enough to keep an "Us vs Them" mentality. Obviously, "white on white" or "black on black" violence isn't usually caused by having the same skin color.
Yeah. That seems more accurate.
It's a mislabel. He's half white just like the president is.
No... He's American. And hispanics are very proud of their culture. That culture is loss as the hispanics born in America tend to assimilate into American culture. If you don't strongly identify with the culture, you're considered less hispanic (sometimes not even hispanic at all.) His father being white only adds to that.
You have to put him in horrible lighting to even mistake him for something other than Hispanic.
..... It's not about how you look... Hispanics vary a lot in skin color and face.
It makes everyone afraid of the GREAT WHITEY to the point of not going into the water anymore when the greater danger statistically is your fellow black peer.
Really? Where I live people tend to be more afraid of blacks than whites. Not that they should be. Judging anyone based on the color of their skin is wrong. Even if statistics say they're more likely to be dangerous.
Then page 10...
Could we move away from the Africa. racism, thing please? I really don't think anyone meant to offend anyone else, and it's pretty off topic.
Why the peoples of USA are all race experts? I mean - "he is half hispanic 1/4 white 1/8 irish 1/8 chinese". Why is it matter at all???
Why the peoples of USA are all race experts? I mean - "he is half hispanic 1/4 white 1/8 irish 1/8 chinese". Why is it matter at all???
Good question My theory is because it's a relatively young nation, with much identity issues to struggle with still, on all sides.
You can observe such struggles with migrants anywhere, the question then arises So where do I belong, what is my identity. This feeling of no longer being neither here nor there. The answers of course may vary widely.
Then the pains of colonial history thrown in for good measure. (If you think I don't know what I'm talking about, my parents and hence I as a child were immigrants to one of our colonies abroad. Life and history in the Caribbean and, by extension as it were, North and South America I'm no stranger to. And again of course, none of this leads to any given answers, per se, one's conclusions may again vary widely. Personally, I've come to reject or be indifferent to most any notions of "identity."
Mind you: This is of course in itself a generalization, and many North Americans may not take kindly to the suggestion. I'll kindly seek to wisely refrain from any flaming on the matter
Not guilty, Self defense end of story. A court found him not guilty therefore he is NOT GUILTY. End of discussion
Not guilty, Self defense end of story
Is it really self defense if he was the one to initiate it? Or to cause it? The operator he called told him not to follow. Whether he acted in self defense may or may not be the case (I wasn't there) but he certainly is responsible for the incident in some manner, and it could have been avoided altogether.
A court found him not guilty therefore he is NOT GUILTY.
I'm not sure if you understand how our justice system works. A court ruling him not guilty doesn't mean he didn't do it - it just means no one proved he did. We all know he killed Martin. We all know he was the only one armed. We all know he definitely followed Martin. And -most- of us know that Zimmerman was not 250 lbs at the time, he put on that weight after the shooting.
Is it unethical, immoral, or even illegal to approach someone you find suspicious in your neighborhood?
911 operators cannot legally command you to do anything. They can give suggestions, and suggestions are in fact not legally binding commands. Just because a 911 operator suggests that you maybe make him a sammich doesn't mean that you have to do it. The young man's untimely death would have just as easily been avoided had he not attacked Mr. Zimmerman. It would've been avoided if he'd run home and used the key to his house (like 15 seconds from their initial encounter or maybe just less than a minute). It would've been avoided had several things been done differently on the kid's part. I'm not going to place "responsibility" of someone's death on the person who defended their own life until I know that person intended unprovoked harm on the other person. I'm not responsible for the other person's wellbeing if they assault me first.
...and so what if he's "responsible" for his death by your definition? You're using the word outside of the context of the situation. Being responsible for something doesn't mean that you deserve the death penalty or life in prison just because of the end result. In fact, the end result shouldn't matter unless contextualized with the story of what happened. If you have no story, then you have no case. If you have no proof, then you're not much more than a butt hurt lynch mob. You don't even have circumstantial evidence that in any way indicates that it was a hate crime.
Instead of running 10 seconds to get to and into his house the kid ran down the street all the while not calling 911 to report the creepy a** cracka that was following him. Now what if GZ at some point actually did relay the fact that he was Neighborhood Watch to TM? That and the running away from home/no 911 parts confuse me. Why attack the man when nothing may be wrong?
Is it such a foreign concept that a series of unfortunate events would lead to two individuals that have misunderstood each other's intentions could come to a fight to the death and neither one, assuming they were the survivor, would deserve punishment?
Is it really self defense if he was the one to initiate it? Or to cause it? The operator he called told him not to follow. Whether he acted in self defense may or may not be the case (I wasn't there) but he certainly is responsible for the incident in some manner, and it could have been avoided altogether.
The person to cause it was the person who attacked him. Following someone is not justification for assault.Should Zimmerman not have followed? Yes, but he should not be assaulted because he followed.
The person to cause it was the person who attacked him. Following someone is not justification for assault.Should Zimmerman not have followed? Yes, but he should not be assaulted because he followed.
I think it would also be important to ask if he was doing anything while following him to provoke a fight.
I'm not responsible for the other person's wellbeing if they assault me first.
I tend to agree with this point. I'd beat the holy hell out of anyone who assaulted me, though I have a feeling this is a result of pent up anger and aggression.
But there would clearly be some threshold for a person's well-being even in cases of outright assault. Suppose someone attacked you, but you quickly diffused the assault. Using the suggested maxim, I have no responsibility to not continue to beat the person to death. While this may seem a stupid and extreme example, what it presents us is some inclination (I hope!) that there is some sense of responsibility in cases of assault.
So applying this example to the case (please forgive me because I'm not intimately familiar with the details). Suppose Zimmermann was following Martin which led Martin to assail Zimmermann. Let's suppose further that Zimmermann pulled out his gun - a scenario which likely happened (assuming the details of the case are correct to begin with). At this point, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the assault stopped. Is Zimmermann justified in shooting Martin? Yes, his life was in danger but that is no longer the case. At a certain point, it seems, self defence does become murder.
At this point, it would seem reasonable to suppose that the assault stopped.
When someone is likely grabbing for the weapon at close range, still pinning you, it hasn't stopped because that danger still remains.
Yeah, I totally agree. I wasn't aware that this was the case in the Zimmermann trial. Deadly force in such a situation seems reasonable, though I'm curious now about the broader point. There still seems to be a threshold at which self defence could become murder. I'm wondering if this threshold is reached when the assault stops. I can imagine cases in which someone continues attacking their assailant long after the assault has ceased, but the defendant still isn't culpable. Such a case might involve, for example, emotional distress on the part of the victim such that their actions don't meet the standard of mens rea which is necessary for a guilty verdict. But the emotional gamut seems somewhat arbitrary when I think of the range of cases involving assault and the associated circumstances.
If someone is hopped up on adrenaline and turned towards feral rage to defend yourself, then is it murder if you continue to fight beyond the point of actual danger? I'm not trying to excuse killing someone who attacked you after you're no longer in danger... I'm just appealing to the possibility that insanity may play a point in some cases. If someone's beating me to death and I turn the tables in an adrenaline frenzy, then should I go to jail if and when I rip their head off after they've called it quits?
example... A bully beats me every day and during one particularly bad beating I grab a baseball bat and start swinging. In my emotional adrenaline fueled rage I ignore his cries for cease fire and he ends up dead. It's not like I premeditated it or initiated it... I just ended it. Granted, I don't think think I'd be excused in every context, but I feel like there are some by which I would be excused.
I'm pretty sure that the story being told has Trayvvon Martin attacking George Zimmerman first. George followed, and Trayvvon attacked him. George was reported to have been screaming for help for around a minute while being straddled on the ground by TM as TM beat his head into the concrete. This information was relayed by the one eye witness who saw TM "Ground and Pounding" GZ before he shot him. ...meaning George was in the process of being and having been beaten for over a minute before he pulled a gun and shot the person who was still beating his face in. That is how the scenario has been presented. I don't know if it is the truth or not... I wasn't there.
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