It was so simple: A white vigilante with a gun murdered a teenager in cold blood because he was black. The racist white murderer claimed he only used the gun because the teenager was slamming his head into the sidewalk, but he didn’t have any injuries. He called the teenager a racist name in his 911 call. He said he was following him because “he looks black.” And when the police dispatcher told him to back off, he ignored the warning.
Cut and dried. Case closed.
Then the white guy became a “white Hispanic.”
Then police reports about the injuries to the back of his head turned out to be true.
Then it turned out he never used a racial epithet in his 911 call.
And when he told the dispatcher, “He looks black,” it was in response to a direct question, not an indication of motive.
And when the dispatcher told him not to follow the kid, he said, “Okay.”
But other than that.
Now the original narrative just got even more “complicated,” which is what our moral, ethical, and intellectual superiors in the media always say when they’ve failed to dumb down an already-complicated situation. Reuters reports:
On February 26, George Zimmerman shot and killed unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin in what Zimmerman says was self-defense. The furor that ensued has consumed the country and prompted a re-examination of guns, race and self-defense laws enacted in nearly half the United States.
During the time Zimmerman was in hiding, his detractors defined him as a vigilante who had decided Martin was suspicious merely because he was black. After Zimmerman was finally arrested on a charge of second-degree murder more than six weeks after the shooting, prosecutors portrayed him as a violent and angry man who disregarded authority by pursuing the 17-year-old.
But a more nuanced portrait of Zimmerman has emerged from a Reuters investigation into Zimmerman’s past and a series of incidents in the community in the months preceding the Martin shooting…
The 28-year-old insurance-fraud investigator comes from a deeply Catholic background and was taught in his early years to do right by those less fortunate. He was raised in a racially integrated household and himself has black roots through an Afro-Peruvian great-grandfather – the father of the maternal grandmother who helped raise him…
Though civil rights demonstrators have argued Zimmerman should not have prejudged Martin, one black neighbor of the Zimmermans said recent history should be taken into account.
“Let’s talk about the elephant in the room. I’m black, OK?” the woman said, declining to be identified because she anticipated backlash due to her race. She leaned in to look a reporter directly in the eyes. “There were black boys robbing houses in this neighborhood,” she said. “That’s why George was suspicious of Trayvon Martin.”
Guess she’s a racist too.
Why does it matter that George Zimmerman has black ancestors and was raised in a racially integrated household? I have no idea. Maybe it doesn’t. But then, I’m not the one who’s spent the last month insisting he was motivated by racism. I’m just curious about how the press is going to describe him now. White Hispanic*, with a footnote? They’re the ones who think his racial background is a crucial detail. They’re the ones who’ve been working overtime to paint him as a racist.
I don’t know for sure if Zimmerman is a murderer, or a victim who fought back, or something in-between. And neither does anybody else. The loudest voices just have what they think they already know about him, and everything else is just their frantic attempts to reinforce that belief.
Who else has to be hurt over this? How much more blood has to be shed? When are we going to stop listening to guys who pay the bills with race-baiting?
What the hell is wrong with everybody?
(Hat tip: Classical Values)