The Face of Racisim

Jon King http://www.savewhitepeople.com/

        So I am a big fan of Wil Wheaton. And today I saw a post on his blog that just baffled me. The picture on the left is of a man named John King. This man is prior military, has two children and holds a Masters degree in education. Just what we need, a racist teaching our children a message of hate disguised as, well, it's not really disguised as anything, it's obvious ignorance and hate.
     John King is pictured here, staging what he calls a counter protest to a vigil being held for Trayvon Martin. Apparently he feels that because the vigil happened on a University's property that somehow he, as a taxpayer has paid for the vigil and he just won't stand for that. I've included the link to his web page for anyone who may want to read his twisted logic.
     Just in case you have been living under a rock the past few weeks, here is a brief synopsis of the Trayvon Martin tragedy. Trayvon Martin is the unarmed 17 year old boy who was on his way home from the a convenience store to watch a game with his younger brother. While on his way home, he cut through a predominantly white neighborhood and was shot and killed by George Zimmerman. The Florida police at the time had only the word of the shooter, who claimed self defense. Due to Florida's "Stand Your Ground" Law, they were unable to arrest him at the time. They also did not feel that further investigation was warranted.It also turned out that Trayvon Martin was armed with only an ice tea and a bag of skittles.
 
                       

George Zimmerman

      Now, I am completely in support of our second amendment rights. However, I believe that if a person shoots and kills anyone, armed or not, their weapon should be confiscated pending the outcome of a formal investigation. If it is deemed self defense and no charges are to be filed, then the shooter can have their weapon back. When police officers are involved in a shooting this is exactly what happens to them. Their weapon is taken and they are read their rights. Contrary to popular belief, your rights are read to you at the time of questioning, not just when you are being arrested.

George Zimmerman

     Back to the original point of this post. How it is that anyone could think that asking for a proper investigation is hatred towards white people is beyond me. A family lost their son and they want an investigation into what actually happened. They have not asked for anything that any other family would ask for in the same situation. They just want the truth, and if the man murdered their son, they want justice.
     John King is claiming that Trayvon Martin was neither a saint nor a role model and was in fact just a thug. OK, so what if he was? How many 17 year old kids are role models? Most teenagers are guilty of three things: 1) Poor fashion sense. 2) Poor manners. 3) Acting like idiots. Does this make them thugs? Of course not, it makes them teenagers. So a black teenager was wearing a hoodie and crossing through a neighborhood he didn't live in, does that make him a thug? He had been suspended from school and had gold teeth, does that make him a thug? No, it makes him guilty of being a teenager.
     Now I will agree with the bigot pictured on one point. The media's portrayal of both the victim and the shooter are absolutely terrible. This country has a long standing problem of trial by media, and the facts that are presented to us, and the facts that are presented at trial may be totally different. It has become almost impossible for anyone to get a fair trial in this information age due to the media's bias (on both sides of the aisle here). The two pictures above are both of The shooter, George Zimmerman. The lower image is what the media has been showing to the country for the past few weeks. Below are the images of Trayvon Martin. The image on the left, obviously from a younger age is what the media has been showing everyone. The image on the right is a more recent image. Although, I'm still not convinced from the image on the right that

Trayvon Martin is anything other than a teenage kid. He certainly does not look like a "Thug" in this image. Although that is the image that John King is showing on his site as evidence of Trayvon's Thuggish lifestyle. Personally, I think he looks more like Steve Urkel than some gang banger.
     The police in Florida are now looking into what happened that night,and as the investigation progresses remember that nature abhors a vacuum and so do humans. With a 24 hour news cycle we will be bombarded by half truths, misleading information, speculations and flat out lies. We will probably never know the real truth behind what happened that night, but placing blame on a dead child without any evidence (and a school suspension and wearing a hoodie is not evidence) goes against the basic premise of our legal system. Although in this country, when it comes to women and people of color, we do so like to blame the victim.
 "Look at what he was wearing, he was asking for it" (I think we've heard that a few too many times before)