It would be interesting to do research by telling the Zimmerman, Martin story or something similar

[Quixote1818]

to about 1,000 people. Tell them it was a real situation and then change the colors around using real photos and see how peoples perceptions change. I would be willing to bet a million bucks that if in the story the kid being killed is white, even if he got the best of the other guy; then people would view it as murder.


Say this kid was suspended and had smoked pot and was followed by Zimmerman then got the best of him:




What would the public be saying now?

Note: I got this photo off a rehab center website and have no idea who the kid is or if he has ever done drugs. His photo is just an example for the post.

[patrice]

1. There was something like that posted here earlier. It ended with a phrase about Trayvon "standing

his ground" hence the Z injuries. I thought that was an interesting somewhat curious way to frame Trayvon's behavior.

[Igel]

2. What would the public be saying now?

Pretty much nothing.

White on white, black on black, brown on brown murders (as long as they're "equivalent" browns) mean fairly little. So if Trayvon Martin were the blond/blue-eyed Travis Martinsky this would be a simple aberration in a set of local gun laws, of interest only to those with an NRA/gun-law axe to grind.

Unless, of course, Zimmerman could convincingly and unquestioningly be presented as a low-life Latino so it could be built into a racial incident. Then all the RWers would be out in full-force trying to make Zimmerman into an illegal immigrant and part of the "Brown Horde". Otherwise the incident would simply lack relevance.

We don't talk about things that lack any relevance. The empty cup of tea on my desk has no relevance to anybody except me, so I simply don't expect it to suddenly burst onto the national media as a point of contention: tea versus coffee, milk in tea versus sugar or black, tea out of a ceramic mug or out of glass. Or the real issue, should an empty cup of tea be left on the desk overnight? Like I said: Irrelevant.