Posts Tagged → Trayvon
When staying positive is challenging
Witnessing the lynch mob and witch hunt surrounding George Zimmerman, and the supposed adults leading it, and the hatred, racism, and bigotry on display at the public events purportedly against racism and bigotry and for peace and justice, it is hard to stay positive.
After all, a lynch mob is exactly the opposite of peace and justice.
What makes me so sad is that black people still inspire me. As the product of a home where racism was not only absent, it was forbidden, and where everyone of all walks of life, all skin colors, and all faiths sat at our table, I grew up with a positive fascination with blacks and a passion for their success.
To me, American blacks are the modern equivalent of the ancient Israelites. With the legacy of slavery propelling them forward, blacks were supposed to be integrated into every facet of American life, business, law, medicine, politics, you name it. Very much an American story, from rags to riches, from poverty to great material comfort, and so on. In other words, blacks embody the potential of the American dream, and that is something so many fail to understand: Whites very much want blacks to succeed. Because it is a reflection on the promise of America, a reflection on all of us.
But in my lifetime, I have seen blacks going backwards, into self-segregation, into naked, open, raw racism and bigotry against so many other groups. Hatred is justified as “justice.”
So very few of the white people I know have any inclination towards racism. Skin color means nothing to 99% of the whites I know (and whites are most of the people I know, so I know their views). And yet whites are still accused of oppressing and hurting their fellow Americans because of skin color. It’s simply not true. In fact it is racist to accuse people of racism because of their skin color.
What’s sad about this is that eventually people are going to become worn out with being accused of something they are not. Calling someone a racist will lose its meaning. Maybe that is inevitable in a country that is rapidly turning brown, but it shouldn’t happen because the accusation becomes so hollow that it ceases to mean anything.
I still hold hope that things will get better. That requires everyone to have an honest discussion about these issues.
The sad irony of Zimmerman’s right to self-defense
The sad irony of George Zimmerman having a right to self-defense is that now roving gangs of thugs are beating Americans on the street in the name of “justice for Trayvon,” while others call for lynching of anyone “white.”
So because a jury considered the facts, someone now wants to go hurt and kill people of different skin color? Does anyone else see the sick irony and hypocrisy? Al Sharpton admits that Zimmerman cannot be charged on “the merits,” which is to say that he is innocent of having done something wrong, but he wants him charged nonetheless.
America is witnessing an orgy of feelings and anger. But these are misplaced feelings, it is unjustified anger.
Attacking and hurting people because of their skin color is racist, and here we have people supposedly opposed to racism doing just that.
This is not good, my fellow Americans, not good at all.
George Zimmerman’s right of self-defense
Maybe I should not be surprised, but I am:
People calling for George Zimmerman to be lynched by a mob or executed by some nameless gangster, dissatisfied with a jury’s decision…the human right of self-defense thrown out the window…people wanting to believe what they want to believe, uninterested in the photos of a bleeding, battered Zimmerman but very interested in the far-outdated photos of a youthful, innocent-looking Trayvon Martin…people decrying “racism” when the only racism evident was Martin’s “creepy-ass Cracker” comment to his girlfriend, immediately followed up by his life-threatening physical assault on Zimmerman…a media full of people willing to edit 911 recordings, or describe the Hispanic Zimmerman as “white,” to push an agenda and create an impression contrary to the facts….this case has been about everything but what it was about: Self-defense.
Zimmerman was attacked. Lying on his back and taking a savage beating from a large male straddling his chest, he pulled a legal gun and killed his attacker. That is the way life is supposed to work.
Had the skin colors been reversed, Zimmerman would now be a hero to many.
Self defense is what this is all about. Nothing else. I am pleased that the right of self-defense has been upheld. It is the most basic of all human rights.