“A Double Standard For Gun Use”: The Culprit In Florida Is A Set Of Gun Laws That Are Far Too Murky
Two Floridians accused of misbehaving with a gun are out on bond. The similarities end there.
George Zimmerman, who famously shot and killed an unarmed teenager in a racially-charged case, was acquitted of the killing because jurors determined he acted in self-defense. No one can know exactly what transpired when Zimmerman and young Trayvon Martin tussled on the street in the twilight, but we do know that Zimmerman got out of his car to follow or confront Martin before the shooting.
And if Zimmerman (whose previous aggressive behavior was not disclosed to the jury) was trying to convince the world he is simply a gentle, law-abiding person who felt threatened and shot a dangerous teenager, he’s blown that strategy. Since the acquittal, Zimmerman has posed for pictures at a gun manufacturer, been arrested for speeding (seeming stunned when the officer didn’t recognize him) and gotten into a domestic dispute with his estranged wife. And recently, Zimmerman was at it again, charged with pointing a gun at his girlfriend, breaking a glass table, forcing her out of her home and barricading himself in the house. Perhaps more telling, Zimmerman then called 911 himself – even though police were already on the way – to, as he said, tell his side of the story. He called his girlfriend “crazy.”
That she may be, colloquially speaking, given her decision to get involved with someone with a violent past. But the event certainly indicates a pattern, one in which Zimmerman uses guns to get his way. He’s out on $9,000 bond as he awaits the adjudication of the domestic abuse case (and has asked for police to return his phones, flashlight and knife).
Another Floridian, Marissa Alexander, has not had it so easy.
Alexander, too, is now out on bond in a case involving alleged domestic violence. But she’d been in jail since last year waiting for it.
Alexander says she, too, was feeling threatened by her husband when she fired what she said was a “warning shot” to fend him off. The bullet hit a wall and no one was hurt, but Alexander was nonetheless sentenced to a mandatory 20 years behind bars for her behavior. The judge rejected her assertion of Florida’s “stand your ground” law, saying that Alexander could have simply run off instead of going to fetch her gun.
That sounds reasonable – except this: Why is it that Zimmerman, after calling police to report the allegedly suspect Martin, nonetheless got out of his car to follow the teenager? Zimmerman isn’t a police officer (though it’s clear he wanted to be one). He could have not just run away, but actually driven away, to avoid a confrontation. Nor was there any indication Martin had ever threatened Zimmerman before that time.
So why would Alexander get 20 years in prison while Zimmerman was let free to point his gun, again, at another person? Certainly, juries react differently to different people and circumstances (and race and gender, too). But in this case, the culprit is not the peculiarity of the juries. It’s a set of gun laws that are far too murky for anyone – be it the carrier of the gun or the jury judging him or her – to determine when it’s OK to defend yourself with a gun and when it is not.
Alexander was released on bond last week as she awaits a new trial on the gun charge. She’ll be under house arrest and electronic monitoring. Zimmerman, meanwhile, is readying for another episode of the Zimmerman Show – a storyline that is getting alarmingly predictable.
By: Susan Milligan, Washington Whispers, U. S. News and World Report, December 2, 2013
“The More We See”: Trayvon Martin Or George Zimmerman, Who’s The Real Thug?
With George Zimmerman out on bail last week after his latest run-in with police, it seems an opportune time to discuss the second killing of Trayvon Martin.
The first, of course, has been discussed ad infinitum since Zimmerman shot the unarmed 17-year-old to death last year. But then Trayvon was killed again. The conservative noise machine engaged in a ritual execution of his character and worth, setting out with breathtaking indifference to facts and callous disregard for simple decency to murder the memory of a dead child.
Geraldo Rivera blamed him for his own death because he wore a hooded sweatshirt — in the rain, yet. Glenn Beck’s website suggested he might have been an arsonist, kidnapper or killer. Rush Limbaugh made jokes about “Trayvon Martin Luther King.”
Some conservative readers even chastised me for referring to him as a “child” or a “boy” though at 17, he was legally both. Makes him seem too sympathetic, they said. One man assured me, absent any evidence or, apparently, any need of it, that contrary to reports, Trayvon was not walking to where he was staying that day but was in fact “casing” the neighborhood.
One woman forwarded a chain email depicting a tough-looking, light-skinned African-American man with tattoos on his face. It was headlined: “The Real Trayvon Martin,” which it wasn’t. It was actually a then-32-year-old rapper who calls himself The Game. But the message was clear: Trayvon was a scary black man who deserved what he got.
I sent that woman an image of Trayvon from the Zimmerman trial. It shows him lying open-eyed and dead on the grass. “This is the real Trayvon,” I wrote.
It was a waste of time. “They’re both pictures of Trayvon,” she insisted. So deeply, bizarrely invested was she in the idea of Trayvon as thug that she could not distinguish between a fair-skinned man with tattoos, and a brown boy with no visible markings. Literally, they all look alike to her.
And once again, a conservative movement which argues with airy assurance that American racism died long ago, disproves its thesis with its actions.
Here, someone wants it pointed out that Trayvon Martin was not an angel. Well, he wasn’t. He took pictures flipping the bird. He used marijuana. He was suspended from school at the time of his shooting. Obviously, he needed guidance. The same is true of many boys. Indeed, it is rumored that there are even white children who use marijuana.
But here’s the thing: Why did some of us need Trayvon to be an angel in the first place? Why did they feel such a pressing urgency to magnify — and manufacture — his failings? Why was it so important to them to make him unworthy of sympathy?
It is a question that assumes new potency the more we see of George Zimmerman. On the day he shot Trayvon, this hero of the conservative noise machine, this righteous white Hispanic man who was, they say, just standing his ground, already had a record that included an accusation he attacked an undercover police officer. That same year — 2005 — a woman sought a restraining order against him, alleging domestic violence.
In September, Zimmerman had a fresh run-in with police over a domestic violence accusation by his estranged wife. In this latest episode, a girlfriend said he pulled a gun on her. In court, she said that once, he even tried to choke her.
Granted, none of these charges has been adjudicated, but there is certainly a pattern here. It ought to give decent people pause and the conservative noise machine shame — assuming it is capable of that emotion. That pattern paints in neon the machine’s willful blindness, the reflexive alacrity with which it assigns the thug label to the black kid — and innocence to the white man.
Well, look again. George Zimmerman seems awfully darn thuggish to me.
By: Leonard Pitts, Jr., Featured Post, The National Memo, November 25, 2013
“Targeting Tuners”: If You’re Not Singing Along With Scott Walker, You’re Under Arrest
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is an exceptionally ambitious career politician who loves the sound of cheering crowds in the presidential primary states where he hopes to be a 2016 contender.
But he does not care for the sound of dissent.
In fact, dissident voices bother the conservative Republican governor so much that he has ordered state police forces to begin arresting Wisconsinites—from 85-year-olds to young moms with kids—who dare to join a long-established noontime “Solidarity Sing Along” at the state capitol in Madison. In this summer of protest, crowds have gathered at state capitols nationwide—from women’s rights activists in Austin to “Stand Your Ground” foes in Tallahassee to voting rights champions in Raleigh. There have been mass arrests, especially during the “Moral Monday” protests in North Carolina.
But Walker has distinguished himself by targeting tunes.
The singing, which traces its roots to the mass protests against Walker’s anti-labor initiatives of February and March 2011, has been a steady presence in the capitol for two years. But, this summer, the governor’s cracking down. So far, seventy-nine Wisconsinites have been arrested and ticketed, and dozens more are likely to face charges for singing songs like “Which Side Are You On?” and “On Wisconsin” without following a new set of permitting rules developed by the governor to limit the right to assemble.
It is hard to understand why the governor is so perturbed.
He’s not often in a position to hear what’s going on in the capitol.
Unless, of course, the voices of the singers are loud enough to carry to states like Alabama.
The governor, who makes little secret of his 2016 presidential enthusiasm, is spending this summer traveling to states that are likely to play a role in naming the Republican nominee who will pick up where Mitt Romney left off. He’s already been to Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Nevada, New York, Tennessee and Texas. And he’ll be back in many of those state this fall to hawk his upcoming book, Unintimidated: A Governor’s Story and a Nation’s Challenge (Sentinel/Penguin), which he’s written with Marc Thiessen, who previously served as chief speechwriter for President George W. Bush. The conservative Washington Examiner says that “according to those familiar with it, might as well come with a ‘Walker for America’ bumper sticker.”
But before he distributes the bumper stickers, Walker is spending his off-year summer vacation on the partisan dinner circuit.
When seventeen singers were arrested Friday at the state capitol, Walker was in Denver keynoting the fourth annual Western Conservative Summit.
Soon he’ll be off to Alabama for the annual Republican Party summer dinner.
He’s already been to the first primary state of New Hampshire and the first caucus state of Iowa.
Walker’s certainly seems to be running.
But he’s not getting much traction.
Against prospective Republican contenders, according to a new TheRun2016 poll, Walker finished eighth with 2.1 percent support among possible Iowa Republican Caucus participants.
There are a lot of explanations for why Governor Walker, despite a very high national profile, attracts so little support. But some of the burden the governor carries undoubtedly has to do with his image as a “divide and conquer” politician who is determined to crack down on teachers, public employees, conservationists, local officials and anyone else who isn’t using his songbook—even going so far as to have grandmothers, veterans, teachers and mothers with children arrested for carrying a tune in the capitol—but who is not very good when it comes to managing his state, maintaining great schools, building a strong infrastructure or creating a climate that encourages job creation.
By: John Nichols, The Nation, July 29, 2013
“A Father’s Heartfelt Message”: Trayvon’s Legacy, Helping People To Open Their Eyes And Talk About Subjects They Wouldn’t Before
Tracy Martin readily admits he struggles with regular bouts of guilt over the fate of his 17-year-old son, Trayvon. He wasn’t at home in Sanford, Florida, the night his unarmed son was shot and killed as he walked home from the store with a bag of Skittles and a bottle of Arizona Ice Tea.
George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watchman, was found not guilty of the second-degree murder of the teenager earlier this month after his lawyers argued it was self-defense.
“I think I feel the guilt that any father would feel who loses a child,’’ Martin told The Daily Beast. “There is a certain amount of guilt at not being able to save my son, and not being able to be there for him like he was for me when he saved me from a fire when he was 9 years old. I couldn’t do that for him as a parent and that is a very painful feeling to live with. But I also know, had I been home, I wouldn’t have heard the incident so I wouldn’t have been able to stop what happened.’’
Martin took a heartfelt message of fatherly love to Capitol Hill on Wednesday where he urged Congress to work to improve the educational and employment opportunities for young Latinos and African-Americans.
Only 52 percent of black males graduate from high school, compared with 78 percent of white, non-Latino males, according to a 2012 report from the Schott Foundation for Public Education. Black males are incarcerated at a rate more than nine times that of white males ages 18–19, according to the 2011 Bureau of Justice figures.
Democrat Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia’s delegate to Congress, and Rep. Danny K. Davis (D-IL) organized the inaugural hearing of the Congressional Black Caucus on Black Men and Boys to discuss the many obstacles and issues that continue to face black men. Martin said President Obama’s speech last week referencing the murder and trial for his son only increased his resolve to work nonstop to change the lives of young men of color. He and Trayvon’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, founded the Trayvon Martin Foundation last year to raise awareness of the way violent crime impacts the families of victims.
“I have to fight for Trayvon and all who look like him,’’ said Martin. “There is an assumption by many in this country that our boys aren’t valuable and don’t have the right to walk home with iced tea and Skittles without being considered criminals. There is an assumption that they aren’t raised well and aren’t loved. My son was loved and was raised to respect authority. He knew how to handle himself but that wasn’t enough that night.’’
Martin had regular father-and-son talks with Trayvon, and those conversations often included a mature, in-depth discussion about handling life as a black man in America.
“As a child gets older of course the conversation changes,’’ says Martin. “As Trayvon got older we didn’t talk about Disneyland anymore. We talked about life, decisions, and the future. I think this country feels black men aren’t fathers and aren’t there for their children. That is very far from the truth. Many black men are role models and that needs to be discussed.’’
Martin welcomed President Obama’s words last week on the need for more effort to uplift and support African-American men. He said it was timely and heartfelt despite a number of critical reviews by the Fox News network and PBS host Tavis Smiley.
“I thought he was speaking honestly from his own experience of being a black man and how he could have been Trayvon 35 years ago,’’ said Martin. “That was powerful and from deep in his heart, I think. His speech was very real. To have the most powerful man in the world talk about my son and what he’s meant to people was amazing, needed and very appreciated.’’
While speaking before Congress on Wednesday, Martin discussed the anguish he and Sybrina felt as their son’s name was slandered and demonized during Zimmerman’s trial.
“Trayvon was a teenager, a child. To hear people act as though he was someone on the same level as an adult man who’s lived life, had a job, and married was very hurtful for us. To have people put all the blame on my son who was unarmed and just walking home is something that is very difficult to digest still,” he said.
The Martin family has asked for reform of Florida’s “stand your ground” self-defense law, which permits the use of deadly force rather than retreating when a person has a reasonable fear of serious bodily harm.
“There should be a common sense part to that law that states you can’t get out of your vehicle, pursue someone, and become confrontational,’’ said Martin.
Benjamin Crump, the Martin family lawyer, described the teenager’s family as “extremely disturbed” by Juror B37, who appeared on a CNN show just a day after the not-guilty verdict was announced. That juror suggested that Martin “played a huge role” in his own death.
“That was really hard for Tracy and Sybrina to hear a juror blame their son for his own death,’’ said Crump. “It has no base in common sense and shows that she, along with the other jurors, never saw this case from the perspective of Trayvon. They never saw his point of view or tried to put themselves in his shoes as a kid minding his business and walking home. They didn’t consider that Zimmerman never identified who he was to Trayvon. Had he done that we probably wouldn’t be here today.’’
While singer Stevie Wonder has announced a boycott of the state of Florida until “stand your ground” laws are overturned, Martin says he and Trayvon’s mother will continue to work toward ensuring their son’s legacy is one that is remembered for generations to come.
“We will define Trayvon’s legacy as his parents, and I feel it will be a legacy of helping people to open their eyes and talk about subjects they wouldn’t before, like race and the role it still plays today,’’ said Martin. “I hope my son will be remembered as someone whose life and death changed minds and helped make the lives of many others much better.’’
By: Allison Samuels, The Daily Beast, July 25, 2013
“Radioactive Stuff”: The Bravery Of President Obama’s Trayvon Martin Speech
The political risks in the President speaking at length about Trayvon Martin and his feelings about the continuing challenges of being a black man in modern America were innumerable.
This is radioactive stuff. It doesn’t matter that he’ll never again be up for election. Obama still has years left in office and a hyperpartisan political environment to navigate. He’s become something of an invisible-hand President, often working back channels, because if he sticks a flag in the ground and demands action, congressional Republicans will then see greater incentive in defeating it. There was no policy proposal attached, but race remains such a key part of American political life that speaking about it so bluntly and at the same time with great nuance could widen the already vast political chasm. Validating black pain, asserting that profiling is real and saying that history is not an excuse but an honest part of why we are in the place we’re in are dangerous stuff when one party depends on a multiracial coalition and the other is almost entirely white and the demographic trends of America show whites becoming a minority within a few decades.
It was a treacherous speech politically because for one part of the divide the answer to black pain is: get over it, as Representative Andy Harris recently said. Racism is in the past, white privilege is a myth, profiling is a ghost: Doesn’t Obama’s election prove we’re beyond all that? The President knows better. He asked, in his 19-minute address, that black pain be acknowledged, that internalized bias be taken seriously, that history be understood as not done with us yet.
The assertion that blacks are hallucinating or making excuses or lying when we talk about the many very real ways white privilege and racial bias and the lingering impact of history impact our lives is painful. It adds insult to injury to attack all assertions of racism and deny its continued impact or existence. The right acts as though decades of rejection of the vast majority of the black electorate is evidence of some sort of plantation thinking rather than the inevitable response to the southern strategy and policies and rhetoric blacks find insulting. What do you mean “Stand your ground” or voter ID or immigration reform or the entitlement debate has racial tones? You’re injecting race! Playing the race card! It is like signal jamming: attack the transmission because you cannot win an argument that admits its existence. To these folks, George Zimmerman is a victim (several essays have spoken of all this as the lynching of Zimmerman). To them, race had nothing to do with this trial and now Obama has become the Race Baiter in Chief. Now he can be attacked on entirely new ground: as an apologist for black victimhood or a shameless stoker of racial division or maybe a neo–Black Panther.
Politically speaking, Obama took that risk because the spiritual or moral risk of saying nothing was too great. To have the microphone and the intellect and the personal experience and a community of citizens in pain — to have all that and say nothing would be a dereliction of duty. It would mean that the black President had somehow been cowed into not speaking deeply about blackness at a moment of national strife because it was, what, too controversial? Perhaps Zimmerman’s acquittal was the only verdict possible given the paucity of evidence and the jury instructions shaped by “Stand your ground” which give so much leeway to self-defenders who feel afraid even if, as the judge instructed, “the danger is not real.”
But Obama knew we cannot understand the pain many feel around this verdict by narrowing the lens and seeing this as an isolated incident, isolated from American history, isolated from American racial norms. We are in pain now because once again we’ve been told black bodies are worth less and we are not full Americans, and fear of black bodies is reasonable and it’s our problem to manage. Obama delicately touched on all that so there’s deep, cathartic power in the President reaching down from his perch to say, I could have been Trayvon, any of us could. And perhaps unsaid though, not unheard, is this: He could’ve been me. No one would’ve thought Barry from the Choom Gang would become President. Who’s to know what Trayvon would’ve become? I am optimistic about the brother’s imaginary future even as I admit that institutional racism would’ve been an anchor weighing him down. But I’m growing more cynical about my country. Even as a boy lies dead and a President says, I too have been profiled, part of the nation still speaks of race as a flimsy playing card they rebuke. Forgive me for wondering if Obama was right when he said we’re moving forward.
By: Toure, Time Magazine, July 22, 2013
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