Who Deserves A Flog Today?

Unless you want me to Flog the increasing vapidity of celebrity gossip of late (as in TMI with almost everyone sharing everything and the headlines screaming "Celebs Without Makeup"), I have to weigh in once more with the Trayvon Martin case. It seems that, as usual in these situations, the victim becomes re-victimized in death. The people who are shouting that many of us have used the death of a young African American boy (regardless of his height) to highlight racism in America, seem to be missing the ultimate point: the victim was unarmed; the shooter claims to have had injuries yet no pictures were taken of them for evidence; the shooter appears to have made a racial slur in his 911 call; and, if there is more to what is said on the tape, as Sanford Police rep's have hinted, then why aren't we hearing the other portions to enlighten our supposed ignorance of the so-called "facts." I write "so-called" because, if the Sanford police wish to clean up their currently disastrous image, anything that would help them explain why they didn't arrest shooter George Zimmerman would be a priority, right? But all we are now receiving are apparent "leaks" from the police department: a new "witness" who claims to have seen Martin pummeling Zimmerman, and friends of same letting the media know that he "cried" after shooting/killing Trayvon. And, of course, because the first pictures of Trayvon showed a younger-than-17-year-old picture and not the horrendous "bad boy" they now want everyone to conclude deserved to die because he wasn't a "perfect" child - just a typical, I might add - teen who wanted to be "cool" and followed the same slang and jive all kids I know of a similar age and diverse ethnic backgrounds use when Tweeting and FB'ing. Yeah, let's ignore the primary reason why everyone else is upset: No arrest, no evidence, no "crime scene" pictures, no "crime scene" yellow tape around the spot where the kid was shot, and so on and so on. Any PERSON of any colour who is shot when they are unarmed in any way is the #1 issue with most of America. The fact that Trayvon was Black makes it worse and stirs up racial hatred all by itself, with no help needed from Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson, as many who are standing-up for George Zimmerman are claiming. Chill-out on making Martin look like a hood in a hoodie. Did anyone in the neighborhood have a break-in that night? Was there a valid reason to follow him down the street? Is there now an ironclad reason to take his history of a few problems and turn it into the reason he had to be killed? There is more to question with the shooter's semi-violent background than anything Trayvon Martin had done. Period.


Quiet rant over.