Friday, August 23, 2013

THE BEST RACE-BAITING DEFENSE IS A GOOD RACE-BAITING OFFENSE

I don't mean to belabor this subject, but I want to address some things Brian Beutler of Salon says in this post about what he calls "the right's black crime obsession":
... it's intensified noticeably in the past year for at least two reasons. Conservatives, particularly white conservatives, feel a burning urgency to find a racial counterweight to the aftermath of Trayvon Martin's shooting (including President Obama's public comments about the incident), a logical response to the argument that things like background checks and an assault weapons ban are appropriate ways to reduce the likelihood of another Sandy Hook-style massacre, and anecdotal justifications for indiscriminate policing of dangerous neighborhoods.
I don't think the right has any interest in finding a counterweight to anger about the Trayvon Martin shooting verdict, or a counterweight to pro-gun control arguments -- at the federal level and in nearly every state, the right won the post-Newtown gun-control debate by brute force, and the right won the Zimmerman case in court. Stand Your Ground polls well, thanks to overwhelming white support. And the country is still split on whether gun laws should be stricter or not. The right doesn't seem to care about rebutting the left and center on these issues -- it's got the white base on its side, and that's all that matters.

"Anecdotal justifications for indiscriminate policing of dangerous neighborhoods"? There I think Beutler comes a lot closer to what the right really wants. Though I don't think it's about policy exactly, so much as it's about persuading the rubes that there's a Democratic/liberal conspiracy to unleash out-of-control negritude on poor, innocent whites. Harping on the real or alleged sins of blacks is about keeping whites loyal to the right and to the GOP, and keeping them worked up. It's always about that.

Beutler writes about the conservative obsession with comparing the Christopher Lane case to the Martin case, but I think he's misreading the right's mindset here, too:
... it turns out these stories aren't counter-parallel at all. And more to the point, the events don't even anecdotally augur for policies the right supports. The kids in Oklahoma weren't "standing their ground," and a "stand your ground" law wouldn't have saved Chris Lane. Neither would a stop-and-frisk regime -- the killers were trailing him in a car. By contrast, a "stand your ground" environment and a stop-and-frisk mentality were instrumental in Trayvon Martin's death. Take either away, and there's a good chance he'd be alive today.
Beutler is overlooking the fact that the angry right approves of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. The angry right doesn't wish Martin were alive today. We know angry right-wingers don't think it was an outrage, but they don't think it was a horrible misunderstanding that led to tragedy, either. They interpret everything piece of evidence about Martin in the worst possible light, to portray him as a thug-in-development. They absolutely believe he was on the verge of killing George Zimmerman before Zimmerman killed him.

The Jack Cashill article I cited in my last post describes Martin as barely distinguishable from Christopher Lane's killers -- the only difference between Martin and Lane murder suspect James Edwards is that Edwards "was on a slightly faster track than Martin." Cashill's evidence? The fact that, according to messages found on Martin's cellphone, he was interested in guns and mixed martial arts fighting. (You mean ... just like George Zimmerman?)

Few right-wingers will say it outright, but the angry-right-wing message on race seems to be that black people are incorrigible -- shiftless, dependent, and violence-prone. The exceptions to this are the ones who've gone Republican; the rest can't be salvaged. It's basically the angry right's message about Muslims. It's an ugly message, but if it rallies the troops, it's the message the right is going to go ith.

32 comments:

Glennis said...

The other isssue is that Chris Lane's killers were arrested and will be prosecuted. The whole thing about Zimmerman was that he killed an unarmed kid and the police didn't think it was a crime worth investigating. Is that so hard to understand?

Anonymous said...

Oh dear, where to begin?! Perhaps with your constant, and misleading, term "angry whites" used *five* times as though the black Left, represented by the likes of Al Sharpton, was a pillar of demure rectitude despite its screaming hissy-fit over the Zimmerman/Trayvon case.

Secondly, can you please drop the endless references to 'stand your ground' law which did not, repeat *not*, form any part of this case. Zimmerman never even saw his attacker until he leapt out on him from some shrubbery.

We have gone over this before but in rebuttal to your claim that "They [the 'angry whites', natch!] absolutely believe he was on the verge of killing George Zimmerman before Zimmerman killed him" may I say that if someone jumped out on me and started smashing my head into a concrete kerb I would work on the hypothesis that, yes, he was trying to kill me! As would you in similar circs!

I notice that you carefully avoided Cashill's deadly accurate criticism of your President's failure to even try to rise to the seriousness of the event. This was his chance to rise above partisan hatreds, of which the Left in this case was infinitely more at fault than whites, by making an appeal to *all* of America. Instead he sank into his default mode of partisan, maudlin sentimentality saying, inaccurately, that he might have been a Trayvon Martin. That was at the beginning of this tragedy and we might forgive him his misstep but at the end of it his message was one of deep sympathy to the Trayvon family but not a single word for the Zimmerman family forced into hiding under multiple threats of death despite the fact that their son was innocent!

If ever there was a chance for the POTUS to fulfil his duty as president of *all* Americans, that was it - and he blew it!
David Duff

Dark Avenger said...

Go fuck a duck, Duff.

Victor said...

Dark Avenger,
What do you have against ducks?

DimAndFullOfNonsensicalBS,
Go and try to do something anatomically impossible to yourself - or die trying.

In other words, go FUCK YOUR ANNOYING SELF-RIGHEOUS STUPID SELF!!!!!!!!

Victor said...

SHIT!!!

I forgot to ignore that trolling pest!

Anonymous said...

Well done, Gentlemen (I use the term loosely, of course), that raised the intelligence quotient of the conversation - not!

Dark Avenger said...

To associate the word intelligence with the pigeon droppings you call comments is really too much, Duff. Asswipings would be more appropriate and descriptive, to boot.

Victor said...

ZZZZZZZzzzzzzzZZzzzzzzzzzzz...

Buford said...

Hmmm...I see some folks are still eating lead paint chips...Bigots will be bigots...

Victor said...

Buford,
The lead chips are bad enough, but I suspect that a lot of people are also using Mercury dip.

Steve M. said...

I'm not going to let you monopolize my time, Duff, but Stand Your Ground was expressly invoked in the judge's charge to the jury in the Zimmerman trial.

And even a Fox News doctor thinks Zimmerman's injuries were superficial, Duff. I'm not going to give you a link. Look it up on my blog. Run up my hit count.

And every word Jack Cashill writes is a lie, including "and" an "the."

And as for my repeated use of "angry whites": If the shoe fits....

marieburns said...

@David Duff: "... a Google map of the area where the attack is said to have occurred does not appear to show any bushes near the spot, and Zimmerman was unable to tell Singleton if Martin jumped out from in front of him or from behind him." -- Daily Mail, July 1, 2013

In her jury instructions, the judge told the jurors they must consider the "stand your ground" law. Juror B-37 said in an interview after the verdict that the SYG law forced her to go along with the not-guilty verdict. -- Mother Jones, July 19

The defense made a calculated decision not to introduce the SYG law during trial, but because of the jury instruction (which the litigants usually help write, BTW), stand-your-ground determined the outcome.

Your assertion that "'stand your ground' law which did not, repeat *not*, form any part of this case" is contrary to fact. Zimmerman's assertion that Martin jumped out from behind the bushes is not consistent with the physical evidence. Because of conflicting accounts, we don't know what really happened. But there are some things we do know, & it would be a good idea not to invent counterfactuals in an attempt to dispute opinions with which you disagree.

Marie Burns

Dark Avenger said...

Thank you for a civil and fact-laden answer, Marie Burns.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Ms. Burns, for raising the conversation above the grunt and snuffle level. It was put about at the time that SYG law was going to be one of Zimmerman's main defence points but his lawyers deliberately ignored it and it did *not* form any part of his defence. Not least because 'Z' had no chance or choice having been jumped by 'T'. (You say that is a moot point but if you or I were armed and someone approached in a threatening manner then I doubt we would wait until we were on the ground having our head bashed *before* we produced the weapon which would stop a threatening approach instantly!)

The fact that the judge saw fit to insist that SYG law was applicable, despite neither the defence or the prosecution raising it, says more about her than the case!

I would suggest that Juror B-37 finding herself on the receiving end of a hostile liberal media was only too pleased to duck behind SYG law given that she, like the others, had voted 'not guilty'.

I await any examples by me of "invent[ed] counterfactuals", or 'lies' as we call them 'over here', with interest.

As for our genial host's suggestion that Z's head being banged against a kerbstone only produced "superficial injuries", I would be happy for a chance to repeat the experiment on his head at some time in the future!

Look, Z was innocent of murder or manslaughter and a jury confirmed what the investigating police realised within hours - there was no case to answer. The efforts of so-called 'liberal' establishment figures and their singing chorus to complain about a jury verdict and to wish they could have another trial, and another, and another, until they find a jury that will give the correct verdict, says more about the state of American public life than any bit of Russian 'agit-prop' ever could do.
David Duff

Uncle Mike said...

"Zimmerman never even saw his attacker until he leapt out on him from some shrubbery."

Except for the whole time Zimmerman was describing him to the 911 operator, and then following him to see what he was doing.

Anonymous said...

But he lost sight of him.

Anonymous said...

If banging a head repeatedly against a sidewalk obviously produces serious injuries, but Zimmerman doesn't have serious injuries... Gee, maybe Zimmerman's head _wasn't_ banged repeatedly against a sidewalk.

Victor said...

Still, ZZZZZzzzzzZZzzzzzzzzzz...

Steve M. said...

Duff like all wingnuts, believes that George Zimmerman is the first defendant in the history of trial by jury to present an entirely honest accounting of the facts in dispute, without ever once shading the truth in his own favor.

Duff's naïveté is touching.

Anonymous said...

Even so, Steve, the jury who listened to it all, believed him. End of - as we say 'over here'!

Steve M. said...

Right. And we all know no jury has ever reached a bad decision.

Ten Bears said...

From my albiet slanted persective, Zimmerman isn't "white". More like a semite (look it up, bozo: arabs, persians, phoenicians and, yes, hebrew), or perhaps one of those swarthy Carribean types. Not white.

No fears.

Anonymous said...

And so, Steve, do you want another trial?

Jest askin'!

Steve M. said...

If I say no, you'll say, "Aha! So you agree that justice was served when Zimmerman was acquitted!" And if I say yes, you'll say, "Aha! You want a kangaroo court that keeps trying people until it reaches a pre-ordained conclusion!"

No, I'm not going to fall into your ineptly constructed trap.

Steve M. said...

And with that, I'm through with this discussion.

Go ahead -- have the last word, since that's really what you crave most desperately.

Anonymous said...

I'm game though! Why not?

The Martins have already gotten a settlement with the HOA, and that indicates that there's a civil case. Unfortunately, Stand Your Ground provides immunity in civil cases as well as criminal, and a judge would have to state that there's cause to allow one. As it is Florida, and I expect so very little of Florida anymore, it will probably not get there.

Which is a shame, because as grievously as the Zimmermans may have suffered because their son murdered someone, that actually happened, and their loss is no where near what the Martins experienced. Stand Your Ground is a terrible law, and this is a perfect example of why it is a terrible law.

But bad judgements come up all the time, that's nothing new. What makes this horrible is the ghoulish delight on the Right on the simple injustice of it all. They are literally gloating that a boy was shot and the killer went free because of a bad law. They seem so gleeful that they 'won', so happy that their champion, a schlubby dope with delusions of heroism, managed to walk free. Perhaps they see themselves in this? I'd like to see an experiment done; where a bunch of rightwingers sit down and are asked to draw scene by scene what happened. I'll bet it will be enlightening.

Victor said...

ZZZZZZZzzzzDuffzzzZZZzzzzzzzzzz...

Anonymous said...

Slightly off topic but I was amused (but unsurprised) to see that Al Sharpton has form when it comes to whipping up false accusations. 25 years ago he led the pack in accusing various white men of gang-raping a black girl whom it later transpired was a born-again lying liar. Eventually, he and others and the girl concerned, were all forced to pay damages to one of the white men who had been falsely accused.

My question is simple, would you leave your raincoat at home if Al Sharpton promised you it would be a sunny day?

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/pay_up_time_for_brawley_8q8M98zvpApS46BonCokvI/0

Dark Avenger said...

Duff, you're going have to do better than "Look over there! Al Sharpton.!"

But thanks for sticking up for Zimmerman, the poor, oppressed, wanna-be-a-cop.

Victor said...

ZZZZzzDuffZZZzzzStupidZZzzzzzzz...

Victor said...

ZZZZzzDuffZZZzzzStupidZZzzzzzzz...

Anonymous said...

Are you actually asserting that Trayvon Martin is faking his death, Duff? Or are you simply changing the subject so you won't get beaten on some more?

Slightly off topic: Newt Gingrich is a serial liar and has been throughout his political career, slandering officials and private citizens alike for personal gain.

Based on this - if Newt shot you in the face in a hunting accident, would you merely apologize, or actually pay him for the privilege? Discuss.