Zimmerman

Interestingly, I wrote a blog post about the Zimmerman case and never mentioned race. The notion that this case is not about race is EXTREMELY disingenuous. For race not to be addressed as a contributing factor really makes the entire trial and the entire discussion dishonest. So essentially everybody is lying.

This case was completely about race. The problem in America is to admit that it was about race is to call someone a racist. When actually you should just call them an American. Our society has demonized the Black Male so badly they are viewed as criminals in the eyes of all Americans, not just by Whites.

A good illustration I see every day is riding the commuter rail to work. Our rail system requires you to purchase a pass before boarding. Then officials walk through the rail cars and ask riders to show their passes. Every day I witness someone explaining to the official why they do not have a pass. Without fail if the person is White they will generally not receive a citation, regardless of how poor of an explanation is stated. If the person is Black, particularly male, they most always receive a citation. This does not differ based on the race of the officer. Whether the officer is White, Black, or Brown consideration is made for the Whites and conviction is assessed to the Blacks.

Why so? Its our culture. We are trained to believe the White person is a hard-working and honest so his reasoning is valid. The Black person is a poor lying thug that shouldn’t even be on the commuter rail. So when we hear him speak our brain is processing anything he says as a lie. He is just a criminal, a bum that is up to no good.

I will be the first to argue that this notion is warranted, but it has been inflamed by the media. Local news, movies, national media coverage, conviction rates, and stereotypes all suggest that Blacks commit crimes at a rate disproportionate to our numbers in society. In reality, per FBI statistics annually almost 70% of arrests for crimes are committed by Whites. This does not even take into consideration that arrest rates for Blacks are higher than arrest rates for Whites even though both report similar rates of delinquency. That would require an entire separate post to discuss.

A simple argument would easily distill more crimes are committed by Whites because there are simply more White people. That argument is perfectly logical, what is not logical is the media coverage considering that fact. News broadcast show Blacks committing crimes in 90% of reports that are broadcast about crime although they make up 30% of crimes? The fact that crime consumes 7X more news time than any other news topic is an issue within itself considering how much information there is to be covered. That would require an entire separate post to discuss as well. I am not sure I am even ready to touch that one at all.

I say all this not to make a point that Blacks are misrepresented even if the facts support such. As my grandmother always said, “if those niggas were not out there doing it, they couldn’t put it on TV.”

My point was to say that this fear of the Black criminal is almost solely perpetuated by the media. Most people in the US have not been a victim of a crime, even less victims of a violent crime, even less had that crime committed to them by a Black male. So most people have not personally or even known anyone that has had a violent crime committed against them, but every time they see a Black person they suspect he will commit some criminal act? Which says to me if you have not experienced it personally then your viewpoint has been provided to you by an external source.