Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Too Bad Zimmerman Isn't Jewish!

Mike L.

I wonder how this thing would have played out if George Zimmerman had been Jewish? "Zimmerman," of course, is a very Jewish sounding name.  When I first heard about this case that was the very first thing that I thought.

"Oh my G-d!  Some upper-class, middle-aged, white Jewish Floridian just shot a black kid to death!"

That is what went through my mind on the initial seconds of hearing about this case.  I cannot even begin to express to you how grateful I was that Zimmerman turned out not to be a Jew.  But if he had been, I wonder how the case - and I do not just mean the legal proceedings - would have played out differently.

The Jewish population in the United States is about 2 percent of the total.  The African-American population is around 13 percent.  Both groups represent a significant presence in the Democratic Party and the progressive-left.  There was a time when it seemed that Jews and Blacks were political allies, mainly because American Jews played a significant role in the Civil Rights Movement.  (The names Chaney, Goodman, and Schwermer immediately leap to mind, as Jay will easily confirm.)

That alliance, however, has deteriorated since at least 1967.  It was around that moment that the Black Nationalist movement sided with the "Palestinians" because they saw them (and see them) as "people of color" being oppressed by white imperialist racists.   Speaking strictly for myself, I think that it is a terrible shame.

Black people in the United States affiliated with Jewish people in the United States in part because of religious reasons.  African-Americans are among the most religious people in the country and the story of Exodus has traditionally played an important role in African-American religious sensibilities since the days of slavery, for obvious reasons.  Simultaneously, of course, Jewish political sensibilities elided with African-American political sensibilities precisely because we wrote Exodus.

I do not believe for one second that there was ever a moment of perfect Black - Jewish comity in the United States.  (Comedy, yes, but comity, not so much.)  There was for a short period of time an alliance of sorts, but those days are long gone.  If Zimmerman was Jewish this would have been a truly awful moment in the history of American Jewry.  Not only would the black population have turned an angry eye toward us, but the general population would have leaned toward 17 year old Trayvon Martin out of sympathy for the youthful dead.

In the mean time, I simply want people to stop throwing garbage cans threw store-shop windows in the town that I live in.  For me this is not about Jewish or non-Jewish or black versus white.  I just do not like thuggery or brutality or bullying or violence.

Period.

I am going to be out for much of the rest of the day, but I wanted to produce some content and as I arise this morning this is what was most prominently on my mind.

I do not know the real story of Trayvon Martin or George Zimmerman and neither do the idiots rioting in the streets.

12 comments:

  1. Stuart, your real grievance is not with Trudy.

    It is with me.

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  2. What is important to understand is that race is a business like any other. Race needs professionals to tell you you're surrounded by racism that only they can address. It's a con. Or, w/o being cynical, it's a part of the connection between government and all the NGO's and GONGO's that that do its bidding in exchange for grants and access. If there were no racism, someone would invent it. Just as they create a desire or a fear for any number of other things.

    Pick up any women's or men's magazine. What is it? Diets, food, exercise, fashion and sex. Turn on the TV - did you even know you had all these maladies that required drugs they're selling? Race is like that. Create a buzz, start a group, make a march, make a noise, get paid.

    In that way it's bit like terrorism. Terrorism functions like an NGO or a nonprofit. It takes money in, it's organized, structured. It recruits, it advertises. Two things though are very crucial. 1) the people at the top aren't getting their hands dirty and 2) it has to create a demand for its services.

    There are no old suicide bombers. But the people who create them are. And how do they do that? They sell a message of hate and grievance, they sell the image of an implacable supernal enemy and they hold out the promise of an abstract ineffable unattainable badly defined goal.

    And like any carny gyp you have to let the suckers win once in a while to keep them coming back. Oh they lose most of the time. The game is rigged, the basketball hoop is elliptical, the three milk bottles are glued down. But once in a while you have to let yokels think they're getting something over on you. That's what a suicide bomber is - he or she is thinking he or she is better than the person who trained them and pointed them because they're doing something the other guy can't or won't. So it's in part to prove oneself to the terrorist organization.

    Professional race baiters are like that. They're driving to the protest in a limo and whipping up the crowd. They're shouting that everyone is a racist and the only way to smash the chains of bondage and hate is to burn down a Starbucks. So that the professionals can swoop in and 'broker' a ceasefire making them indispensable. They created the racial buzz, they created the riot and they created the temporary solution to it all, all the while working the government grant and cocktail circuit for more money.

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    Replies
    1. Trudy, you should work this up and front page it.

      I don't necessarily agree with it in its entirety because it needs to be acknowledged that until the latter part of the twentieth century, as you well know, racism was a genuine problem in the United States.

      When American historians focus on Jim Crow they do so for the excellent reason that de jure racism represented a genuine hurdle for non-white people in this country.

      Of course, that doesn't mean that Marcus Garvey was not a huckster.

      I suppose what I find most frustrating is the general unwillingness of people to give up the no longer applicable narratives of their youth. Very many people in my little neck of the universe still insist that the US is a terribly, terribly racist country. They hold to an unconscious belief that the narrative trumps little itchy notions concerning guilt or innocence.

      They don't honestly care - with some exceptions, like perhaps Randall - if Zimmerman was guilty or not because the narrative trumps the truth.

      By the way, what's a "white Hispanic"?

      That's a new formulation that was invented for this case for the sole purpose of making Zimmerman "white." It could hardly be more obvious. What I would love to know is what American Hispanic leaders are telling one another.

      I have read zero about that, thus far.

      Surely they must have something to say.

      If you guys have any links, please share.

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    2. Some will get upset because they think that a source means more the the substance of information, but here is an excellent timeline of how Zimmerman was made into a racist:

      http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2013/07/13/Media-Zimmerman-Coverage-Rap-Sheet

      In addition, although not addressing the "white racist," this shows that Zimmerman was told not to get out of the car is false:

      Zimmerman: Shit, he’s running.

      Dispatcher: He’s running? Which way is he running?

      [Sound of car door opening.]

      Zimmerman: [Grunts.] Down towards the other entrance of the neighborhood.

      [Sound of car door closing.]

      Dispatcher: OK, and which entrance is that he’s heading towards.

      Zimmerman: The back entrance. . . . [mutters] Fucking punks [puddles?].

      [Wind/breathing noise.]

      Dispatcher: Are you following him?

      Zimmerman: Yeah.

      Dispatcher: OK, we don’t need you to do that.

      Zimmerman: OK.


      The 911 operator acknowledged hearing the car door chime go off right after the “he’s running” statement by Zimmerman.

      This is important because it defeats a key narrative of the case, that Zimmerman was in his car at the time the police made the suggestion (not the direction) that “we don’t need you to do that.”

      http://legalinsurrection.com/2013/07/in-busting-zimmerman-myths-jonathan-capehart-perpetuates-the-greatest-myth-of-all/

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  3. Often it is. And I have some pretty meaningful gripes with you. But I'm still hear reading.

    This time it's with Trudy. The DNC didn't invite the New Black Panthers to "oversee" any polling places. The only report I could find indicated there was one member wandering around a polling place in 2012. Beyond that, the New Black Panthers aren't anyone's leaders. There are 10 times as many African American Jews in the US as there are members of the New Black Panthers. Does that make Jews the leaders of African Americans? These allegations are preposterous.

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  4. " 'The Latino community joins the African-American community and other communities in condemning George Zimmerman as what he is – a murderer and a racist,' Roberto Lovato, co-founder of the online Latino advocacy organization Presente.org, told The Daily Caller."

    http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-769057


    "No Worries Pueblo, George Zimmerman’s Latino Credentials Have Been Officially Revoked"

    http://www.hispanicallyspeakingnews.com/por-que/details/no-worries-pueblo-george-zimmermans-latino-credentials-have-been-officially/15150/


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  5. I see we obviously aren't too much of a 6-person echo chamber for Stuart to refrain from deigning to grace us with his presence, but whatever. ;)

    I actually agree with him here, though. In fact, the only time I've ever bumped into thugs hovering around voting booths turned out to be, unfortunately enough, members of a certain union handing out literature for Republican PA State Rep John Taylor at the garage where I vote. Much closer than the law allows them to.

    This 'New Black Panthers are intimidating Republican voters on orders of the DNC' stuff needs a bit more evidence than I've seen so far, to say the very least..,

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  6. http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2013/07/18/Jesse-Jackson-Calls-To-Boycott-Florida-as-Apartheid-State

    Now the morons are calling Florida an Apartheid state. Teh stoopid hurts so much Make it stop,

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    Replies
    1. At least Charles Barkley has his head on straight here:

      http://breakingbrown.com/2013/07/charles-barkley-on-zimmerman-acquittal-im-sorry-that-a-young-kid-got-klled-but-i-agree-with-the-verdict/

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    2. What are Jesse Jackson, or the rest of the 'progressive left,' doing for Shakir Williams, a 17-year old Trenton boy who was shot dead in Hamilton Township, New Jersey just this past weekend? Four other teens were injured in this shooting at a 15-year old girl's birthday party, as well.

      Oops, no sensationalist racist media angle here, though. Move along now, please.

      Jesse and everyone focused on just one tragic shooting that happened a year and a half ago need to check themselves. I think their 'anti-racist' credentials aren't quite all they're cracked up to be.

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