When propagandizing media made this case out to be something other than what the evidence showed it was, a hoax had been played on the whole country. It was a particularly cruel hoax on the African-American community.

Look at it this way. Suppose the mass media had – whether through gullibility or complicity – had told a false story of a cancer victim being horribly wronged.  Any of us would have been outraged and hurt…but genuine cancer survivors would have been put through more unnecessary pain by the story than anyone else.  Basically, that’s what happened here.

Look back to the days of slavery. Fast forward to the Emancipation Proclamation, and another century forward to the time of Martin Luther King when the desegregation finally became law. Another half century since, and African-Americans are still disproportionately burdened by poverty and crime.

Is it any wonder that this group felt more pain from what their country, from the White House on down, seemed to tell them was a threatening, potentially homicidal slap in their face?

A few days after the Zimmerman acquittal, I attended a meeting at an African-American church in the deep South, sponsored by the local chapter of the NAACP and focusing on Stand Your Ground Laws. The discussion panel included the local police chief, undersheriff, chief prosecutor, and public defender.  It became apparent that many of the mostly black attendees believed what the media had told them: that SYG laws had allowed a racist vigilante to murder a helpless young black man and get away with it. The professionals explained how things worked. The audience understood.  Before long, talk from the almost entirely African-American audience had turned toward black-on-black crime, their real concern.  While in the distant past their community had been preyed upon by the Klan and suffered lynchings, they understood that past was buried, and their real concern was present crime from within their own community.

In the weeks that followed, I was a guest on Tracey and Friends, an African-American-centric radio show headquartered in Ohio.  If you have a couple of hours, listen to it here:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/traceyandfriends/2013/07/31/hump-day-with-tracey-jeff-and-sticks.mp3

You’ll get a better understanding of how bitter people are when they’re singled out as suspects for their color, and followed suspiciously for that reason, and why some are angry enough about it to think that Trayvon Martin was right to physically confront and assault the man he perceived to be following him.  I did another interview with an old friend and stalwart of the gun owners’ civil rights movement, Kenn Blanchard, on his podcast  Black Man With A Gun.

We have recently celebrated the memory of Martin Luther King, the march on Washington, and the “I have a dream” speech. It reminds us all that Dr. King made it clear that the civil rights movement was about healing, not about wounding.

The way the media – and, yes, the criminal justice system – distorted this case did a disservice to all of us.  The facts in evidence clearly showed that it had nothing to do with race, and making it look as if it did plunged a knife into our consciousness as Americans.

But the way they made it look, often comparing it to the lynching of Emmett Till, the media twisted that knife into our African-American citizens with particular cruelty.

1 COMMENT

  1. Yes, it was patronizing and irresponsible manipulation on the media’s part. They assumed that most blacks were too biased, or worse, too stupid to understand that a red cape was being waved in front of them. I don’t see the media headlining with ‘They’re Coming For Your Guns!’ whenever a new gun control measure is passed.
    We all know that the black population is still raw from its recent history and, for good reason, mistrustful of its treatment at the hands of the system even today. So why fan the flames? Because blood leads and riots would’ve been a ‘good’ story? Since even the most biased press people can’t have been ignorant enough not to realize that the case was self-defense, did they just prove how gullible a minority and what an easy pawn they consider blacks to be?

    Thanks for addressing this hot button issue and putting in the work to undo some of the damage, Mas! Very commendable enterprise. And may you run for office one day.

  2. What is so terribly sad about the manipulation of the black community is it’s being done by a black administration and their lap dog media. I believe obama claimed he was going to bring the nation closer together but instead is driving it further apart in many directions. His policies are hurting the black population disproportionately.
    What about holder pursuing civil rights violations against Zimmerman? I guess there’s still a crisis here not to waste.

  3. Let’s not forget that it was the family’s African American attorney who pushed this narrative on the black community. If any anger is to be directed by the community, it should be at him. It is folks like him and Al Sharpton that are most likely to race bait their own community.

  4. The black community is not alone in being manipulated by the mainstream media. Most of us, myself included, tend to gravitate to biases we have developed as we go through life. These biases come from personal experiences and from external exposure whether from the media or word of mouth. The drama that was played out in the Martin/ Zimmerman case was reported on as a montage of of information being spewed out, some truth, some lies, but mostly all coming from a biased perspective. The police investigators and the D.A did an admirable job of obtaining the facts through the evidence and coming to a proper conclusion. I for one believe that had the race factor been reversed, their conclusions would have been the same. The problems came when the race hustlers and politicians entered the picture and used their biases and willing media types with the same biases to turn this event into something that it wasn’t. Speaking of personal biases, as I am writing this post, Fox News is reporting that Obama has issued an executive order to restrict the importation of guns and ammunition(remember Bill Clinton’s?). I am ready to accept this as fact based on past experience but not just because the media reported it.

  6. Do you think African-American magazines like Ebony and Black Enterprise would allow an advertiser to buy pro-gun ads? Frankly, our point of view is missing from these debates, I’m glad you went to a black church, but I think we should be selling the Second Amendment the way we sell friend chicken, oil changes, and everything else. Got to promote it and make it popular, expand the market!
    http://sellingthesecondamendment.com

  7. Listened to most of the recording, still have about a half hour left. I am actually quite surprised at how people who are pro-2a, pro-self-defense could believe that the Zimmerman case was anything but an unquestionable case of self defense. It actually makes me want to listen to that radio station, because, with the exception of one caller, it was a very civilized and intelligent discussion. Talk radio around my area is usually much lower on the IQ scale, for whatever reason.

    But I wanted to ask you about something in that conversation. In that conversation you bring up the Marissa Alexander case. I don’t believe I read about your thoughts on that case before, and I was quite surprised to hear your opinions on it. I read this article about it: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/354178/real-marissa-alexander-story-ian-tuttle

    I wondered if you had seen that article, or at least seen the information contained in it, and if you think that is somewhat BS or if you have a different opinion based on the information you have heard?

  9. Well, Mas, I listened to the podcast, and it’s the same excuse making we’ve heard for a couple generations.

    The host’s ability to examine and evaluate evidence is abysmal. He’s completely full of crap and a classic example of denial.

    Is there bitterness? Hell, yes. But these people are living in the long ago past.

  11. I agree with Sharpshooter. Don’t people know to not believe everything you read. To be especially suspect of the media is nothing but common sense. If the Zimmerman case proved anything, it proved that one should question everything that you’re being told. As far as I’m concerned, when Obama became president, the black community lost the “white man keepin’ me down” card. A black man holds the top spot in our country. Is that not enough to see that whites are not stopping them from doing anything? I’m sure they’re analyzing and trying their asses off to try to blame someone or something else for all the black on black crime. Abe Lincoln freed the slaves over 150 years ago. We have an African American President. No one is keeping the blacks down more than the blacks. I think that’s a hard thing to say in the “politically correct” times. But it is the hard truth (in my opinion).

  12. I think it was Saul Alinsky who said, “The issue is never the issue.” And I’m pretty sure it was Alexander the Great who taught, “Divide and conquer.”

    Black vs. White, Male vs. Female, Old vs. Young (remember The Generation Gap?), Straight vs. Gay, Liberal vs. Conservative. Our enemies, those who believe the writings of Karl Marx, are using these issues to divide and conquer us. Make individuals weak on sex, drugs, alcohol, too much food, too much entertainment and sports, dumb them down, teach them lies, and eventually they will weaken to the point where they will need to rely on government. Then, government rides in appearing as the savior to our problems and enslaves us. With government in control, the leaders can bring in the utopia dreamed up by Karl Marx.

    I hear conservatives on the radio arguing about why IDs should be needed to vote. Don’t they understand that liberals don’t care about thinking rationally? Liberals don’t want to listen to reason, they want to cheat at the ballot box. Arguments won’t convince them to stop pursuing their dreams of a socialist utopia.

    Teddy Roosevelt said this country could be overcome by balkanizing it. I am pessimisstic and keeping my powder dry.

  13. You wrote: “African-Americans are still disproportionately burdened by poverty and crime.”

    African-Americans are also disproportionately burdened by government wage and price controls. The minimum wage laws effect in employers cutting entry-level jobs for low-skilled workers, rather than allowing employers to pay those workers what the market determines their labor is valued. This affects mainly teenagers and especially in the inner cities. Most teenagers do not need “living wages,” as they are living with and supported by their parents, but they do need entry-level work experience. (Google “Outlawing Jobs by Murray Rothbard”)

    African-Americans are also disproportionately burdened by the regulatory fascism thrown at them by the economic ignoramuses in Congress and state legislatures. There are so many costly mandates, restrictions and rules, fees and taxes for entrepreneurs now, this mainly affects those at the lower end of the economic scale who have ideas and know-how, but lack the financial means to get into their field of interest. (Google “The State Against Blacks by Walter Williams”)

    And regarding their being disproportionately burdened by crime, repealing drug laws and restoring a free market, and repealing prohibition will undo the black market in drugs which causes a rise in prices which is what leads to the high rates in violent crime, just like during 1920s Prohibition.

  14. “…a better understanding of how bitter people are when they’re singled out as suspects for their color, and followed suspiciously for that reason…”

    Not really, no. Because anymore it happens mostly in the rhetoric of individuals and organizations fostering that bitterness and reverse racism for their own purposes and agendas (media sensationalism, self-aggrandizement and publicity, an expanded and rabidly partisan electorate)…which like most everything else, boils down to power and money, money and power.

    And they don’t really care who has to be hurt or whose blood has to be danced in to achieve their evil and greedy goals. Critical to which is the disarmament of private citizens, and that’s what the Zimmerman prosecution, on TV, in the courtroom, and in the White House, was/is really all about. Martin, his parents, and most of the people in Mas’ linked discussions, are pawns and stepping stones to a world where facts are irrelevant and created perceptions are used to attain and perpetuate fascist rule.

    Zimmerman himself was an unwitting tool, which is why I’ve harped on the need to learn from his mistakes that allowed him to become a rallying point for the underlying agendas I outlined above. If we want to retain the right and the means to defend ourselves against totalitarian rule, we have to minimize the use of them against thugs on the street by not putting ourselves in the position of having to do so in the first place. The best defense is not a good offense, but rather to not get sucked into a losing game to begin with.

  15. Steven S., I’ve seen that piece and yes, there are two sides to the Marisa Alexander case. I’ve not yet seen the actual evidence photos and shooting scene reconstruction. I do think the sentence was excessive, and would be curious to see the trial transcript.

  16. Excellent points Mas, thank you for being willing to put the truth out there in a dispassionate way that separates truth from hype!

  17. The Lamestream Media has dysvolved into the agitprop arm of the DNC. It supports whatever the Progressive Establishment dictates. Is there racism in America today? You bet! It serves the purpose of the socio/political/economic faction which needs to keep a permanent underclass that votes Democrat to keep the pipe filling the public trough. 70-80 years of Progressive politics has done more harm to the morals and spirit of the African-American Community than 300 years of outright boot-on-the-throat oppression. In the times when the KKK lynched and whipped with impunity it could never have killed as many Black People as are killed now by other Blacks. And now it looks like TPTB will continue to gin up racial strife because it serves their purpose, benefitting no one outside of the Progressive Oligarchy.

  18. One of my customers was across the street from the local “Occupy” I got to see both the day to day and the special event people. The special event spokes people were highly educated (Grad school) smart, agressive and very polished. They were the sort of people you see on a presidential campain trail. We know from expence reports that government officials were sent down to Standford to -Help- stir things up. The rumor going around that part of Florida coming back from some snow birds is that the Obama’s both made a lot personal calls to get this case to trial. This is not a case of the tail waging the dog. It is not just the usual race baiters and the media enablers. There has been a dilliberate effort by some people in power to fan the flames in this case for poltical gain. It is more “Rules for Radicals.” This is not thier first time nor thier last. They are on the prowl for more such cases. You will note that the new default seting when ever the adminstration does not get thier way as this week with Syria, is to announce some new executive order on gun control

  20. Mas,

    Having listened to the radio show, it sounded to me like you were swimming upstream through the entire three hours. I commend you for doing it.