Background on Zimmerman

[patrice]

101. not not really. We still do not know the weight of Black/hoodie relative to Z's other motives.

One in particular about how perps ALWAYS get away seems important relative to this question.

What was more important in motivating Z's getting out of the car: the "getting away" or "he's Black"/and wearing a hoodie? "Getting away" = 10% of what was driving his behavior? relative to 90% Black/hoodie driving his behavior??? or 90:10?, or 1: 99?, or 83:17?, or 50:50?, or . . . ?

What was more important in motivating Z to draw his gun? Are you going to say you CAN calculate the actual causes of getting out of the car, pursuing Trayvon, struggling, drawing the gun etc. etc. etc. and your calculation = Racism 100% and "Getting away" 0%? Can any of us make that calculation based on behavior that COULD have been motivated by either one? or something else entirely? I'm going to admit that I don't know and not knowing IS important.

Z probably would not have become interested in Trayvon had Trayvon not been Black, but that does not mean that Black -ness/hoodie were his ONLY motive, nor the determining factor between what could have been 2 or more related motives, most of which motivational-sets could morph depending upon what happened.

Again, NOT excuses for ANYONE CARRYING A DEADLY WEAPON, just not as simple as SOME people really seem to inordinately *********W.A.N.T.************ very much for us to think it is. Power positions (e.g. carrying a weapon) bear the majority of the burden of responsibility for what happens, especially extremely imbalanced power positions, like armed vs. un-armed, have by far the huge majority of the responsibility for what happens, but that doesn't mean that we can make whatever claims we want about HOW things went wrong, beyond the obvious DIRE failure in responsibility for the power of that gun.

Especially since there is probably MORE unconscious stuff governing our behaviors than conscious stuff in lots of situations, externalities reducing appearances to a single factor, like Racial Hate, AND THEN DESIRING PUNISHMENT BASED UPON THAT ERROR IS UNJUST - AND - AND - AND - that's exactly what you are accusing George Zimmerman of doing.