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Thoughts on the kid who got shot
Mar. 29th, 2012 12:43 amI really have to send some money to Wikipedia. It has helped me so much in just the last week. I was wondering what the business was about Trayvon Martin, but of course all you can find right now are rants and polemics and pre-decided accounts. The press seems to have decided it's newsworthy, but they don't seem eager to dwell on the facts. One of the things on which I really feel the US press could take a page from the BBC: the BBC website has every update of a story equipped with links to the previous articles, so you can get the background and see exactly how a story developed.
Anyway, as happens when you live without TV, and only NPR on the radio,I was feeling so out of my depth on young Mr. Martin that I wasn't interested in trying to hunt up the story or try to glean the actual facts of the case. Still less was I into joining the misinformed masses, each spouting whichever facts made the story what they wanted to see.
But then my aunt was on the evening news, demonstrating for justice for the poor kid who got killed, and with no fanfare I turned automatically where I always turn: I looked the kid up on Wikipedia.
In a few paragraphs I got the facts of the case, and I could see clear as a bell why the laws of Florida made it difficult and undesirable to arrest the shooter, but also that there were plenty of unanswered questions on both sides. I don't think any side is going to come out looking good in the end, but I think the questions are now going to be asked. I do know that it's perfectly infamous for the new Panthers to put a bounty out on the shooter's head, a clear hate crime repaying an unestablished hate crime. It's also pretty clear that Mr. Zimmerman was not above telling his neighborhood watch to look out for young black males, and at night it seems like he mistook a 6'2" high school kid out buying Skittles while visiting family in the subdivision for an outsider 'obviously on drugs', as he told the police, casing the neighborhood.
You know what? I know a lot of the reason this story is big has to do more with luck than any clear cut quality of the story. I don't care. If it hadn't been this poor kid's tragedy getting paraded in front of the nation it would have been some other poor kid.
There's all kinds of questions to answer. They need to be answered. But they won't ever be answered by a bunch of political posturing and finger pointing, and demanding punishment when you don't know what happened yet. What did do some good was enough people demanding an investigation that there may actually be one, so I don't want to hear how the 'media circus' doesn't do any good. Now let's shut the fuck up and get to work, shall we?
Anyway, as happens when you live without TV, and only NPR on the radio,I was feeling so out of my depth on young Mr. Martin that I wasn't interested in trying to hunt up the story or try to glean the actual facts of the case. Still less was I into joining the misinformed masses, each spouting whichever facts made the story what they wanted to see.
But then my aunt was on the evening news, demonstrating for justice for the poor kid who got killed, and with no fanfare I turned automatically where I always turn: I looked the kid up on Wikipedia.
In a few paragraphs I got the facts of the case, and I could see clear as a bell why the laws of Florida made it difficult and undesirable to arrest the shooter, but also that there were plenty of unanswered questions on both sides. I don't think any side is going to come out looking good in the end, but I think the questions are now going to be asked. I do know that it's perfectly infamous for the new Panthers to put a bounty out on the shooter's head, a clear hate crime repaying an unestablished hate crime. It's also pretty clear that Mr. Zimmerman was not above telling his neighborhood watch to look out for young black males, and at night it seems like he mistook a 6'2" high school kid out buying Skittles while visiting family in the subdivision for an outsider 'obviously on drugs', as he told the police, casing the neighborhood.
You know what? I know a lot of the reason this story is big has to do more with luck than any clear cut quality of the story. I don't care. If it hadn't been this poor kid's tragedy getting paraded in front of the nation it would have been some other poor kid.
There's all kinds of questions to answer. They need to be answered. But they won't ever be answered by a bunch of political posturing and finger pointing, and demanding punishment when you don't know what happened yet. What did do some good was enough people demanding an investigation that there may actually be one, so I don't want to hear how the 'media circus' doesn't do any good. Now let's shut the fuck up and get to work, shall we?
