Miscarriage of Justice - Now with Skittles

1000 points to everyone except Wayne and this blogger.

Welcome back to Thinking Out Loudest, where everything's made up and the pageviews don't matter.


First, on a lighter note than this post is about to be, I'm experimenting with the different fonts offered here to see what looks best in this format. I'll settle on one eventually. It won't be Papyrus, so no need to worry.


Now, on to business.


I have stayed completely out of the Trayvon Martin case in Florida. I'm sure you've heard about it. If not, that rock must be pretty comfortable (And I might join you soon,) but here is the gist of it.


My first rant is about something that may seem trivial, but you'll understand its point in a few paragraphs. I scrolled through just over fifty pages of CNN archives just to get back to the beginning of the media hype. Fifty pages, and if you'll note the date on that article I linked to, you'll see that those fifty pages accounted for less than a month. Really? Two articles a day on this CNN? Is there really nothing else in the world to talk about?


One of the articles I found in that barrage of hype (which I'm not going to go back and look for, I think it was around page thirty or so) mentioned that it was whites and Republicans who reported being most tired of hearing about the case. Well, I'm no Republican. I am white, but consider myself to be as near to colorblind in dealings with other people as is possible. And I am sick of reading about this case. But CNN posted a lot of articles with that spin. If you don't support Trayvon Martin and hate George Zimmerman (his shooter, if you didn't read the article) with the white hot intensity of ten thousand supernovas, you are a racist.


It was already a racially charged case. A hispanic/white man shot a "suspicious" black man in a quiet suburb. It's going to receive accusations of racism whether any was present or not--another dumbass wonderful fact of life that makes me want to leave the planet for our useless, overblown, shitheaded wonderful news organizations.


And then the media--and I must emphasize that this was by no means just CNN, it was pretty much ALL of them--decided that what that fire needed was some good, healthy gasoline.


Most of the accusations of racism came from this clip. Well, that's not entirely true. MOST of them came from a previously released NBC-edited clip that conveniently left out the part where the dispatcher specifically asked about Martin's race, making Zimmerman sound like he was accusing the boy of being suspicious because of his race.


NBC apologized and yanked the clips, but it was too late. The American public has already reached a verdict your honor, George Zimmerman is guilty.


Now let me pause to say that I don't claim Zimmerman to be innocent here. I don't know whether he was actually acting in self-defense, and unless you, my beloved reader, are Zimmerman, Zimmerman's lawyer, one of the few witnesses or perhaps the police chief involved, you don't know either. And I'd appreciate it if you'd stop pretending you do.


But having absolved myself of actually taking sides, here are the facts as reported most recently by the local PD and those most closely linked to the case. Trayvon Martin was walking home from a convenience store (yes, he was carrying skittles and iced tea. For Pete's sake, it doesn't freakin' matter.) at around 2 AM. It was dark (tends to get that way at night, so I'm told) and rainy. Martin lived in a gated community that had recently had a rash of robberies, reportedly committed by a young black male. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, saw a young black male fitting the vague description of said robber walking around with seemingly no direction at 2 AM in the rain. I'd call 911 too, frankly. I would not assume this boy to be guilty, but there's no harm in letting someone know that it looks like someone is casing houses.


Zimmerman called 911, and had a lengthy discussion with the dispatcher about the appearance and demeanor of the boy. Apparently, during this time Martin had not yet found his way home. Zimmerman offered to follow the boy (taking his neighborhood watch thing WAY too seriously if you ask me), to which the dispatcher replied that no pursuit would be necessary.


An unknown amount of time later, Trayvon Martin was dead, killed by George Zimmerman's gun.


This is the information the police had when arriving on the scene. I won't say my portrayal completely lacks bias, but it's factual. Now if you ask me, the logical next move is to take George Zimmerman into custody pending an investigation as to what exactly happened. The police did not do this, which I question the logic of, but frankly as Zimmerman has not made a run for Mexico it's largely irrelevant.


Now, what the police discovered afterward was that there were five witnesses between the 911 call and the shooting, all of whom reported that Martin had turned on Zimmerman and attacked him. No one pretended to know why. It's possible that Martin believed he was being pursued by someone with ill intentions, which would seem the most reasonable reason to act as he did. Zimmerman shot him, as is wont to happen when a man with a gun is attacked by another man.


Now, I am going to use the kindest, most gentle words in my ample oratory repertoire.


Where in the fuck did this level of controversy come from? There is nothing to suggest racism in any account except the conveniently abridged or outright fabricated. If I saw a white girl doing the exact same thing Trayvon Martin was doing, I'd call the police. The same I'd do for an asian boy, a hispanic girl, a Martian immigrant or the President of Uzbekistan. He fit a description of a nighttime burglar in the area, and was wandering a neighborhood at 2 AM in the rain.


I am not saying that Martin was guilty of anything. I am saying that, up to the end 911 call, absolutely no one involved in this situation appears to have done anything wrong.


Here is my interpretation of what happened after the 911 call. Trayvon Martin saw the well-intentioned but possibly lacking-in-common-sense Zimmerman following him with a phone to his ear, and panicked. I would too, because I'd assume I was about to be on the wrong end of a mob hit or something. Rather than approach Zimmerman and ask what he was doing, Martin, in his panic, lashed out at him in perceived self-defense. Zimmerman then shot him in perceived self-defense.


I'm not a lawyer, but if that account was anything near accurate then I'm pretty sure no murder or even attempted murder was committed. If you ask me, the entire case was a tragic misunderstanding between two people who had, between them, no more ill intention toward society than you or me.


But the media doesn't see it that way. That story is sad, and tragic, and sells a day's worth of news. No, the media couldn't handle that. The media needs a meal ticket. So they doctor the recording, put a racist spin, call Zimmerman a murderer and ride a dying horse for a month.

So let me make this very clear. I refuse to villainize either Martin or Zimmerman, because the best I have in terms of information is my own speculative scenario, supported based on a good faith in humankind (don't laugh at me.) and some witness accounts. But there is a villain in this story. Several in fact. The cackling, moustache-twirling villains here are CNN, NBC, FOX, and whatever other acronyms you can come up with that represent those we trust to provide us with information on the surrounding world. So desperate for a sensational piece of meat to pay their salaries, they were willing to butcher a tragedy into a gross miscarriage of justice. They turned the story of a surely-remorseful killer in a misunderstanding into a tale of treachery and racism. This trial by media has ensured that the unfortunate circumstances of the Florida night had, at least socially, no real survivors.


-GK