A Lesson in Jumping to Conclusions (the Trayvon Martin shooting)

Originally posted by Bullypulpit
Historically when an outraged race throws a hissy fit they burn their own neighborhoods ala Los Angeles(twice),Detroit,Oakland,etc.I don't think anybody is worried about that too much.
As for all the speeches meetings,outraged parents and Presidents,the bottom line is Zim is presumed innocent until PROVEN guilty.Anyone who wishes or desires otherwise wants a police state or a dictatorship.
And why any freedom loving citizen wishes to trade for that kind of country is not to be understood.

Well as soon as he gets arrested we an say he is "innocent until proven guilty." Right now he is just innocent. The law has done nothing to protect me and mine.

OP posts a thread encouraging people not to jump to conclusions. Almost everyone in the thread jumps to conclusions.

Originally posted by mikellmikell
It's nearly over . It has slipped from the front page as more of the truth comes out. Momma $$$ is in DC today probably staring at a lot of empty rooms.

Please elaborate, to what are you refering?

As everyone seems to froth at the bit over the incident in Florida. Is it this, that, or something else? Everyone and their mother are all of a sudden armchair lawyers and such. Or in some alternate dimension commenting on the incident as if they are eyewitnesses themselves. Meanwhile as the Trayvon Martin case continues to enrage the public about race and the matter of profiling, a suspicious murder happened in San Diego, California.

Savage killing of Iraqi woman in California investigated as hate crime

California police say an Iraqi-born woman who was beaten to death may have been the victim of a hate crime. The killer of Shaima Alawadi, 32, left a note reportedly reading: "Go back to your own country. You're a terrorist."

The case above could very well be an actual hate crime? A grizzly murder of a mother of five, and accompanied by a letter saturated with hate. Yet, people across the nation have swarmed the streets with outrage over another case in Florida that has been fraught with speculation and innuendo.

We don't know about the Trayvon Martin case, and I am sorry, but the media has been shooting from the hip on that story. Such as cherry picking facts, liberally using photos of the victim and the alleged assailant, relying on speculation in their initial reporting before the release of a police report or after judicial proceedings, and the list goes on from there.

Come on, what happened to who, what, where, when, and why? Or as a journalism professor once told me in what seems like eons ago, "If your mother tells you she loves you, double check." As divided as the nation is at the moment over a myriad of issues, and to cover such a controversial story in what I will call a half-cocked approach is downright irresponsible and dangerous! I don't want the aftermath of the Martin case to involve riots or people being killed if the outcome is not what the media and commentators are priming the public to expect. Just some food for thought?

Can anyone say "duke lacross team" ????????????????????? "twana brawly" ??????

he was just another "gansta rappa" drug dealing......you know what. And now the trueth comes out.

Originally posted by Annee
Obama weighed in as a parent.

Right. Maybe yes .. maybe no. But it seems an awful lot like how he 'weighed in' on the white cop v college prof in Boston .. jumping the gun and being critical of the white cop and then having to have a 'beer summit' at the White House. Obama is POTUS and should have kept his mouth shut .. but he can't help himself. And having his (in)justice dept head - Eric Holder - jump on this when it is an issue for FLORIDA to deal with .... it's all theatrics.

Originally posted by elitegamer23
but if more facts come up and something happens with this situation,
arent you kinda jumping to conclusions with this thread?

How can I be jumping to conclusions when the fact is that I said NOT to jump to conclusions?
All the 'facts' before this morning pointed to Zimmerman being guilty.
All the opinions said get the torches and pitchforks and 'hang him' (not exactly .. but close enough).
Now there are more facts that say just the opposite of the first bunch of facts.
These facts ... if true .... mean that Zimmerman isn't the racist murderer that everyone said he is.

It's a lesson ... do not jump to conclusions.
What is in the press is spin.
What the politicians are doing is posturing.
Everyone jumped on the bandwagon.
Everyone wanted to be 'outraged' and be politically correct.

Bottom line ... they were wrong to do so AND we don't know what really happened.

Originally posted by Prevalent_Disease
Oh come on, the white man killed someone because of the color of their skin,

And you know that happened here because ....????
(P.S. get a clue .. Zimmermans race is officially hispanic)

Originally posted by takaris7
Looks like your jumping to conclusions in regards to an anonymous witness being quoted by the police to the media. Looks like you will jump on any positive spin in Mr.Zimmerman's favor in order to prove some strange point of yours.

Obviously you haven't read the thread. Put on some reading glasses and try again.

Sound like you may have even jumped on the bandwagon when it came to that picture fabricated by the KKK group STORMFRONT.

I have no idea what picture you are talking about.

It is sad that he is pretty much screwed to appease minorities. It was a pretty clear case of self defense really.

To be more accurate, black people have said the lack of criminal charges is racial, not the shooting itself.

They feel, and we should care about and listen to this, that crimes against blacks don't matter to those who are not black.

The rest of us should be busy making sure they know that is not true. The "Stand Your Ground" laws pushed by the NRA have opened the door of justification and boldness to anyone who feels threatened, and for some, that insecurity is mistaken for actual danger.

After all, a narcissist is threatened by anyone or anything that doesn't support or at least agree with him or her.

That hardly rises to the level of endangerment that this and other shootings have tried to justify.

Police are trained to assess danger; Neighborhood Watch volunteers are there because of the lack of force involved. If a bunch of moms, dads, and grandmas thought they would be required to do as Zimmerman (or ANY vigilante) did, they would not volunteer at all.

He acted wrongly, the law should address it, black people feel that it is not happening because of the victim's race. Whether that is true or not, this law needs to be amended.

There are other families who hunger for justice, also, and their color can't get it for them either.

If we address this properly, giving creedence to the feelings and fears of others, perhaps we can prove with our own responses that it is not about race.

First, it has to not be.

Originally posted by johnlucchese
Can anyone say "duke lacross team" ????????????????????? "twana brawly" ??????

EXACTLY! Thank you. Grab the pitchforks and torches! The Duke LaCross Team incident. Turns out the LaCross Team was innocent but there was a rush to judgement. The public wanted to string the INNOCENT fellas up. Twana Brawly. She turned out to be a liar even though public opinion took her side. Oh ... and that security guard fella who got accused of planting the Atlanta Olympic bomb .. he was innocent but got eaten alive by the press. Everyone wanted his head on a platter because they just KNEW he was guilty. :shk: Richard Jewell was the poor guys name. He saved lives ... but got hell in return.

reply to post by FlyersFan


Of course you don't have any idea what the poster means about info generated on Stormfront because you're either not reading links people are giving you, or you're ignoring them.

Well OP I like your thread. I think it's important for us not to get swept up emotionally which I definitely did. I was so angry that this was automatically labeled a hate crime I feel I swung too far in Zimmerman's favor. As you have stated, nobody on this board was there. We really don't know, and we sure as hell aren't the jury. I think it's important to discuss things like this, but not at the cost of rationality.

Originally posted by Copperflower
There are other families who hunger for justice, also, and their color can't get it for them either.

Everyone deserves justice. Everyone deserves a fair trial. Everyone deserves TRUTH in the press about their situation. Both Trayvon Martin AND Zimmerman (the shooter) deserve justice - and not 'trial by public opinon' that has been enflammed by a one sided press and a bunch of politicians trying to make a name for themselves.

FIRST OF ALL the guy should not have been following him........like Ron Paul says ,,leave other people the hell alone!

The shooter was MEXICAN so dont be trying to turn this into a black/white RACIAL thing. Be mad at the COPS and MEXICANS if you must.... I dont care if Trayvon had a pound of weed and gold teeth,,ZIMMERMAN SHOULD HAVE LEFT HIM ALONE,,HE DESERVES WHAT HE GETS FOR STALKING AND PROBABLY HARASSING THE KID, HE GOT HIS ASS BEAT AND WAS PISSED,THATS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU F**K WITH PEOPLE...Zimmer should have taken the ass whipping and went home instead he got pissed and shot the kid...ZIMMER had NO BUSINESS FOLLOWING THAT KID.!!1 IM WHITE BYE THE WAY.and THAT SHOULDNT MATTER BUT APPARENTLY IT DOES.

Originally posted by Kali74
Of course you don't have any idea what the poster means about info generated on Stormfront because you're either not reading links people are giving you, or you're ignoring them.

He didn't say exactly what he was talking about. I've read 10 pages of information here .. and a half dozen other threads on this. It's all mushed together. He'll have to be more specific and point it out to me. I'm not a machine ...

reply to post by Kali74

Of course you don't have any idea what the poster means about info generated on Stormfront because you're either not reading links people are giving you, or you're ignoring them.

How did you reach that conclusion?

reply to post by FlyersFan


The details are one sided, unless a seance is convened. To suggest this situation doesn't have racial factors is willfully ignorant ...at best.

Invert the skin colors on both people involved and play it out... and the reason the MSM is hyping this is exactly because there is still (most obviously) a race bias deeply permeating this country and most of the world.

Waiting for facts to appear during these events is always the wise thing to do, but in this case I don't see how the new "facts" change anything.

Originally posted by FlyersFan

Originally posted by DJW001
It is not a question of race, it is a question of the use of deadly force when it was not necessary.

It's been made into a question of race by the race baiters and those who jumped to conclusions.
Look at all the pro-Martin stories ... his race is nearly always made a factor.
Even the first threads here at ATS featured his race and assumed his death was racially motivated.

The question of deadly force and if it was necessary has become a side issue.
Everyone wants to 'make an example' of Zimmerman being a racist murderer.

The chance for justice in this case .. for ANYONE ... is pretty damn low.

Hold on, now. Definition from wikipedia: "Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination."
Racism is using someones race against them. Racism when it was widespread as white supremacy, made the claim, "A black person can't do this or that or the other to a white person, because he is white."
So now to examine where racism exists in current times, who's race is DEFINITELY being used as a fact against him in this case? Hint: It's not Trayvon Martin.
Let me just be completely honest. As a white girl in the South, where there is a lot of black people. I've went to a high school that was about 90% black, 4% hispanic, and 1% white, so I was the minority. Back then especially, and still now, I feel intimidated and inferior around black people. I feel like I can not say or do anything negative to someone who is black, because I am white. I didn't get this feeling until I hit my teenage years, although I did live in a 50/50 black and white environment during my early life. I didn't get this feeling of being different from them at all until I had this idea repeatedly stated to me by black people starting when I hit 13, that I was white and they were black, therefore I am racist and they can treat me however they want. I was physically and verbally bullied this way in my last year of middle school and the first years of high school. I remember once writing a paper about Obama, and whether or not he would be a good president, and everyone in my class started yelling at me for being racist, for absolutely NO reason at all, because my paper wasn't about race, but I said something negative about him as a president. I went home and cried, because they weren't thinking Obama=president, like I was trying to say, indifferent of my race. They were thinking Obama=black. Which is not what I was thinking. It never was. Not before black people told me that it was.
Do I hate ALL black people just because some black people are racist towards me? Of course not. I'm pretty dissappointed in the people on this website, who I normally really admire for their attempts in "Denying ignorance" for being afraid to see the truth. The truth is no one really hates each other for the color of their skin. It's absolutely ridiculous to say. I mean, the average brunette person in america doesn't literally "hate" someone for having blonde hair, do they? "Racism" is simply cultural conditioning, something that is planted in your head later. Today, it is planted as the opposite of pre-civil rights. The average person on tv isn't saying "Look what this black man did to a white man today!" They are saying the opposite.
And like I said, I feel afraid to say things like this, because I am white and they are black. But I am saying it anyways, because I think if honesty has a place, this website would be it.

reply to post by FlyersFan

THE JUMP TO CONCLUSION - The Trayvon Martin shooting by Zimmerman was a race based murder.

I don't think it was based on race.

It was based on stupidity.

A wanna be cop takes it upon himself to directly ignore the directions of the 911 operators and becomes a misguided vigilante with an overdeveloped hero complex.

Stand Your Ground (at least the spirit of it) should not even be in play here. Unfortunately, that law (as written and enacted) is SO vague, that at least as it currently stands, may actually work as a defense. Regardless if it does or does not, it should be clear that it needs to be refined in order to fulfill its intended role. It's a good idea, but shouldn't really be applicable in this case, as he pursued the kid, pretty much exactly opposite of the spirit of that law.