It’s class AND race. Sure, poor white folks got it bad, but poor folks of color got it worse.
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“Or is your personal identity is wrapped up with White Supremacy to a significant degree?”
And how was I supposed to take that? It’s a subtle (Well, not really that subtle.) way of calling me racist while wrapping it in a “question”. By the way, when was the last time you beat your wife? I’m not accusing you, just asking questions…
“you have outright accused me of conflating you with David Duke,”
I said to you AND OTHERS.
I’ll re-type the section that you have a problem with (I think I left out an “and” between “racist” and “are” in there.) so there’s no confusion-
There are folks who believe that ONLY white people are racist. That ALL white people are racist and that we and we alone are responsible for any and all racial problems in this country and most of the world. I disagree with this sentiment and I think that posters like the above perpetuate this false belief. So what have I done so far? What’s my crime? I gave my opinion on it and I predicted that I’d be questioned as a possible racist (subtle at times I grant.) … and here we are… discussing how racist I am. Never mind that nobody knows anything about me or what my opinion is on other matters, if I dare to speak a dissenting opinion about this matter, I’m as bad as David Duke.
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Thanks, that does explain the weird, derailed ending of that book. And you sound like a Pretty Cool White Guy to me. ^.^ b
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Do you have any sense of what it means to say that white supremacy is a system? And that when it’s being pointed out, the pointer is not pointing to white individuals like you?
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I am not going to go back and read everything you have said here, because well, who cares, right? I am going to say one thing though. For us white “folks,” as you like to say, it is just an intellectual puzzle that we can speculate and feel superior about because we don’t feel all the emotion. It is deeply emotional for the people on the receiving end. So much so that they are choking just reading me saying this. We need to stay out of this and be respectful and quiet. I have made the identical mistake. I am saying this now because I watched the reaction to my statements and understood that I was not understanding the sub-text and disrespecting the very real feelings of people who were expressing the frustration of generations of abuse. We have seen huge backsliding on the issues of race in the past several years. It is not over by any means and you logic does not reflect on that.
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Because I read Mark Twain. There is a sliver of hope.
You’re right, either I did misread that or you subsequently edited it (and rightly so because if that’s what it said, it was ripe for misinterpretation and making you look bad), and I apologize for that bit at the end of my last post.
However, I would still point out “You AND others” includes me far more than “White Supremacy” includes you. So you’re still accusing me, personally, of conflating you with David Duke. And we still never accused you, personally, of being responsible for this. Even my questions weren’t doing that (the first one, was, again, asking if you were personally named White Supremacy… both questions had the same point, pointing out how ridiculous it was to assume it were talking about you personally), and if you took it that way, you misread it. It’s not at all like you asking “when was the last time you beat your wife?”, unless it was a conversation that started with me jumping in to defend wife beaters, and in which case the closest analogy would be asking “Uh… do you support wife-beating?” since that doesn’t assume that there was actually wife-beating going on. My question to you didn’t assume the answer was yes. It assumed the answer was no, and that you would realize this, and feel foolish for assuming “White Supremacy acquitted Zimmerman” is personally blaming you. Instead you seemed to double-down on taking offense. Your choice, I guess, but it isn’t really winning you any points for rationality.
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Is there an opposite of Jury Nullification? Yes, it’s a system where a judge can declare somebody guilty because that’s the politically preferred decision even though the prosecutors couldn’t prove to an independent jury that the accused was guilty. It’s a system where you can get jailed for political crimes (like John Peter Zenger getting jailed for insulting the governor) and a jury can’t protect you. It’s a Bad Idea, and common around the world.
The usual ways around it are either for the government to charge the accused with something else (e.g. Federal Civil Rights violations), or for the victim (if they lived) or their family to sue the perp in a civil case, where the standard of proof is lower and you only get money (if the perp has any), not jail time (like OJ’s wife’s family suing him for wrongful death after the incompetent racist prosecution failed to frame him for a crime he was actually guilty of.)
Unfortunately, in this case, only two people knew what really happened, and one of them killed the other. My take is that if Trayvon Martin attacked Zimmerman, it was self-defense against a guy who was stalking him with a gun. But the cops who investigated had no interest in finding that out.
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A jury of peers agreed that he acted within the law. Or do we just throw out the justice system and lynch anyone we deem guilty? Who needs courts when you have public opinion?
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Ugh. Is there a parallel to Godwin’s Law when it comes to lynching, instead of Hitler and Nazis?
The jury mostly took Zimmerman at his word, in large part because the prosecution did such a shitty job at highlighting for the jury the flaws and omissions in the case for the defense. That doesn’t mean that we all have to take Zimmerman at his word.
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I explained that there is a belief that white skin=racist and that it’s my opinion that posters like this perpetuate this belief. Of course I’m included in “white supremacy”. Anyone who is white is or is suspected of at least, having sympathies with it. It’s pretty hard NOT to take it personally. IS there a culture of white supremacy here? Sure is. But accusing ALL white people of supporting it is as ridiculous as the belief that only white people are racist.
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Do you have any sense of what it means to say that white supremacy is a system? And that when it’s being pointed out, the pointer is not pointing to white individuals like you?
Again, I think the accusation that all white people are supporting it is only in your head. I certainly never saw the accusation made in the thread.
I mean, judging by this last post, we’re not all that far apart on the headline.
I mean, we seem to both agree that there’s a culture of white supremacy here. That’s usually a contentious point on its own with a large number of people, but we agree. We just seem to disagree that there was any accusation that all white people are supporting it, and, although for the life of me I can’t understand why, we seem to disagree on your idea that posters that point out that the culture of white supremacy (that we both agree exists) is real and may have played a role here are somehow doing more harm than good. I think pointing out the influence of white supremacy where it exists is kind of vital to helping to remove it, and that by just not doing so we’re allowing it to fester and grow.
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There was once a time in the US when denying blacks the vote was admissable under FL law, and the laws of many of states. There was once a time when denying blacks marriage was admissible by law, as well as denying them the usage of a toilet or the freedom to eat in a restaurant where white people were present. There was once a time when complete and utter ownership of a human being was admissible by law, such that you could perform any heinous act upon them with absolutely no consequences whatsoever.
Would you say that “White Supremacy” had nothing to do with any of those historical legal situations? That lynchers and rapists and segregationists and anti-suffragists were “simply not guilty” under the law of their time? Because while factually true that they were not legally guilty, they were still morally bankrupt and their actions were still racially influenced.
White Supremacy doesn’t have to take the form of Arryan Brotherhood skinheads or sheet wearing Grand Wizards. White Supremacy is the insidious notion that people who aren’t White aren’t as good as those who are - that when bad things happen to them it’s okay somehow, despite it not being okay when the same things happen to Whites.
So no, I refute your statements. White Supremacy had everything to do with the Zimmerman verdict. Even discounting the incredible likelihood that if a black man had followed and killed an unarmed white boy, he’d be incarcerated faster than you can say “show trial”, even focusing purely on what is legal under FL law, those laws are shaped and influenced by our cultural flaws, and White Supremacy is a very real and very damnable flaw of our society.
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Sure they can, but I doubt most white people of European descent look at themselves as being the same (or from the same backgrounds) as a Latino. In a way that’s like saying an African American that grew up in the inner city has a whole lot in common with a black person from Africa just because they are both of the same skin color/race. Most “white” people in America are of European descent…so when someone points out that GZ was Hispanic it’s mostly to say he wasn’t of European descent.
Perhaps we should just all call ourselves our origin and American, so European American, African American, Latin American perhaps.
I think this sums that up.
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Who needs courts when you have public opinion?
Or when you have a gun and see a kid you think is one of the ‘assholes who always get away’, right?
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So it means we should go for round two because obviously he is guilty even though he was judged in front of a group of his peers and found not to be based on the evidence presented.
The court of law doesn’t or shouldn’t care about your or anybody’s feelings, it’s about the evidence that is presented and whether that can be used to prove without reasonable doubt that the convicted is guilty. IE. innocent until proven otherwise.
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I agree with you. The court did indeed decide that without reasonable doubt, an unarmed teenager is guilty of his own murder.
Which I guess you also think would’ve happened if the same situation had occurred, but it’d been a black man stalking an unarmed white teenager? (If so, you’re a dreamer. Or someone who won’t take off his blinders.)
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If you follow me home in your car, while I am walking home from the shop in the dark and the rain I am going to have problems with you. Sorry about that. If you don’t want trouble from me then mind your own business or leave it to the police.
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Even if that is what happened in this case it’s still hard to argue that race had nothing to do with the verdict, as prior history suggests that a race-reversed version of the same events would have likely ended differently.
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