When your default position is violence then violence will eventually find you.
The neighborhood watch volunteer shot this boy under circumstances which will never be clear. The boy was in the wrong place at the wrong time. A quick look at the cultural factors makes this shooting absolutely unavoidable. Allow me to share some thoughts.
1. Black urban youth culture GLORIFIES gangsters and criminals. A quick look at today's youth, both black and white, and anyone not from that culture has a very difficult time distinguishing violent perpetrators from the imitators. They dress alike, act alike, have the same mannerisms, etc. Television, music, and every element of this "culture" has elevated criminals to a hero status to be emulated. Can we be too surprised when someone mistakes an innocent kid for a criminal when that kid dresses like a criminal and in all probability had the mannerisms of a criminal?
2. The neighborhood watch shooter clearly is of a fearful disposition. He is probably more of a danger to society than this kid was, as anyone who doesn't act as expected or frightens him is likely to end up shot. However being a coward is not against the law. Shooting someone down in cold blood is, but there is no way to ever prove that he did so. No witnesses. Under our legal system, there would always be doubt and thus he CANNOT be convicted.
3. Law enforcement has nothing to do with this issue. NOTHING. I'm no great defender of the police, but calling for the police chief to step down for not arresting someone who may or may not have committed an actual crime? That's mob rule.
4. This is going to get worse. As criminality increases, anyone outside of the observer's ethnic group is probably going to first be deemed a threat. This is a sad state of affairs but it is a historically accurate viewpoint. As societies decline, they begin to become "Balkanized" to the degree that racial group turns against racial group, ideology turns against ideology, and religion turns against religion. There will be many more dead Trayvon Martins in the future, all victims of a collapsing society, a culture of violence, and the pawns of a government more interested in turning its citizens against each other than in actually governing.
5. Historically, the responses to these events are always, always worse than the event. An enormous petition drive that goes nowhere can and may very well end up in violence that burns down our inner cities and murders many more people. The professional fire-fanners are already lining up to throw some more fuel into the mix for their own purposes. I'm sure Jesse Jackson was salivating over this event before the boy's body was even cold.
This is an ugly tragedy but it may very well explode into something much uglier. It is a pile of gasoline soaked tires and cordwood and a large number of people are excitedly striking matches into it. Pray for guidance in these dark times. We will all need it.
2 comments:
Some interesting points. While I agree with #1 it is also a broad generalization. However, the maxim of "if you don't want to be thought of like one, don't act like one" followed with perception while not always true is often reality.
That said and the "stand your ground" law aside, there is absolutely no way you can convince me that the neighborhood watch guy does not have fault in this (watch means watch, not intercede). He was in a car and chose to get out. All he had to do was watch from his car and advise the police from it's safety. Instead he CHOSE to engage Mr. Martin.
It could be said that any "threatening" move Mr. Martin made was made because Mr. Martin was defending himself and "standing his ground".
Wouldn't you defend yourself if someone got out of a car to confront you for walking down the street? and if they had a gun?
For those reasons I don't think Stand your ground applies... it can't when you instigate the situtation.
As for the police.. I hold them responsible for the investigation's thoroughness or lack thereof.
What everyone is missing though is the DA's office. They are the ones ultimately respsonible for determining who is charged and for what.
Unfortunately there are those that will use this situation to "stir the pot" and "rile the masses", once again drawing a line they claim they want to erase.
More troubling is how tenuously society is currently balanced between order and chaos.
I specialize in broad generalizations. :) But yes, I agree. Not all of today's youth dress and act like that, but many do. And the stores cater to this mode of dress and the culture caters to those sorts of actions. It's part of an overall juvenilization of American men.
As for the watch guy, he's got a LOT of fault in this. It is HIS sin to deal with. However I haven't heard anything yet that leads me to believe he could be convicted under our current legal system. That said, I think they will try to drum up some charges against him to satisfy the mob that is forming.
The entire situation is a mess and it saddens me. I'm sad because the kid is dead, but I'm also sad because our justice system (as it currently stands) is simply not equipped to deal with this. To change that justice system so that the shooter will go to jail will open each and every one of us up severe risk.
A crime may or may not have been committed here but without either a confession or witnesses then we are forced BY LAW to take the shooter's side of the story.
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