It's Watch!... Neighborhood Watch. Not shoot.

http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/03/30/2723976/several-shot-outside-funeral-home.html

2 dead and 14 injured in this shooting AT A FUNERAL. Where's the 24/7 coverage? Where's the marches? No Justice No Peace? No Race No Ratings? Media too uncomfortable to tell this story?

"The shooting was prompted by a dispute between gang members after one person touched Andre's body, upsetting a second party, according to a senior law enforcement official who spoke with CBS Miami. The Herald reports Andre was not in a gang himself."

 

I get that this killing makes people uncomfortable. It makes me uncomfortable. It ought to.

But when you find yourself playing these cheap mental and political games with it, don't you stop and ask yourself why?

If your focus is on Al Sharpton or "the media" or you find yourself hunting for other murders to try to deflect attention in some squid-cloud of butthurt, don't you feel like a bit of a ghoul?

Trayvon Martin is dead and the man who shot him is still free, and that is the story, here. Yes, it raises all kinds of issues of race in our culture and violence in our culture and the nexus of the gun lobby with our politics in this country. But that doesn't give people carte blanche to throw out the rules of logic and start behaving like absolute asses in order to shift the dialogue onto more familiar territory.

Think.

 

Disagree. The national focus on cases like Travon Martin are too narrow. It does make people wonder why this one and why not the other thousands of unnecessary killings.

How come Al Sharpton does not use the forum he has to put an end to the 4000 black murders annually of men between the ages of 17 and 29? If 4000 soldiers were killed in Afghanistan this year their would be protests all over the country to shut the war down.

 

www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/04/why-dont-black-people-protest-black-on-black-violence/255329/

 

The only thing I ask from major media outlets is to use more recent photos of Trayvon and a better photo of Zimmerman. It is a legit gripe.

 

Every person who says "Why is no one outraged about THIS killing?", and then brings up a killing where the killer did not get away cleanly with no prosecution despite being known, has more or less forfeited the right to a credible opinion on anything, ever. The stupidity in such a sentiment is a deafening roar.

 

That's one hell of an article from the Times.

 

Seems to me the Stand Your Ground defense applies to Trayvon Martin, not George Zimmerman. It's Trayvon who was doing nothing wrong, and Zimmerman who was armed and menacing.

 

Sounds like you've made up your mind about this case.

What makes you so sure you have enough information to make a determination of guilt or innocence?

 

The why-don't-black-people-protest-shootings is a stupid, lazy meme. There are anti-violence protests in the notorious Chicago neighborhood of Englewood nearly every weekend. A pastor near that area spent the winter living on the roof of an old motel to raise money for a youth center and to rally the community against youth violence. And there's more examples in more cities all the times.

We're all in the news business, so we know what gets attention is the unusual, and there's a lot of it in this Martin case. And as the attention grows greater, it's easier for anyone on any point on the political spectrum to hang issues on it like Christmas ornaments.

 

I wasn't aware Zimmerman has gotten away cleanly without being prosecuted.

Would you please provide a link to any story that informs us Zimmerman no longer can be arrested, tried, convicted, sentenced and incarcerated?

 

Wouldn't Zimmerman have had to target Martin because of his race for a federal hate crime to apply?

If you listen to the 911 tape -- the full version, not the NBC edit -- Zimmerman thinks Martin is black. But, he's already got his eye on him, before reaching his not-so-sure determination.

I think it would be pretty hart to prove he was out looking to kill an African-American that night.