Facts Versus Fiction: Years ago Daniel Patrick Moynihan said, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” That statement is just as true now as it was then. I enjoy fiction, its great fun, but not when you are dealing with the real world. Probably what bothers me most about the whole Zimmerman/Martin situation is the fiction (distortion, spin and outright lies) being presented as “facts”. Can we look at some actual, true facts here? Can we get beyond the created “facts” of the individuals who profit from continuing racism? Can we get beyond the falsehoods of those who use division and chaos to promote their agenda? Facts: A Hispanic man working as a neighborhood watch member in a gated community saw an unknown person “wandering” through the area at night while it was raining and called 911. During that call, when specifically asked by the 911 operator if the person was white, black or Hispanic, he answered, “He appears to be black.” The Hispanic man followed the youth, a struggle ensued. The Hispanic man was injured, pulled his gun and shot the youth once, killing him. At the time of the incident, police investigating the homicide did not feel any charges needed to be made against the Hispanic man, George Zimmerman, who stated he was afraid the youth was going to kill him and shot him in self-defense. There was never a grand jury indictment against George Zimmerman for the death of Travon Martin. He was arrested and charged with murder almost 2 months later. A trial was held and a jury found him not guilty. The fictional story: A white racist in an exclusive gated community saw a black youth, deliberately followed him intending to kill him and did so. Racist police delayed charging him with the planned murder and an unjust jury acquitted him. How did the facts turn into this story? Let us start with the fact that certain people in our society profit from perpetuating racism. Accusations of racism and discrimination bring them recognition, power and money. These people seem to want to be perceived in the same light as Martin Luther King, a leader in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. Martin Luther King wanted people to be judged by their behavior, their actions as well as the mental and ethical traits they exhibited, not by their race. Instead these race profiteers focus on the color of a person’s skin and in any white/black incident claim that any negative to the black is due to racism. Men like Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson come to mind immediately. Al Sharpton has for decades played the race card even when his allegations and accusations were proven false (a couple of his famous false cases: the Tawana Brawley case and the Duke Lacrosse Team case). He has been actively and very publicly involved in the claims of racism and discrimination before, during and after the trial. “Blacks are under attack.” said Rev. Jessie Jackson last year. After the trial, Jessie said that “Travon did not have a jury of his peers.” (Excuse me but Travon was not on trial. George Zimmerman was and he did have a jury of his peers chosen by both the prosecution and the defense lawyers.) Jessie is one of the loudest voices demanding the Dept. of Justice open a civil rights case against Zimmerman and that the United Nations get involved to ensure that there is “justice” for Travon. Please note that this is the same man who previously said, “There is nothing more painful for me at this stage in my life than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start to think about robbery and then look around and see it’s somebody white and feel relieved.” Anybody see a little racism that statement? Another set of factors is that mainstream media needs sensationalism to attract viewers and the fact that most media is liberally biased. The media sensationalized the story by claiming that Zimmerman was white – this immediately gave the story a racist angle. They clarified this claim by then creating a new description, the term “white Hispanic”. They proceeded to play up racism and gave plenty of coverage to the race profiteers. The facts are: that Zimmerman is as white as Obama; they both had one Caucasian parent. Obama’s father was a Kenyan and Zimmerman’s mother was a Peruvian. Zimmerman also had a black grandfather. Not “your typical white person” – a description Obama used to describe his wealthy white grandmother who raised him in Hawaii. The act of true journalism, where a story is researched and accurately reported, is missing all too often. Not only did the media make up and play up the racist view of the story, they actively hid and did not cover other information about it. Many people didn’t know that Zimmerman had injuries; didn’t realize the incident had been investigated by the police and did not know that there was no grand jury indictment against Zimmerman; few knew that the neighborhood was not an exclusive place but a low to middle of the middle class neighborhood that had had a huge problem with robberies – mostly done by black youths. It was in response to these robberies that they had formed the neighborhood watch group. How many knew that the prosecutor, Angela Corey, was criminally indicted this June (during the Zimmerman trial) by a grand jury for falsifying the arrest warrant and complaint against George Zimmerman that led to his trial? Larry Klayman, a former U.S. Justice Department prosecutor and Florida lawyer said, “… Ironically, Corey will now be tried and likely convicted for her alleged crimes -- which resulted in Zimmerman being charged under false pretenses…” Yet another factor in this sad story is the politicians and political appointees who gain by creating chaos and division and disparaging the justice system. More about that another time.
Posted on: Fri, 26 Jul 2013 18:53:23 +0000