The American Spectator : Subculture Clash

Text Size

Subculture Clash

By Daniel J. Flynn on 3.30.12 @ 6:08AM

The sad story of two stereotypes, Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.

America’s gifts to the world include the airplane, the polio vaccine, jazz, the gated community, and saggy-drawed, gold-toothed gangsta chic. These last two contributions came into deadly conflict last month at the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Florida.

America is the land of the free, home of the gate. When don’t-tread-on-me meets law-and-order, unchecked liberty experiences the perils of lawlessness and over-the-top security discovers it in a jail cell. That’s the sad story of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman.

Gated communities are cul-de-sacs suffering from a more severe neurosis. For the roughly 94 percent of Americans who don’t live in Fortress America, it’s easy to stereotype the denizens of the enclaves as overly-suspicious people cowering behind walls. There, a stranger isn’t a friend you’ve never met but a guy fixing to heist your flat-screen television. Residents behind the fences seem as eager to snitch to the homeowners association on a neighbor’s gauche Christmas ornamentation as he is to speed-dial the police about an unfamiliar pedestrian.

George Zimmerman did nothing to disabuse ungated Americans of such stereotypes. Since 2004, he has called the authorities 46 times. Potholes, trash in the road, unfamiliar automobiles, and even open garage doors weren’t safe from his phone fetish. This busybodyism ended tragically on February 26. The initiate of the community’s citizen watch program pursued an African-American teenager after a 911 dispatcher advised him not to. The African-American teenager objected more vehemently to the pursuit. Zimmerman responded to the physical assault with a firearm. Might overreaction be an issue for him?

Zimmerman’s victim is exactly the kind of person who the residents of the Retreat at Twin Lakes sought to retreat from.

Trayvon Martin’s Twitter account is a world where friends are “n-ggas,” women are “b-tches,” and English is a foreign language. His nom-de-tweet, “No Limit N—-a,” boasted of new tattoos, habitually arriving late for class, and smoking marijuana. He made repeated, degrading, unprintable references to women and their anatomies. “F-K DA SKOOL, F-K DA LUNCH, ND MOST OF ALL F-K DA FACULTY,” he said of his high school. His high school said of him that he vandalized the building, possessed a pot pipe, and stored a cache of jewelry — including silver wedding bands — and a burglar’s tool in his locker.

Trayvon Martin may have looked like the president’s son. He didn’t act like it.

What happened in Sanford, Florida, was a culture clash, just not in the way that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Bobby Rush imagine it. The Martin-Zimmerman conflict wasn’t a black-white issue, or even a black-Hispanic issue. It’s the culture of the urban gangsta conflicting with the culture of gated living. One might say that the former created the latter. From all appearances, the Miami high school student and the suburban Orlando neighborhood watch captain appear as archetypes of these two American subcultures.

We judge the actors, just as the actors judged one another, on the basis of limited information. Zimmerman assumed the hooded teenager to be a hoodlum. Martin assumed that he could manhandle the shorter, pudgier, older man in a fistfight. Their stereotypes proved correct, but only to a point. If Martin appeared as a nogoodnik, nobody but a dentist could say that he was up to no good that night by merely buying Arizona Iced Tea and a pack of Skittles. If Zimmerman looked an easy mark for a pugilist, the assessment erred in overlooking his weapon amidst his physical attributes.

Americans may have misconceptions about teenagers exuding thug fashion and gated-life busybodies. But they, in turn, have misconceptions about America. The bastion-dweller sees in the very real gates that surround an illusion that blocks out civilization — or perhaps walls it in. The thug behaves as a barbarian with the unrealistic expectation those in the way will behave in a civilized manner. We live in our cocoons — until reality invades.

There’s bad news for both archetypes. Fifty-three percent of births in the U.S. to women under 30 — the motherhood demographic — occur without a father married to the child’s mother. Teenage boys blindly grasping at models of faux-masculinity — such as beltless, pants-dragging prison fashion — is sure to rise with it. Gated developments have been booming in recent decades where the population has been booming (in the West and South). What the unwelcome mat in front of these communities seeks to keep out encroaches.

George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin were people. Now they’re seen as clichés. This is their doing, not the media’s.

The passionate partisans of both complain of the public’s unfair stereotypes of them. A person who doesn’t like being stereotyped shouldn’t behave as one.

About the Author

Daniel J. Flynn, the author of The War on Football: Saving America’s Game, blogs at www.flynnfiles.com.

Letter to the Editor View all comments (169) | Leave a comment Leave a comment

Jack in Wi.| 3.30.12 @ 7:29AM

My in laws lived in a Florida gated community. I always called it the concentration camp for old white people. I like living in a regular neighborhood with different people, young, old, and everyone in between. Martin had a right to walk around the compound without being hasseled by a busy body. This incident needs a full and fair explantion. I don't especially like nosey policemen or nosey police wantabe's. I also wear a hooded sweatshirt on my numerous walks around many different neighborhoods. Around here all the police seem intrested in is giving out tickets in vast numbers to support the bankrupt municipalities and counties they work for.

I worked in black ghettos on numerous occasions and used to have lunch with a lot of the biggest inner city landlords around, including my uncle and cousin. I have found when in those neighborhoods the best hing to do is not hassle anyone and mind your own business. I think from conversation, that most of these landlords think the same thing. It is kind of like our idiotic forign policy. Mind your own business and there is less trouble.

Melvin| 3.30.12 @ 8:52AM

The house that I purchased in Jacksonville, NC was from a couple that was going to live in Florida, in a gated community.
Many years after they had moved down there, he came back to his old neighborhood, and talked to my son who was in the front yard.
He told junior that moving down to Florida in itself wasn't so bad, but the place was run like a concentration camp. There were rules for the rules.
There was this board within the community that was manned by curmudgeons, who drove around in a six seat electric golf cart. And the would troll the neighborhood looking for the slightest infraction.
When wrote up the offendee would have a big notice not put into their mailbox, but placed on the door to put the offendee on public notice.
He said that is was the worst place he had ever lived and it made military housing look like Disney Land.
You have to have a mix of people in the neighborhood because for us old geezers who fall down in the yard, it takes a young person to flip us over, so that we can get up and walk again.

Bruce| 3.30.12 @ 10:15AM

Melvin;
Legally, it would have not been proper for the association to place the infraction notice in the person's mailbox. I agree that it could be handled in a different manner than placing the "scarlet letter" on the person's front door.

oldfart| 3.30.12 @ 12:19PM

I have seen these gated communities when we would visit some relatives. They are very very expensive places to live. As mentioned they are run by a bunch of frustrated dictators who want to regulate every aspect of your life (sounds like the current administration). After awhile living in you I saw our relatives develop a ‘bunker’ mentality – they never wanted to leave. There whole life was restricted to the community golf course, swimming pool, activity building, arranged tours etc.. When they went outside the gate it was go to the horribly expensive grocery store that preyed on these captives from ‘paradise’.
They kept insisting to us that this was true ‘freedom’ where the local mutual was your mother, your father blah blah blah. I think they were trying to convince themselves that they had not made a major mistake is moving there.

LMajito| 3.30.12 @ 12:34PM

what a bunch of whiners...each year hoa (homeowners associations) have elections and the admin group (or executive board of directors or whatever you want to call them) is elected by the ones showing up to vote...grow some steel between your legs and run for office (you and your neighbors bothered by these quasi dictators) then once in office, let your official first act be to unplug the electric car...

i have been in several of these hoa neighboorhoods and it's always the same crap...nag, nag, nag but residents are willing to do nothing...(i'm too busy, my job, my dog) fill whatever excuse...

like every thing else...and btw, if you have a neighbood watch program it means somebody is watching...so if you want to dress like a thug and act like a punk (these guy treyvon had all of the attitude of one gangsta wannabe) then you'll be spyied on...our neighborhood is not gated and it does not have a nwp, but if i see a hooded punk wannabe walking around aimlessly in my block, i will ask him 'uasap bro?'...if he gives me any attitude the local sheriff will be called and my shutgun made ready...

if you want to wait until you get rob that's your choice...me? you can try buddy but be ready for the consequences...

George Z| 3.31.12 @ 3:14AM

George Z: "pursued an African-American teenager after a 911 dispatcher advised him not to."
Wrong, Danny Boy. George was walking back to
his vehicle and the thug came up behind him and
said: "Do you have a problem?" George said, "No".
Hoodie-boy said, "Well, you have now," and socked George, knocked him to the ground, beat
his bead into the sidewalk. George fired once in
self defense. So please get your facts straight or
else don't write article like this. You are part of
the problem.
George Z looks just like me, so y'all Negroes back
off and leave him alone !!

RCV| 4.1.12 @ 7:48PM

If you'd been stalked by a creep in a car, carrying a gun, you might get a little jumpy too.

Paul Kotik| 3.30.12 @ 10:15AM

Dear Jack -

Sounds great. You should come on down here to South Florida on your next vacation. Bring your hooded sweatshirt, they're the de rigeur in contemporary tropical fashion. You'll be a big hit.

Bubba T. | 3.30.12 @ 11:31AM

Merriam-Webster 11th Collegiate Edition

prop3 -

Something used in creating or enhancing a desired effect. (books as cultural props in order to appear literate.)

Current liberal useage:

* Trayvon Martin. (*the hoody as a cultural prop in order to appear sensitive.)

note: (*may not work on those among the actual literate.)

gearjammer| 3.30.12 @ 8:19PM

Did he walk around it ? Or, was he in it ? In what nhoods is it a good idea to hassle people and not mind your own business ? Do you smoke alotta dope ?

Alan Brooks| 3.31.12 @ 2:25AM

Zimmerman sure heals fast. The photo of him at the scene of the 'altercation', and the clip from the police station, on Feb. 26th, shows a remarkably healthy person for someone who was beaten.

Stan REdmond| 3.31.12 @ 4:05PM

You ever been in a fist fight before? Probably not. Have you ever even watch MMA fighting? Probably not. You watch too many movies. Blood does not flow like a spigot in all altercations. Even a broken nose does not always result in blood pouring down the face and sometimes even a sneeze will result in a bloody nose that looks like a batllewound. If Zimmerman was beaten he ended the beating fast enough to escape serious injury. You weren't there, I wasn't there. Only Zimmerman knows what happened. Eywitnesses and his story to the investigators are why Zimmerman wasn't arrested and charged.

Sadly it is people like you insisting on mob justice. Do we rewrite centuries of law to match polls? Welcome back the witch hunt days and inquisition?

keats5| 4.1.12 @ 11:08PM

I agree. I've had years of experience treating serious head injuries as a critical care nurse. Most were closed, meaning there was no open wound. About half of those with serious closed head injuries died none-the-less.

Stan REdmond| 3.31.12 @ 4:49PM

Another fact that I completely forgot about. When the fight was taking place, as described by the eyewitnesses, Zimmerman was in a red sweater. When the videos of him in the police station were released he was not wearing his sweater. Therefore, his clean shirt and jacket.

Alan Brooks| 4.1.12 @ 1:31AM

Difference between Zimmerman and Martin stereotypes?:
Zimmerman is a living stereotype;
while Martin has gone to the Great Soul Food Kitchen In The Sky.

And now Zimmerman can wait a couple years till this dies down completely, and get a book deal. Everyone wins save for Trayvon and his family.

Alan Brooks| 4.1.12 @ 1:39AM

PS,
Stan REdmond:
I never said Zimmerman will be punished- he wont, because though Martin's death may be murder as far as Trayvon's parents are concerned, it is not murder to the majority of us.
Nor is there evidence to arraign Zimmerman.

But an unarmed, inexperienced, 17 year old's being shot is in fact a moral crime. I have a very strong hunch that if you or I had shot Trayvon, we'd be in jail right now. IMO Zimmerman lucked out, big time.

jppc| 3.30.12 @ 7:33AM

Actually, the media circus over this incident is good for the GOP/conervatives with respect to Nov. election. Why?

Because, three out of four REGISTERED voters are native born Caucasian Americans. And Caucasian Americans vote by a small majority Republican - roughly 55%-58% nearly every election for years now.

Therefore, this incident, with Hussein Obama's entry into it, along with the midget Spike Lee and the Obese Cow Oprah and the like, will send a subtle yet definite signal to Caucasian Americans vote to send Barry back to Chicago, or Hawaii or Indonesia or Kenya or where ever the hell he came from.

Timothy L. Pennell| 3.30.12 @ 10:58AM

I disagree with Mr. Flynn's premise. I see no "Clash of Subcultures". I see only ONE Subculture. The one that has HOMICIDE as the #1 Cause of Death for its young men.

The Subculture that is in competition with the Animal Kingdom, for Most Children born out of Wedlock.

The Subculture where its young men - 14 to 24 - commit 10 times more MURDERS than the same demographic of Whites and Hispanics, COMBINED.

The Subculture that calls itself N*ggers, and its Women and Young Ladies: B*tches and Hoes.

It's the Subculture that Flash Mobs McDonalds, the Mall, and the Jewelry Store.

Its the Subculture that Flash Mobs entire Shopping Districts in Chicago and Milwaukee.

The Subculture that commits 56% of all Violent Crime, even though it is only 15% of the Population.

It's the Subculture with more Infant Deaths occurring from "The Boyfriend" than from one of the more "Traditional", Bacterial Forms of Infant Mortality.

It's the Subculture that KILLS, for a pair of Sneakers. KILLS if they're bumped in to, at a Late Night Hot Spot. KILLS if they think they're being "Dissed".

It's the Subculture that wears their Hats, like they're Retarded. Wears their Pants like their Jail House Idols. And, apparently, doesn't know how to Tie its Shoes.

It's the Subculture that ALLOWS itself to be used by the Race Hustlers, in their $1,000 Suits, and by One Political Party, who has kept them penned up, like Farm Animals, on their Liberal Plantation, in Poverty, with Failed Schools, High Crime, and NO HOPE, for 60 YEARS.

If I had to compare them to something? I would not choose: Subculture.

I feel that they are definitely more like a 3rd Stage Aggressive Cancer.

And they are DEFINITELY killing this Country.

It's not Racism.

It's Cause and Effect.

Fredx| 3.30.12 @ 11:42AM

Wow! I knew the author's premise stinks to high heaven, but you have truly made mincemeat of him and his article. Bravo!

One if by land...| 3.30.12 @ 12:18PM

Good article on WND with the FBI statics about Black on White crimes. Especially startling is the number of Black on White sexual related crimes vs White on Black, 14 somthing thousand to ZERO!

capatolistmom| 3.30.12 @ 12:40PM

Mr. Pennell, Very well said!!! This should be a campaign sheet for the republicans!!!

Minuteman78| 3.30.12 @ 1:41PM

"...3rd stage aggressive cancer." I LIKE IT!

LiveFreeOrDie| 3.30.12 @ 2:21PM

Let me ask Mr. Flynn who he would rather live in the same neighborhood with? 50 Trayvon's or 50 Martins? Culture clash? What a hack premise, go away.

TexasMom2012| 3.30.12 @ 7:35PM

We live in the suburbs of Houston in one of the most ethnically diverse areas of the country. My son has black friends that warm him who to avoid and to sure not to accidentally step on a certain groups shoes. The group that they are talking about is the black youth gang with their pants on the ground, disrespecting everyone and looking to be offended. They walk through the halls in a group forcing everyone out of their way, demanding respect they are not willing to give anyone outside their group. My son and his friends black, white, hispanic, and asian are all more interested in staying out of trouble, making their grades and playing their sports. So they avoid the gang and laugh at them when they mention the idiots and their demand for respect.

Bob| 3.30.12 @ 11:17AM

I'm afraid this is misguided optimism. This is not good for the GOP/conservatives. This is not riling up Caucasians the same way it is riling up blacks. I haven't seen counterprotests from Caucasians. In any case, that probably would have made things worse, inviting charges of racism from Sharpton and his gang.

The goal of this crisis was to inflame Obama's voter base, and it was a resounding success. There's no way anything good can come of this for the GOP/conservatives.

grant1863| 3.30.12 @ 12:29PM

Caucasians don't counterprotest, they are working.

Boar Hunter| 3.30.12 @ 1:15PM

They are working and paying taxes so the Black Panthers in Detroit can threaten to burn down the city if their baby momma's benefits are cut.

They are the Morlocks above ground.-

Some college study found that, "Looking at race, marital status and education simultaneously, children who are black and whose head of household is not married with less than 12 years of education have a cumulative percentage of residing in a food stamp household of 97 percent by age 10."

One if by land...| 3.30.12 @ 12:49PM

***Straight Copy and paste***
•In Kansas City, a 13-year-old white boy named Allen Coon was doused with gasoline and set on fire by two older blacks saying, “This is what you deserve. You get what you deserve, white boy.”
•Haley Pettersen, a 15-year-old white girl in a leg cast in O’Fallon, Ill., was out walking her dog when she was attacked by two black girls who said, “This is our territory white girl.” One girl grabbed Haley by the hair, and the other one started hitting her in the face. The perpetrators ran off only when some neighbors came out, but the attack left Haley with a swollen left eye.
•In Kansas City, an unnamed 50-year-old white man was left with a fractured hip and other injuries after being beaten by a group of blacks shouting racial epithets.
•Gary Allder, a white man in San Antonio, came home to find that his house had been burglarized, ransacked and tagged with racial slurs such as “Die Whitey.”
•Travis Eugene Winemiller, 16, a white Polk County, Fla., inmate, was beaten, choked and strangled until he was unconscious by three black inmates. They then hogtied Winemiller and said, “This is how you slave a real cracker,” and threatened to kill him.
•Jacob Appel, a 15-year-old autistic white boy, was attacked by three blacks at his bus stop in Palm Bay, Fla. The blacks taunted, used racial slurs and chased the victim into the street where he was nearly struck by a car. The only reason the offenders were caught is that one of the attackers posted the video on his Facebook page.

TYBT| 3.30.12 @ 1:00PM

Thank you, One if By Land. I think we could construct a very, very long list.

Can you imagine being that 13 year old KC high school freshman? He will need plastic surgery. How can he return to that school? (A school where the black teachers foment the white hate.) He cannot. And yet that "white" family gets heaps of grief for just telling their honest story to the press when asked or queried.

The last one you mention reminds me of the teen males from Somalia who have settled in Minneapolis/St. Paul who made it a point to harrass "Whiteys" in a violent manner a few years ago. (I have no current information as to whether this is still ongoing.) They only got into some trouble and questioning due to several of them posting on Facebook and bragging about it.

This violence was directed against Whiteys. It was muslim/islam motivated.

Minuteman78| 3.30.12 @ 1:46PM

Yeah, you don't hear much about this "brand" of racial violence from the President or the Attorney general. Probably too busy out supplying guns to the Mexican drug lords.

Trish| 3.30.12 @ 9:15PM

Bob-I certainly agree that this crisis was used to inflame Obama's voter base. This 'coincidentally' came to the fore on the weekend preceding the Supreme Court hearings when there were huge rallies against his premier law. I was in DC and the Trayvon rally was well organized. POTUS made his 'son' comment to rally his troops and to infer that any opposition to him is a lethal threat to the black community. Not good for conservatives? Well, I believe many ppl including independents are tired of watching the race hustlers threaten via race baiting.

ggoblue| 3.31.12 @ 11:32PM

i doubt this hurts the republicans...obama stepped in it when he made it political. now its a black vs hispanic thing. thats a wedge between democrats.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.30.12 @ 7:34AM

Your article contains a misrepresentation.

Your portray George Zimmerman's zeal in reporting community conditions as something undesirable. In fact, he was community oriented, trying to help his community, and he wasn't a community organizer. The fact that he called 46 times is irrelevant unless you can show the calls were useless. George Zimmerman was simply trying to help his community and portraying him in a negative light because of that is what one would expect from the cheese eating left.

On the other hand, we know Trayvon Martin was a thug. He was suspended from a high school for 10 days for having an empty bag with marijuana residue. I would imagine that any day now we hear the truth from his classmates that he was a drug dealer.

If there are any cliches to be found they can be found in the portrayal of Trayvon Martin as an innocent youth. It sounds like he was a hardened criminal at 17 and the press must do everything possible to soften his image.

Just the other day in Wheaton, Md. two students from Wheaton High School broke into a neighborhood home and stole a 9MM gun and took it back to school. The gun ended up in the hallways of the school and it was only a matter of luck that many were not shot.

While Trayvon Martin's parents complain about his fate they haven't spoken to the fact that he was a criminal plain and simple.

That's not a cliche and that's not something you will see at CNN or other main stream media sights.

As far as George Zimmerman the main stream media has to demean him because it appears he was a good citizen, trying to help his community.

When you compare the two, it was Trayvon Martin who had nothing to contribute to society. Far from being the innocent child portrayed in the media, he appears to be a hardened thug.

That's not a cliche but an ever present feature of a society which refuses to deal honestly with thugs like Trayvon Martin because they are black. That's no cliche. It's a tragedy.

George| 3.30.12 @ 7:45AM

Wow. Killing a black teen is "good for the community."

You have a very serious problem and it is moral.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.30.12 @ 7:49AM

You gloss over the fact that at 17 he was a hardened criminal engaging in fencing stolen goods, possibly burglary and dealing drugs to other high schools students.

No, you have the serious problem and it's your inability to see the facts. That's what leads people to immoral behavior.

By the way, removing criminals from society is good for the community.

Rip| 3.30.12 @ 9:48AM

Bill, I don't always agree with you, but today I certainly will (with your posts above). The author, Mr. Flynn, is wrong to somehow suggest that Mr. Zimmerman's calls to police are so "busybody." Really? Do we really know this? Isn't the criminal activity record of Sanford, Florida in the last 5-6 years a not so stellar one?

Even so, 46 calls in, say, 9 - 9 1/2 years. WOW! About 5 calls per year. NOW, Mr. D. Flynn, that is REALLY a busybody who is just too quick on the phone dial fingers, eh?

So I agree with you on this, Bill.

I also agree that we will learn that T. Martin has a rap sheet. He's been before juvenile court before. And that this was not his first school suspension.

Doesn't mean he deserves a bullet (of course not). But it does mean that he has already harmed others, has made trouble a big part of his life, and was on a trajectory to a wasted life.

Those pretending otherwise are, one, unaware of the black youth culture, two, ignoring his "home" life, three, not paying attention at all to the facts that we already know, four, lying to themselves.

The societal PC-maniacs will be in overdrive, Bill, so it will be tougher by the day to feret out T. Martin's drug gang contacts, involvements, school misbehaviors (probably dating back into Jr. High for sure), larceny issues, etc. So it will take a person now with guts to admit and offer the unvarnished truth on these things, but slowly, ever so slowly, we will see the facade of a relatively okay 17 year old, this fake facade slip away.

NOBODY rejoices in this; nobody is cheering that that T. Martin chose this path. But choose it he did.

And bad choices should always have bad consequences.

Skippy| 3.30.12 @ 3:04PM

I call the CHP dispatcher 10-15 times/year to report hazards on the highways.
Guess that makes me a hazard to drunken drivers.
Perhaps I should contain my zeal before somebody doesn't get hurt.

PolishKnight| 3.30.12 @ 3:36PM

The author made some valid points about gated communities being dictatorships, but he painted a distorted image similar to the media putting up baby pictures of a 17 year old expelled self-proclaimed gangster thug. Zimmerman was on his way back to his car when he was attacked. This is largely certain because of the location of the crime scene. So it's clear that this thug was intending to beat the **** out of some white guy who dared to "disrespect" him and twitter about it later.

So sure, maybe the skittles and iced tea run was innocent after all, that night. But who knows how many other runs he had gone on, or were going to go on in the future, and beat up some ***** for fun in the 'hood?

And indeed, this may be why these military enclaves are being formed. Due to desegregation, senior citizens and other "easy targets" are unable to live in nice neighborhoods anymore so they try to engage in excess rules, similar to NYC's "broken windows rule" to drive them out. Play classical music, call the streets "dandoline lane" and the gang bangers will tend to hang out elsewhere.

FYI, this isn't for sure, but if Zimmerman reports that Martin was walking between townhomes rather than on the sidewalk, that's probably trespassing. Sure, I did it all the time as a kid too when I was young and took "shortcuts" but those were different times. I knew the names of nearly all the people in those homes and they knew me, and my family, and it was not uncommon for us kids to pick up something at the store for the old ladies.

gearjammer| 3.30.12 @ 8:27PM

He was a dopey kid who was on a good path for most of his life.Then he went off the rail-suspended-maybe his old man was working to set him back on the right path. Don't we all wish Zimmerman could have found a way to hold the kid off besides shooting him ? I am not saying I could have figured out a better way to survive. Nobody more than Zman wishes it went " down" differently.

Bob| 3.30.12 @ 11:19AM

You know he didn't say that.

One if by land...| 3.30.12 @ 12:40PM

You are right George. The kid was just your regular, friendly, non-criminal NO_LIMIT_NIGA! Not a thug AT ALL!

Boar Hunter| 3.30.12 @ 2:35PM

In the state of Florida during 2009 there were 2,558 vehicle accidents resulting in death. That is about 7 per day. Grandmothers, Fathers, peoples children that they loved. Unlike Trayvon, I'm certain many were productive and valuable members of society. That is a tragedy.

And yet it's Trayvon you want me to feel sorry for? You want me to feel sorry for his momma who is so grief stricken that she filed to trade mark his name so she could make a buck? I am glad he is dead. I might pop a cork on some champagne over societies loss of one more hoodlum that never made it to prison, one more man who won't father children out of wedlock that my taxes will support.

Here is a little clue for you, Trayvon was a violent gangster bent on taking everything he could get and getting money anyway he could at anyones expense because of the culture he embraced. How was his momma serving to shape his world view? She should be put in jail for child abuse. Trayvon knowingly made decisions that were going to eventually lead him to a bad end. He deserves neither your pity or compassion or your fake moral outrage. He chose his life style and thereby chose its likely outcome. Death always comes sooner than any of us want.

The only people protesting and outraged by his death are people so blinded by racism that they don't care what he was doing. These same people reelect people caught in crack houses with whores and money in their freezers and re-elect them because of their melanin content. 90 percent of their babies born out of wedlock, unemployment among blacks at depression era levels and black on black murder is a leading cause of death among their young men. What do you hear? Well when they are not blaming the white man it's crickets.

You claim someone insufficiently remorseful for the death of this idiot lacks morals? What a joke, statistically the black community at large is morally bankrupt. They have no concern for right or wrong. Color trumps everything. Check out the crime statistics in Sanford. Gee I wonder what small percentage (30%) of the population commits 90% of the crimes? Wanna take a guess?

If you want to be concerned for someone why don't you show compassion for one of the seven people who died today in Florida while simply out driving a car with their families? I'm certain out of seven, one of them deserves your compassion and would evoke sympathy from any decent person. Trayvon deserves none. Yes it was good for society that he died. Based on his gangster life style he ended up exactly as expected.

You and many like you remind me of an Ikea commercial I saw a few years ago, there is a lamp on the curb in the rain and they are playing sad music to create an emotional tug at your heart, that is until the announcer comes on and reminds you it's just a lamp. The media provided sad music for you and you felt sorry for something that does not warrant your sympathy.

Good riddance to Trayvon, maybe the next hoody wearing hoodlum will think twice before punching someone he thinks is a victim.

PolishKnight| 3.30.12 @ 3:44PM

You know you're officially old when you get a unique feeling of dejavu.

There was a guy named Bernard Goetz, with a very ethnic sounding name, who was beaten up by thugs on the NYC metro system back when it was called the "subway" and much more dangerous than today before Guiliani was elected. It was not uncommon for men such as him to be beaten up and robbed by hoodlums on the subway for fun and he was a victim. So he bought a gun and the next time that 4 hoodlums tried to rob him he shot them.

And surprise, surprise, the media portrayed the 4 hoodlums as innocent lambs the victim of racism and the prosecutor was pressured into getting him on one charge that would easily stick: possessing a gun in NYC. Later, a mostly or all black jury made a tremendous award to families of the 4 "victims".

Of the victims that survived and were in good health after the shooting, they later went on to commit more violent crimes implying Goetz's actions taking the others out of commission probably saved lives. Naturally, the media didn't report on them.

In the meantime, this last week, a Muslim shooter shot children outside a synagogue and strangely, the leftist civil rights community seems to be silent about it. Can you imagine if a white Christian had shot up children outside of a mosque?

Possum Deary| 3.30.12 @ 10:07AM

Since Trayvon Martin was a member of the littering class, I am surprised that an "empty" bag with marijuana residue was found in his backpack.

I would have expected him to toss the empty bag on the sidewalk and walk on.

One thing for sure: Had he eaten the bag of skittles on his way back from the store, he would have tossed the empty bag in front of someone's home.

Claypoole| 3.30.12 @ 10:27AM

Anyone who hasn't read Tom Wolfe's "Bonfire of the Vanities" should do so, and preferably before this Trayvon Martin incident has vanished from the front pages. Wolfe knew the media in the US and absolutely nailed them in "Bonfire."

Paul Kotik| 3.30.12 @ 11:09AM

You are so right! This is right out of Bonfire.

I thought there was a deja vu around this thing, and you've shown us why.

So now we know how it ends, too.

albert constantine jr.| 3.30.12 @ 1:26PM

I kept waiting for the "sweet kid" to become an "honor student" in the manner that Mr. Wolfe described.

An important distinction, though; Mr. McCoy was engaged in an adulterous liaison when he hit (and then ran from, and try to cover up) someone being pressured to rob him. While hopefully an investigation will view all of the relevant evidence to determine if Mr. Zimmerman's actions were unlawful or justified, a fair view of the evidence available at this point suggests at worse he was an overzealous armed busybody, not the racist hunter of minority youth that Spike Lee, the New Black Panther Party and Roseann Barr Arnold Barr would have you believe.

Unlike the "Master of the Universe" McCoy who was selfishly indulging his illicit pleasure, it appears Zimmerman was conscientiously trying to protect his community, even if the review of the evidence ultimately shows he exercised poor judgment.

Claypoole| 3.30.12 @ 1:49PM

You're right, of course, about the protagonist of "Bonfire." When I recommended the book, I was thinking of the media's treatment, in the book, of the thug McCoy hit and comparing that to the media's portrayal today of Trayvon Martin as an innocent child.

More, much more, will become known, and I maintain it will all resemble a "Bonfire" moment.

scotchieguy| 3.30.12 @ 10:45AM

I love how the media perpetuates the stereotypes based on their own prejudices. Zimmerman is portrayed as this big, mean looking thug whereas Martin is portrayed as a 12 year old sweet, innocent kid on a horse, or with his father. And this on FOX. It is amazing how fragile our civilization is when something that happens every day in the hood gets exploited based solely on racial divisions. The media wants to make this Zimmerman seem like a white guy who is a racist, and Martin as another example of black victimhood.

DG in GA| 3.30.12 @ 11:39AM

This opinion piece brings to mind a couple of questions:

Why does the news media insist on using photos of the "victim" that are 5 - 7 years old, instead of current pics? Zimmerman did not shoot a 10-year-old fresh-faced kid with a big grin.

What was a Miami teenager doing wandering around a gated community in Orlando? Was he visiting his grandparents? Looking for a job?

If black teenagers do not want to be treated like lawless thugs, why do they act and dress like lawless thugs?

I remember many many years ago arguing with my mother about the dress code in our family. My mother pointed out that if you want to be treated like a lady you must dress like a lady. If you want to be treated like a whore, dress like one.

I, too, live in a gated community. Our neighborhood wasn't always gated, but after we had several homes broken into and a couple of violent attacks against homeowners - by people who came from outside the neighborhood - we decided to spend the money to gate it. It's actually a hassle, but since we did it we don't have mail stolen from our mailboxes (for the purposes of identity theft), no homes have been broken into or vandalized and nobody has been attacked. We just want to be safer. We have a diverse community ethnically, if not socioeconomically. But I will bet that Jack in WI, with all of his liberal arrogance, also does not live in a socioeconomically diverse neighborhood. I used to live in WI and the neighborhoods, if ethnically diverse (and not many of those) were definitely economically pure.

And as for the busybody neighbors who constantly badger the HOA about "infractions" of the rules, hey, every neighborhood, gated or not, has people living in it who don't have enough to do and refuse to mind their own business. It's not so much whether a community has gates around it to try to keep crime out, it's just that some people are busybodies with time on their hands. When I was President of the HOA I tended to give big projects to those people so they'd be busy and feel like they were contributing.

PolishKnight| 3.30.12 @ 3:51PM

"If black teenagers do not want to be treated like lawless thugs, why do they act and dress like lawless thugs"

When I lived in Philadelphia in the early 90's, I remember walking to work at 9:00AM while listening to a walkman (an early version of the iPod) and a well dressed black man ran up to me and said "boo!" and laughed with his friends at how startled I was. He viewed this as proving I was "weak" then the reality was that I was surprised that such a thing happened in broad daylight with lots of people around.

So in gangsta/race-card culture, they like to scare whites and provoke confrontations and then cry victim when someone takes them up on it. If I had called the police or complained to someone about it, the above guy would have cried that I was "profiling" him. This is also a tactic they use against each other where they get up to each other's faces and start screaming and challenging them to throw a punch.

Jason| 3.30.12 @ 7:42AM

What I have learned through this event is how cruel the hard right is in this country. The posts here that attack a dead kid are pure filth. This is trash. The author should be ashamed of himself. He knows NOTHING about this kid. NOTHING. Nor do these right wing creeps who are now convinced that this is an election issue.

You people live in a subculture that is drenched in racism, sexism and hate. And if you think that's gonna elect your party into power, you've got another thing coming. And soon.

I know several women who have sworn to never vote republican again after the Sandra Fluke attack. Now you think attacking a dead kid will win votes?

You people are pure filth. As a person who values conservative ideals, I am ashamed to be at all associated with your seemingly endless store of hate and trash.

You are sick, sick, sick people.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.30.12 @ 7:55AM

So are we to assume you're against abortion? Millions of potential children have been aborted by the godless left and you complain about one person being killed?

That's the art of the left. Paint with broad brush stokes and then run when confronted with the facts.

W| 3.30.12 @ 8:09AM

By your "logic" you should not vote Democrat because Zimmerman is a registered Democrat.

albert constantine jr.| 3.30.12 @ 10:48AM

I wonder if it is really "Bill", playing someone "who values conservative ideals" instead of "the grandson grandson of a confederate soldier killed fighting for freedom" today.

W| 3.30.12 @ 11:33AM

I think Bill is Jason is Purp, and so on. They try different approaches: a conservative, a Floridian, a grandson of a Confederate soldier, can't vote for any Republican this year, blah blah. "Purp" just posts the lefty talking points.

( . . . after the beep . . . )| 3.30.12 @ 12:38PM

"Hey Dubfish, my real name is fckewe and for outing me with a bang like this I'm going to start an environmental renovation project of my own by making some volatile improvements to that dilapidated trailer at the beach on the Allemonongaghenhelawhatever you call home."

W| 3.30.12 @ 1:09PM

Very good!!
Much closer to the Mon than Allegheny. As youths wee once cleared spot on the Mon, called it a beach, directly across from the Homestead US Steel, which exists today reincarnated as a shopping mall and restaurants.

albert constantine jr.| 3.30.12 @ 1:29PM

Cue the harmonica for the theme song!

( . . . after the beep . . . )| 3.31.12 @ 2:36PM

"31 and 51 minutes - not bad - listen, I'm gonna have to call Chapman if you two don't come down here and clean this mess up - I can't reopen with thirty-two idiot liberal asswipe douchebag pansies still out cold scattered all over the place . . . and whoever tossed the one with 'Purp' tattooed on his forehead - I get they're liberal scum - but busting my thirty-two foot bar-length naked lady mirror!?!

albert constantine jr.| 4.1.12 @ 12:34PM

I'll call Rocky to see if he and LJ are available to help. Somehow, I just know Angel had to have started it.

W| 4.1.12 @ 6:57PM

Very good. I doubt the Purp a/k/a various handles appreciaes Rockord. Most Lefties have no sense of humor.

albert constantine jr.| 4.1.12 @ 9:45PM

Most of what they seem to regard as humor involves invoking profanity and bad wishes towards those with whom they disagree (Bill Maher) or snide snarky comments against those who are not in a position to harm them any longer (the left's remarks on the death of Breitbart).

TarponGman| 3.30.12 @ 9:05AM

@Jason,

I find it hard to believe you know several women. Even so, I am sure these "several women" would have found some other irrational reason not to vote republican.

Calvin| 3.30.12 @ 10:30AM

They dress like women anyway.

David W| 3.30.12 @ 10:06AM

Would the Black Panthers putting out a bounty for the "capture" of Zimmerman be considered healthy? Why did Spike Lee tweet the incorrect address of Zimmerman? Was it so sick conservatives could deliver well wishes? Why have there been so many death threats against Zimmerman when those threatening him don't even know the full story - they just threaten him because he is white, oh wait, a white Hispanic. Why has the black community gotten up in arms about the murder of an apparent thug by a "white" Hispanic but HAVE NOT SAID A PEEP ABOUT THE THOUSANDS OF BLACKS MURDERED BY OTHER BLACKS OR BY THE DESTRUCTION OF BLACK SOCIETY BY THE RACE BAITERS LIKE JACKSON, SHARPTON, AND OBAMA?

You know women who will not vote Republican because of the Sandra Fluke attack (gee, what a terrible attack. A professional activist who was compared to a slut because she wants someone else to pay for her birth control)? How many women will vote for Obama because Obama took money from a foul-mouthed so called comedian who calls women the "c" an "t" words?

No no, Mr. Jason. The ones who are sick are you and your fellow progressives. You are the ones who project your racism and hatred of women onto conservatives. You glorify the thugs and hate those who are against them?

Was the shooting tragic? Perhaps, or perhaps no more tragic than the thousands of other shooting deaths that occur every year in places where you and your progressive buddies don't care to protest against the senseless violence.

Trent| 3.30.12 @ 10:28AM

David W., I appreciate your post. However, as I now view the worded sum total of seven posts by "Jason" at this hour, it is obvious that he is not here to offer mature, thoughtful, adult commentary and factual back and forth.

The number of Black shootings rises DAILY. I am sure if I am opening a newspaper this morning in Philadelphia, Boston, New York City, Detroit, Buffalo, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, Charlotte, St. Louis, Denver, L.A, Oakland, and two dozen other sizable cities in the U.S.A. (and Canada)......in every one of those newspapers today -- just today alone -- I will find extremely violent black on black crime, often ending in death(s). And if I had a daily subscription to the main newspapers in those cities, I could clip out similar violent stories six days out of every seven day week.

Oh, I forgot to include one of our crime capitals, er, the capitol -- Washington, D.C. Home of the free world, home of the black scourge of crime that dates back to the decent people fleeing the District in the late 1970's.

This is one of the top 10 issues in America ignored in the last 30 years.

Why?

I am tired of this.

Wanna bet that Al Sharpton lives in a tony, nearly all white (mostly non black) expensive neighborhood? Sorta just like the BHO pastor J. Wright (false, deceiving pastor) in Chicago?

Bob| 3.30.12 @ 11:22AM

Yes, and Spike Lee tweeting the wrong person's house, Sharpton and his thugs organizing marches not even knowing all the facts, and the New Black Panther Party putting a bounty on Zimmerman's head with the financial contributions of "artists and athletes" in the black community are all saintly.

Get real dude.

SUBVET| 3.30.12 @ 11:38AM

BOB....don't forget that POS Rosey O'D.

Fredx| 3.30.12 @ 11:49AM

Feel better now?

Boar Hunter| 3.30.12 @ 2:43PM

That was comedy! You sound like the crying kid on the leave Brittany alone video.

DG in GA| 4.1.12 @ 1:29PM

I have news for you. Any woman who would vow never to vote Republican after the Sandra Fluke nonsense has never voted Republican before and was never going to vote Republican. We haven't lost anything.

BTims| 3.30.12 @ 7:51AM

The essence of the issue is something nearly no one wants to discuss, although Santorum brought it up before getting clobbered by "mainstream" Republicans.

Martin, like most kids in trouble in this country, grew up in a non stable, untraditional home. Or to put in another way, if you have a mother and a father, the chances of these terrible things happening are greatly reduced.

But both the Dems and Repubs will not allow any discussion of morality, since it "infringes" on the SACRED TOPIC OF CARE-FREE SEXUAL FREEDOM and NO RESPONSIBILITY.

jason| 3.30.12 @ 8:47AM

Yeah, Santorum will lead us to the promised land.

You people are crazy. You live in your little Tea Party bubble of hate and you think the country likes you. People despise your hate and constant whining and resentment about everything the government does for people JUST LIKE YOU!

Get out. Get laid. Get some porn, you freak. You'll feel better. I mean, you know that don't you? Yes, you do.

Fredx| 3.30.12 @ 11:51AM

You sound rather hate-filled yourself.

Boar Hunter| 3.30.12 @ 2:44PM

I believe unhinged is the word your looking for.

The Bruce| 3.30.12 @ 5:50PM

"Get out. Get laid"

You should take your own advice, and stop molesting those poor pairs of socks in your dresser.

chemman| 3.30.12 @ 8:31PM

Thank you for finally self identifying yourself as another slaver who thinks it is okay to sell our progeny into penury slavery for utopian dreams.
As to your screed why do you hate electrons so much that you torture them in that way.

Sammy| 3.30.12 @ 9:59AM

BTims, you are picking up on the most key component of all -- Trayvonne Martin's home life. Whatever that might have been.

We used to casually (and incorrectly) mislabel this a dysfunctional home. Now, in the ueber-PC world, we cannot even say that any more.

You are correct. What every child needs is a stable, Mommy and Daddy home where the number one thing that a kid knows -- above all else -- is that Daddy really loves Mommy.

If a kid knows this, well, the chances that the future might be bright are much, much higher.

Mr. Santorum is not at all wrong to bring this up.

Anyone (like Jason? who is not using his real first name, of course) who wishes to think otherwise needs to spend just 2 - 3 days in the courthouse of a nearby sizable city. Just go to a public courtroom, get comfortable, sit in the back, listen, take notes, and observe. A courtroom than handles about 70 - 100 small cases per day.

Just watch the range of humanity that enters and departs and eavesdrop on their plights in life. I'd bet you the Brooklyn Bridge, that better than 90% of them come from long, long, long time broken homes. (And they recreate same in their own lives of adulthood.)

Bob| 3.30.12 @ 11:24AM

Yes, instead they exalt these women as "liberated". To hell with their kids, according to them the kids should've been aborted anyway.

Appleby| 3.30.12 @ 8:07AM

When Atlanta passed a law against all-adult apartment communities, the one I lived in went from 6% Black to 49% Black virtually overnight, and I moved into the City to a high rise fortress with cameras and code-entry AND EXIT on every door, including of course the garage. This fortress was fully integrated, but the people who lived there were of a much higher income bracket than the ones moving into my old neighbourhood. (Soon after I moved away, there was a massive DEA raid on that complex, and in the news footage shown live, not a single White face was visible.) The sorry fact of the matter is that the law-abiding citizens live locked in prisons, and the lawless roam free. Here in Toronto we have a "path" connecting the major downtown buildings, which is policed by private security and is therefore free of drug dealers, beggars, homeless people and gunfire.

Perhaps you folks who live in small towns, or who are wealthy enough to be insulated from the hand to hand combat of daily life think we all should join hands and sing Kumbaya. Perhaps you ought to get out more often.

jason| 3.30.12 @ 8:45AM

Perhaps you should stop whining about your inability to deal with life. I'm a white guy living in the city and frankly the people that scare me most are reactionary thugs like you, not kids that wear hooded sweatshirts.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.30.12 @ 9:12AM

Trayvon was not a kid in a hooded sweatshirt. He was a known drug dealer.

Vern Crisler| 3.30.12 @ 11:33AM

Ignore Jason; he's a troll.

My parents don't live in a gated community but their house was broken into twice within 6 months. After that they spent some money on crime-fighting technology and practically turned their house into an armor-plated castle.

Crime is so abstract until it happens to you or to someone you love. Sometimes Appleby's response is the only thing one can do given our lax laws and lax law-enforcement: move away.

Sammy| 3.30.12 @ 1:13PM

Vern, you are right.

I can still remember long discussions between my parents about moving (for several months) after we returned from a mid-week family night out for pizza in a suburb of Denver.

The house was ransacked. It was obvious that there had been a team of burglars and they were not careful. The police came to our home for several visits obtaining numerous clues but held out no real hope for us of apprehending the perpetrators.

To my parents that was not even secondary. Sure, we'd just had over $10,000 in stolen goods and about $5,000 in house damages (approximate), it was the SAFETY aspect.

My Mom kept asking, "Well, what if we'd come home just 45 minutes earlier?" "What, then, if we enter unknowingly the front door and are confronting our armed burglars? Hardened drug gang burglars who don't want witnesses who can identify them?"

Crime IS an abstract until you experience it directly.

elPuma| 4.2.12 @ 11:43AM

Really Jason? You are more afraid of well dressed middle age pudgy fellows than of gansta-dressed gold-toothed teenagers? I seriously doubt that.

Jane| 3.30.12 @ 8:34AM

This is disgusting. These comments are like a KKK meeting.

jason| 3.30.12 @ 8:50AM

Welcome to the Republican Party. Whiners, racists, homophobes, haters. That's who they are. Go to The Daily Caller and see the real trash. They are real "family values" folks -- they just published the private emails of a dead kid.

And they're gonna get sued something sick.

W| 3.30.12 @ 9:05AM

You must be today's designeated lefty troll with nothing to say except the usual lefty talking points.

Von Mises Jr.| 3.30.12 @ 9:10AM

Alright, lay off the dead kid. Let's focus on his want-to-be father, the Thug-in-Chief. Perhaps this is why people are a little jumpy, jason. They have a Community Organizer of the United States that tells the Hispanics to "punish their enemies." He tells his jack-boot troops to "get in your neighbor's faces."
So I guess you will not vote for the current Perpetrator of the United States in November?
BTW Jane, the KKK is a product of the Southern DEMOCRATS!

Bob| 3.30.12 @ 11:26AM

Of course, omit the fact that the KKK was all registered Democrats.

SUBVET| 3.30.12 @ 11:45AM

Talk about getting sued.....who here thinks that Spike and Rosey should be held accountable for their intervention.......let me see the hands.

Jason I don't see your hand up........oh it must be in your pants......sorry.

Bill Hussein O'Stalin| 3.30.12 @ 9:10AM

So Jane, you're an expert on KKK meetings? Tell us about your experiences.

Paul Kotik| 3.30.12 @ 11:10AM

You mean like the ones that great Democrat Senator Byrd used to conduct?

Frank Drackman| 3.30.12 @ 12:05PM

Ewwwwww WHAT A BURN!!!!!!!!!!

you mean the exstinguished Gentleman from West Virginny, Robert KKK Bird???

Frank

cowgirl| 3.30.12 @ 12:38PM

So Jane one has to only assume that you are a righteous Liberal/Democrat who is the protector and savior of minorities from the evil Republicans/Conservatives. So let me enlighten you with regards to your foolish salvation imaginery.

One of the heroes of your salvation is Margaret Sanger - Founder of Planned Parenthood. Margaret believe in eugenics - stopping "poor people" like herself from having too many children. This led Ms Sanger to attend KKK meetings and preach her eugenics to an attentive crowd, the majority of them Democrats. Since that time the Democrats, you included, have been the champions of black people by encouraging, financing and supporting the systematic genocide of more than 60 million babies since 1973. The majority of those babies murdered by the Democrat's beloved sacrament called "abortion" have been black and hispanic. Black and hispanic abortions far outweight those of whites aned Asians. You liberals worry about teenagers like Travyon, when you support the genocide of unborn black babies with no hestitation whatsoever. Black babies living in "blue" cities or "blue" states have more to fear from the noise of the vaccum sucking the life out of an innocent unborn child than being gunned down by whites, hispanics or cops.

So my dear little hippocrite, before you going blasting around on blogs spewing what you believe to be your almighty salvation, think again.

Have a great day.

Skippy| 3.30.12 @ 3:31PM

Join the fun!
Leave your hoodie at the door.
Remember: we're laughing at you, not with you.

elPuma| 4.2.12 @ 11:45AM

Jane, and how would you know that? Do you attend KKK meetings regularly?

Melvin| 3.30.12 @ 9:10AM

This is direct at Jason and Jane. Just what the hell to you expect civilized people to say. Look around you this Country's urban cities are killing grounds not by the KKK as you so freely say, but by Blacks killing and butchering each other. Drugs, prostitution are being plied with impunity.
Have any of you driven through Watts in California after the residents burned it down multiple times? Usually when I hear the, "Oh, the Klan is hear posting today." This comment is usually made by pasty faced white kids in college drinking Red Bull.
I have driven through Watts multiple times and it is the biggest shit hole on the face of the earth, shots ring out like it was Falluja, Iraq. Young men stand half dressed with trousers down around their knees and give menacing looks, when the don't recognize someone who is from da hood.
San Bernardino isn't any better the only difference is the Mexican gangs have driven out the Black gangs through extreme violence, but the crime, prostitution, and murder is even worse.
Watts and San Bernardino used to be nice places to live. Hispanics, Blacks, and Whites got along they lived, worked, and played together, but then it all changed.
I don't know of anybody that would want to live in a Community with gunfire, murder, gangs, drugs, prostitution, aggressive homeless
panhandlers.
So Jason and Jane you can leave that KKK, Klan bullshit at the door, because for one you don't have no damn idea what the hell you are talking about.
You probably heard it on face book or something and you thought it sounded cool because when a Liberal or Progressive says it, "Its cool," because that is the, "In," phrase.
The main reason we are the shit that we are is because of fools like you.

Rip| 3.30.12 @ 9:34AM

Melvin, you are completely correct. Unless Jane and Jason are not law abiding citizens (I want to assume that both are), then they have no idea about the lack of safety. Or they are willfully choosing to ignore and look away from the troubles. Why choose to fake that you are unaware of very real safety risks to you, your children, your grandchildren and friends?

I have no idea why someone would want to be delusional.

I've placed this here before, but it ought to be not so outlandish to think that one could walk from a downtown of a big U.S. city to a park or landmark, see the site, picnic, take photos, have a grand time there, and walk back and be safe.

I won't be verbose here (I could). Something that I have in mind but know that presently is impossible is a day-long stroll from downtown Baltimore out to Fort McHenry and back. Only if I had massive bodyguards and could move much faster would such an idea ever come to fruition. Otherwise it is a very, very foolish idea.

I wish that this would be possible in my remaining lifetime, but I don't see it happening.

Brian Mc| 3.30.12 @ 5:32PM

Start on the east end of Federal Hill...it's a bit closer than downtown and you will dodge less bullets. Though the downtown rennaissance, back in the late seventies, capped off with Camden Yards is a true jewel to be sure, just so long as you don't take the light rail to Lexington Market. No offense, Federal Hill, Sissons is still one of my fondest memories of Baltimore! Next to Bertha's Mussels, of course.

markenoff| 3.31.12 @ 3:21AM

A Republican is a Democrat who's been mugged.

WRTolkas| 3.30.12 @ 9:43AM

This situation is absolutely astounding. Nothing to learn from here; just pick your side and let the insults fly.

Let me know how to recognize the winners.

Melvin| 3.30.12 @ 9:47AM

It is either insults or bullets?

WRTolkas| 3.30.12 @ 10:04AM

Dear Melvin,

Thank you for making my case.

Everyone have a safe weekend.

Skippy| 3.30.12 @ 3:35PM

And leave the thug-life costume at home.

jason| 3.30.12 @ 9:59AM

As a gay white man who loves to love black men I find these comments so upsetting! If all of you would just lighten up, get a hoodie and go trolling for a strong black man you'd finally wake up!

Bob| 3.30.12 @ 11:27AM

No thanks, we don't roll that way.

Fredx| 3.30.12 @ 11:52AM

Did you really say "lighten up?"

Boar Hunter| 3.30.12 @ 2:46PM

You really didn't have to let anyone know your gay.

Boar Hunter| 3.30.12 @ 2:47PM

It was kind of obvious

Boar Hunter| 3.30.12 @ 2:48PM

Like Trayvon being a walking piece of human excrement.

SuffolkVA| 3.30.12 @ 10:03AM

"Trayvon Martin may have looked like the president's son. He didn't act like it."

Then again, maybe he did.

Paul Kotik| 3.30.12 @ 10:13AM

Another two-bit pundit with a fleet of drones that showed him in real time exactly what happened!

"Pursued" ? Really ?

Audio transcripts of phone conversations, I remind everyone, do not show what happened. They show some, but not neccesarily all of what was said. In the Zimmerman 911 call, there's even controversy about what the precise content of the audible utterances was.

Flynn's more or less right in his cultural observations, though. I'd add that in South Florida suburbs, and especially in gated communities, ANY pedestrian is suspect.

Walking? Who the hell walks?

albert constantine jr.| 3.30.12 @ 10:18AM

America is the land of the free, home of the gate.”

I am not sure that the gated community can be accurately deemed to be an American invention. From the Great Wall of China to medieval castles, many cultures have tried to put barriers up to limit their vulnerability to the depredations of outsiders. While many of the dangers that barbarians from outside the gates posed were real, and history is chock full of examples of societies destroyed and sacked by others, the danger of destruction from within is real, as well.

Mr. Orlet usually writes of his experience as an urban pioneer in his transitional St. Louis community. The reporting on this gated community has stated that the demographic breakdown is 47% white. While I haven’t had the opportunity to review and analyze the source of this data and what the remaining demographics are, it does not seem that the idea that this was a “lily white” enclave. While Mr. Orlet chose to live in a less diverse community (what Clint Eastwood as Dirty Harry would describe as “VFW”), I would hesitate to ascribe moral superiority to an individual based on the qualities of where they choose to live. It is the totalitarian left that wants central planning to dictate the qualities and characteristics of projects it requires its subjects to occupy. Free people get to choose where they live based on their desires and needs, availability and ability to afford.

Nevertheless, I think that Mr. Orlet’s apparent thesis of competing visions of “citizenship” may have merit. Whether or not George Zimmerman is a stereotypical “busy body”, the nosy neighbor can be a inhibitor to freedom. Predatory youth, though, can be an existential threat, as well as endangering property. Though his family and supporters describe him as a sweet kid, his projected persona from cyberspace, his behavior in school resulting in suspensions, and reported behavior in this incident seem to suggest he was attempting to portray himself in the manner that Zimmerman is reported to have perceived him.

About 20 years ago, I had a conversation with one of our support staff on the topic of whether gangsters were dressing like rap stars, or rap stars were dressing like gangsters. As a young woman of color in the urban milieu who enjoyed the hip-hop genre, she posited that the former was more accurate. I came to doubt her reliability on the matter and sincerity of her answer somewhat later, though, when she was caught getting off the train from New York smuggling five ounces of crack cocaine in her bra while pregnant with a local gangster’s baby .

Paul Kotik| 3.30.12 @ 11:12AM

This is a great, great point.

The UNGATED community is the historical novelty. Gated ( and walled-in) settlements are the historical norm.

Folks are beginning to figure out that this newfangled ungated community wasn't such a swell idea, after all.

LIBERALPARASITES| 3.30.12 @ 10:22AM

Nature used to take care of -Abnormalities- now we let -Liberalism- become the dominant factor in our society. We would not have a problem if we threw anybody with a -Hoodie- and a record in jail until they got the idea to be normal...

MrDan| 3.30.12 @ 11:10AM

I can't recall exactly when it was, but Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan commented on the out-of-wedlock birthrate of African Americans as being "epidemic" and "bad for society" and at the time (I think it was the '70's) it was 30%. For awhile now it's been at 70%. Trayvon Martin wasn't just a kid with a bag of skittles as the media originally portrayed. What's really being said about this tragic incident is what's not being said: mainly whites (and evidently half-hispanics) are arming themselves for what they see as an ever-increasing threat from a subculture of youth who have absolutely no regard nor place any value on human life whatsoever. And when whites see demogogues like Jackson, Sharpton, et al try to demonize this Zimmerman, this only makes us want to do one thing: buy more ammo. Stupid politicians want to "review" Stand Your Ground laws now, when they don't have a clue as to why this law was passed in the first place. Blacks continuously look to government for a fix to their problem, usually more handouts. Stupid whites are asking themselves, "how could this happen. I thought midnight basketball was supposed to fix this." I for one do not believe this country is going to make it. We've somehow crossed a threshold where too many people have become dependant upon the state, whether through food, medical, housing, or employment. Welfare and government programs have totally destroyed the family unit of the very people it was designed to help. It was a slippery slope that no one knew we were walking on, and now it's too late.

Fredx| 3.30.12 @ 12:00PM

Except it wasn't "designed to help." It was designed to redistribute wealth and power away from whites and anyone else who was successful, with a little finder's fee for the Democrats. It was designed to hurt while appearing to help.

WRTolkas| 3.30.12 @ 12:14PM

Dear MrDan,

I believe now the federal government is not doling out welfare checks but protection/tribute.

Boar Hunter| 3.30.12 @ 2:50PM

EXACTLY!

Bob| 3.30.12 @ 11:13AM

I see how you played both sides there. I'm afraid that black leaders today don't want to tackle the issue that an alarming number of kids today are born into households without a father. This problem is particularly serious in the black community, but black leaders seem interested only in working up a frenzy every time their Dear Leader slips in the polls, and throwing about charges of racism indiscriminately. When black leaders hear statistics such as the number of children born without fathers, they see it merely as empowerment of women. They don't see cultural decay. When these children grow up without fathers and all they see as role models are the vitriolic Sharpton and Jackson, that's who they will become. That's who the rap and gangster culture is. And this culture is reinforced in black communities so that even those with fathers, such as Martin, fall victim to cultural decay.

It's a shame really.

The Bruce| 3.30.12 @ 6:07PM

It's rather ironic, isn't it? These race pimps (Jackson/Sharpton)--the one's saying they want justice and racial harmony for "their people"--are utterly full of excrement.

The scariest day of their lives is one in which they wake up and find racism gone from the world, because that is the day they're rendered powerless.

Timothy L. Pennell| 3.30.12 @ 11:24AM