As the massive (and massively profitable) media push-and-pull game plays out over the dead body of Trayvon Martin and the ruined life of George Zimmerman, it occurs to me that the cries of “RACISM!!!” that are fueling the ongoing fire…accusations like Booman’s classic “negro-harasser” comment that he aimed at George Zimmerman on my recent post Rush To Judgement II-The Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman Case…are themselves racist at their base.
Why? How?
Read on.
Like this:
Here’s this guy George Zimmerman. Some people consider him a good neighbor…usually people who know him and live near him, people of all races…while others (who have had absolutely no personal contact with him) consider him a bad, bad person. Like most of us, his true nature probably resides somewhere in between those two extremes. He’s had a little minor league trouble with the law…no convictions, no jail time, a couple of push-and-shove, he said/she said affairs…but he also has helped his neighbors when they were in trouble and seems to have been very involved in trying to lessen the number of burglaries in his neighborhood. At least eight burglaries were reported over the 14 months before the neighborhood watch of which Zimmerman was a part was initiated, including one that was a forced entry situation serious enough to cause a young woman and her son the move out of the area. By comparison, I live in a working class area of da big, bad Bronx and in my neighborhood there have been zero burglaries over the past few years. Come to think of it, there has only been one break-in over the last seven years on my street, and that was when no one was home.
Now this Zimmerman fella is himself of mixed-race parentry…European ancestry on his father’s side and Peruvian (which usually means native American as well as European and quite likely African) on his mother’s side. In most exclusively white neighborhoods (Yes, Virginia, they do exist.) he would be considered non-white based on his appearance, I believe.
One of the help, come to fix the lawn sprayer or the refrigerator.
Bet on it.
But in the mixed-race, working-class neighborhood in which he lives, he fits right in. (“Twin Lakes is almost 50 percent white, with Hispanic and African-American populations of about 20 percent each.”)
The two protagonists in this yet-to-be-fully-told tragedy met up one rainy night. One died and one survived. Over the ensuing months a gradually gathering media storm built around what happened that night, and when the storm finally reached full force last week almost all of the coverage was aimed at showing George Zimmerman to be a racist murderer.
Why?
Because he was out trying to stop his neighborhood from being preyed upon by thieves.
And right here is where the unexamined “racism” of this little morality tale steps in and effectively smacks one upside the head. (Provided of course that said head is not already so full of media-induced outrage that it can’t feel anything other than what it has been ordered to feel.)
Almost the entire country…people of all races and political persuasions…has assumed that Mr. Zimmerman was looking for black people to blame for the trouble in his community.
Hmmmmmmm…
If this is not proof positive of the ultimately racist attitude of this country, I do not know what is.
This idea…and its subset, blaming Hispanics…has been presented with such force by the media of this nation that it has become assumed fact. A meme so powerful, so all-enveloping that it is not even examined by most people. Of all races.
Long ago and far away (2006) I wrote a piece called Racism. America’s Original Sin. In it I wrote:
Racism is America’s Original Sin.
The one that really dare not speak its name. Not its full name, anyway.
As in Niggerkikespicwopmickgookchinkjapragheadhunkyhonkywog.
With a further and equally criminal subdivision called BitchWhore.
And until it is fully expiated…and I mean fully, as in the universal and unremarkable recognition that indeed all men and women ARE born equal in terms of innate possibility across and throughout all races AND THE UNIVERSAL, REAL-TIME SOCIAL RECOGNITION OF SAID CONCEPT INCLUDING THE AVAILABILITY OF EQUAL HOUSING, EMPLOYMENT AND EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL…until that happens (And I do not presently see even the REMOTEST of possibilities that something like that is in the works here. Precisely the opposite, truth be told. We are going BACKWARDS.), then all the rest of what we say and do is the sheerest bullshit.
—snip—
Need I say more?
I think not.
Ask not for whom the sky darkens.
It darkens for thee.
And let he who is without Original Sin throw the first stone.
Later…
AG
There it is, alla you goodfellas and nicegals.
Deal wid it.
Internally.
Or…as is most likely on all available evidence…don’t deal wid it.
Your choice, if “choice” is even an applicable word for most of us.
Y’either do it or y’don’t.
And it will play out the way it must, this story.
My own prediction?
It’s going to throw at least a small monkeywrench in the Obama re-election plans of the PermaGov. Not enough to change the result, but enough to nudge things in another set of directions.
Watch.
One thing I know for sure is this. It ain’t over yet. Not by a long shot.
Bet on that as well.
Later…
AG
