Does that picture scare you?
Yes black men scare white Americans......
They scare cowards and idiots like you.
...They scare white society. ....
Only cowards and idiots.
So Republicans
Did you defend George Zimmerman? Do you defend stand your ground?
Back in 2012, following the shooting death of Trayvon Martin comedian and
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart‘s “Senior Black Correspondent” Larry Wilmore discussed the racial implications of Zimmerman, who is white and Peruvian, shooting and killing a black male and initially not being charged with a crime. It wasn’t capital-R racist that Zimmerman racially profiled Martin and his hoodie, or that the neighborhood
watch volunteer ignored the police’s
instructions to not follow the teenager. No, the case came down to the idea of the “benefit of the doubt,” that Wilmore declared white people like Zimmerman are given by police, specifically, and society, generally, that would never work in the favor of African-Americans. Could you imagine Trevon trying to use Stand Your Ground after he shot and killed George Zimmerman?
Humor aside, more times than not, white people can fear for their lives when they come into contact with African-Americans, and society
believes in that fear.
On Dec. 1, former University of Southern California and
New York Jets running back Joe McKnight was gunned down in a New Orleans suburb following a car accident. The alleged shooter, 54-year-old Ronald Gasser, was taken into custody and questioned by police following the shooting, but was released early Dec. 2 from the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office.
Outside of his friends and family, no one really knows Gasser, but there will be those who jump to his defense. (Within weeks of being charged with murder in 2012, Zimmerman
raised over $200,000through a crowd-funding
website.) We’ll hear from old high school buddies who can’t believe ol’ Ronald could do such a thing. Colleagues will swear by Gasser’s honor. The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, despite Gasser’s
previous run-in with the law, already
believe enough in him to set him free.
We’ve seen this “benefit of the doubt” work for white people before. From a woman threatening to slit a police officer’s throat
and being acquitted to another white woman swinging a machete at police and
not being shot, all the way to an armed man jumping out of a trunk, attacking an officer,
and living to talk about it. The Bundy family has
aimed guns at federal officers and took over a
federally-owned wildlife sanctuary, yet they’re all still accounted for today. No matter the case, white people are given liberties black people are simply not afforded.
Despite notifying a Minnesota police officer that he had a licensed firearm in his pants pocket, Philando Castile was shot seven times by officer Jeronimo Yanez in July.
Cardell Hayes fatally shot former New Orleans Saints defensive lineman Will Smith in April following a car accident. Despite
recently reported information, Hayes is still in jail awaiting trial on charges of second-degree murder and second-degree attempted murder. No matter the possible innocence of Hayes, and Louisiana’s own version of a “stand your ground” law, because of the way Hayes looks — and the celebrity of the man he killed — he never had a chance of walking out of the police building the night of the shooting.
That’s because the idea of a black man being a law-abiding citizen is a
form of cognitive dissonance. Which is why a law like “stand your ground”
was never intended for African-Americans, and why the National Rifle Association is reluctant to defend the rights
of all gun owners.
Zimmerman, unknowingly, designed a playbook over four years ago that plays off that fear of blacks for the benefit of white Americans. That fear, coupled with the normalization of white supremacy over the past year is what led to the death of McKnight last week.