Ten Thoughts on Trayvon

I think I need to weigh in specifically on the Trayvon Martin case on a variety of counts, but I wanted to wait until I had more data. There are so many aspects to it that unless I wanted to write a book, all I can do is enumerate points and speak briefly on each of them. This isn't a research paper, so I won't be able to supply some of the references, but I'll do the very best I can to be honest at each step.

1) I first heard about the shooting two weeks ago. Unarmed black youth shot by white patrol officer, was the impression I got. In Florida. Well, this automatically played into my feelings about the South, and those feelings came from my parents (especially my mother) who had fled it, making it clear in no uncertain terms that, in their opinion, violence against blacks was institutionalized and supported as late as the 1960's.

2) When I found out Zimmerman wasn't even a cop but a "neighborhood watch" guy, I thought, certainly he would be arrested. Apparently, due to a Florida gun law, what happened was legal--if it was self defense. Hearing that Zimmerman observed and stalked Trayvon, confronted him, seemed to weaken that case. The fact that he outweighed Trayvon by over 100 pounds made him a coward and fool at the very best. And at worst...again, I didn't want to think about that. Certainly justice would be done.

3) The fact that Police Chief Bill Lee chose not to arrest him is police business, and I don't know the laws involved. But yesterday I heard an odd comment from Lee. This isn't a quote, and anyone who can find the original comment, please post a link. A rough quote was "If Zimmerman is exonerated, I hope the community comes together to help him recover from this. If it turns out that there are good reasons to charge him, I hope he is incarcerated for his safety."

I was following that statement, and fully expected the Chief to say: "and if there are good reasons to charge and convict him, I hope he is punished to the full extent of the law." But this? WHAT? I have literally, in my entire life, never heard a police representative more concerned for the safety of a criminal than the life of the child he killed. Never. A gigantic red light went off in my head. Lee was concerned with Zimmerman's welfare, not the life of the dead child. Not the family of the dead child. Not the local or national community who sees their own children in Trayvon, and feel fear. Could this happen to their own child..?

Why? Why would he empathize more with the shooter than the child (assuming my reaction had merit). Because they were both gun owners? No, criminals often own guns. Both police

officers? No, Zimmerman wasn't a police officer. Let's see. What else did they have in common....hmmm.

4) I cruised around the internet, looking at discussions about it. Saw a heartening amount of agreement on the vileness of this. Saw that agreement coming from whites, blacks, Liberals, and Conservatives. But there were also defenses of Zimmerman, and attacks on Trayvon. That wonderful human being Glen Beck had attacks on Trayvon on his blog, speculating that his suspension from school might have been because of rape or assault. What a prince. And I saw an undeniable fact: while sympathy for Trayvon and his family came from all quadrants, DEFENSE OF ZIMMERMAN came from a single quadrant that I could see: white Conservatives. Mostly male. Let me clarify: most white Conservatives seemed appalled by what happened to Trayvon. So Vin diagram wise, the set of people who were horrified included all quadrants. The set of people who defended Zimmerman and attacked Trayvon was totally within the circle called "white Conservatives".

5) I started noticing a distancing going on, a drive to label Zimmerman "Hispanic" rather than "white." And people seemed to have the position that it would be easier to criticize Zimmerman if they no longer considered him "one of them." Now, there is no scientific agreement on racial groups or divisions, and I understand that people divide things up differently, for a variety of reasons. In all honesty, I tend to look at humanity as having three primary colors (white, Asian, black) and everything else seems TO ME to be a blending of those. This is not "scientific" distinction, it is sociological. In other words, I've observed that actions and attitudes WITHIN those groups seems qualitatively and quantitatively different than actions and attitudes BETWEEN them. That every family knows the names of all their own children, but the family down the block is just "the Jones". So white people will (in my thinking) separate out Jews, and "white Hispanics" and Arabs, and so forth, while clustering Blacks together as a group without differentiation, even though there is more genetic and in Africa than the rest of the world combined. They don't care. Not their children. So this distancing seems emotional: "we will defend our tribe unless there is no choice at all. And if there is no choice, we'll do all we can to say they were never one of "us" in the first place." Does this make sense? I remember years ago, Jerry Pournelle talking about some exclusive club or organization. Perhaps the Masons, I forget. Anyway, they had the position that no Mason had ever been a criminal. And they could prove this because as soon as a Mason was convicted (if it was Masons he was referring to. I'm sorry) they revoked his Masonic cred retroactively. Cute.

A prediction: if it becomes impossible to pretend Zimmerman is innocent, watch the "hispanic" meme spread like wildfire across certain quadrants of the blogosphere and cable news. Faster than a speeding bullet.

6) Was Zimmerman acting from racial animus? It is impossible to mind read, or see what is in his heart. Looking ONLY at the actions that evening, some interesting things arise. If we study what Zimmerman said, during his 911 call and afterward, the fact of Trayvon's race seems to be very very important to him. When describing him, race came first, before age, gender, or anything else. At one point he says "he has his hand in his waistband. He's a black male." It is an assumption that these two comments are linked by some unifying thread, and not randomly thrown together under stress. If a description for the sake of police identification, why "his hand is in his waistband"? Did he expect Trayvon to still have his hand in his waistband minutes later when the police arrived 5-10 minutes later? Seems far fetched. I suspect he was describing WHY HE THOUGHT TRAYVON WAS A THREAT. "He has his hand in his waistband" means that he may be concealing a weapon. "He's a black male" may mean black and therefore probably a criminal. He brings up race again a minute later. Then when the 911 operator basically tells him to chill out, the kid is probably just walking (and she sounded like a white lady. I was proud of her!) Zimmerman began to flip, mumbling to himself about how "they" always get away with it. Which "they" would that be, Zimmie m'boy? Criminals in general? Boys in general? Let me see...

Then he mumbled something deep under his breath. There has been argument about what he said. Here is a link to a variously equalized version of it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGuctYqCDvo&feature=share

He says "fucking XXX." What is XXX? Room for debate. Someone said "tools." I heard a "c" or a "k" as the first consonant. Not a "t" at the end. Definitely an "n". Now, that first consonant MIGHT have been a "g". It really might. They're so close together. Say "goon" and then "coon" and notice how similarly your tongue positions itself. So plausibly, independent of everything else, he might have said "fucking goons." In combination with the other references, that becomes hard to believe, but possible.

I have zero respect for a grown ass man who voluntarily accepts being a Neighborhood Watch officer and chooses to confront a kid he outweighs by 100 pounds, and then wants me to believe that he felt so threatened he had to pull a gun and kill him. AUTOMATICALLY, this guy has lost all my respect, even if what he is saying is 100% true. I mean, if Trayvon was champion of his boxing squad, or a black belt in Gracie Jiu Jitsu, I might have a good laugh about him getting his ass kicked...but there still is no excuse for shooting him, when you can lock yourself in your car. Or just not confront him in the first place, if you are such a wussie that getting a bloody nose gives you internal permission to kill. At the LEAST, he is a disgrace to gun owners, Neighborhood watch people, and men all over the planet. Good lord. And at worst? He was offended that this little black kid was in HIS neighborhood. Followed him, confronted him, and was not given the respect he thought he deserved. Started a confrontation. Either began to lose it and panicked, or killed the boy for disrespect, believing that the local police would look the other way. And he almost got away with it.

8) Enough about this piece of human garbage. And the police chief whose department has had racial problems in the past. And a part of the country that has a 400 year history of violence toward black people without the intervention of law enforcement, only curtailed in the last 70 years or so, when the Federal branch had to come in and shut the shit down...triggering that mealy-mouthed "States Rights" complaint. And while we're at it, may I assume Ron Paul believes the Fed shouldn't get involved, and should never have? Thanks, Ronnie.

9) Enough of that. This will play out the way it does. Perhaps justice, perhaps not. I don't know what "justice" is here, because I wasn't there (although witnesses seem to indicate that Trayvon was on the ground, begging, when he was shot. Maybe the witnesses are lying. Right.) I don't care about Zimmerman. Or Lee. Not really. What I care about is my own son. I've always known, or believed, that the institutionalized racism in the South (and elsewhere) placed me at greater risk for dying than I would have were I white. And before someone trots out the truth that blacks are capable of racism, and commit racist acts against whites, might I say that this is true: but they are hardly protected by the white establishment. Every stat I've ever seen says that whites routinely are arrested, convicted and sentenced for killing blacks at a lower rate than blacks are for killing whites. And that all other things held constant, if you are rich, white, and/or female you will be arrested, convicted and serve time less than if you are poor, black, and male. Anyone who wants to believe that whites are somehow at a disadvantage uses anecdotal evidence, and with that you can prove anything you want. I remember a white college (high school?) class in New York asked how much money they would have to be offered to start their lives over as black. The number they came up with was a million dollars. THAT was their perception of the value of white privilege. Kudos.

10) Lastly, and most importantly. What do you say to your children about this? Especially if your children are black? And male? I mean, I have a son who looks just like Trayvon to me. That could have been him, in our housing complex. This shit isn't theoretical at all. And I've had many, many friends, readers, and FB fans ask me what the hell they do. I had a flame war with a white guy who basically said Trayvon should have Yassuh'd his way out of it.

And what I'm about to say is un-PC as hell, but I hope everyone will understand that it comes from the heart:

I would be proud for my son to die as Trayvon did. Injustice of any kind depends upon fear, upon backing down. In other words, bullies and monsters count on never running into a warrior.

How do you make a slave? The same way you make a dog. You get them to forget that they used to be wolves. You capture human beings, and kill anyone who won't stop fighting. Shoot them, stab them, throw them over the side of the ships, whip them to death. Torture them in front of their families. Break them. Cull the later generations of any of that 5-10% of natural warrior archetypes. Convince the others that they are inferior. Why the hell do you think America was so reluctant to allow blacks to fight in their wars? Blacks came back from WW2 with the fascinating, visceral knowledge that whites were no braver or tougher than they were, despite centuries of conditioning to the contrary. That white boys cried for their mommas when their intestines spilled just like everyone else. That they died just as easily. There is no accident that after centuries of oppression, the civil rights era blossomed just one generation of black men returned from Europe knowing how to kill white men. Trust me.

Trayvon had every reasonable expectation that an adult who outweighed him by over 100 pounds would consider that sufficient advantage. And apparently, he refused to shuffle, drop his eyes, or act in a way that would have mollified Zimmerman. Which, apparently, enraged him to the point of homicidal frenzy.

Given what I know, or think I know...what will I tell my son? I will raise him to be a warrior, as I have been doing. To be strong, and confident, and deadly. The only mistake Trayvon made was not carrying a knife and gutting this cowardly cow-pie of a man.

And you know what? Jason might run into a Zimmerman one day. And Zimmerman might kill him. Oh, well, everyone dies. But here's the point: when one generation stands up, more of the NEXT generation survives. Being a man, being a warrior, increases the risk for that man, but decreases the risk for future generations, can you grasp that? This has ALWAYS been true for warriors: if you stand up, you might get shot down. But if you don't stand up, the forces of evil will take and take and take until there is nothing left. And then they will grind you into the gutter, and piss on you. And then they will say: "look at that broke, broken, stinking thing in the gutter. That is his natural state. He must LIKE being like that. Tsk tsk."

I've heard that all my life, and for most of my life I didn't speak my mind. I'm closer to death than birth now, and have run out of bullshit.

My son will be proud of who he is. He will offer insult to no man, but accept none. John Wayne is probably the greatest archetype of the white male. What did he say in his final film, The Shootist? How did he sum up his life, a credo I've heard countless white males hold up as the epitome of manhood?

"I won't be wronged, I won't be insulted, and I won't be laid a hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them."

How dare anyone suggest I should raise my own son any differently.

Trayvon is a hero. I say it again and I mean it: I would be proud for my son to die as he did. Homicidally angry at the system that raised Zimmerman to think he could get away with it...

but prouder than hell.