>> ^messenger:

None of those things appeared here at all until you brought them up.>> ^budzos:
There's too much goddamn focus on hoodies, skittles, and iced tea.


Yeah. I didn't say they did. I'm sure if you watched this entire TYT broadcast it would have been mentioned.

None of those things appeared here at all until you brought them up.>> ^budzos:
There's too much goddamn focus on hoodies, skittles, and iced tea.

There's too much goddamn focus on hoodies, skittles, and iced tea. That's what really grosses me out about discussion of the Trayvon Martin thing... I've yet to hear someone bring it up without mentioning that "he was attacked for wearing a hoodie, and all he was carrying were skittles and Arizona iced tea!"

THE CONTENTS OF HIS POCKETS ARE IRRELEVANT. YOU FUCKING MORONS.

I think the whole thing was a viral publicity stunt for Skittles and Arizona Iced Tea.

_{too soon?}

Sorry for the reeeaaally long post @marinara but I was trying to be brief:

1. "Zimmerman was not part of any REGISTERED neighborhood watch group."

Zimmerman did indeed say that he was "captain" of his neighborhood watch, and I can't find any proof that he wasn't, do you know why? Because there is no documentation regarding his neighborhood watch program, because it was unregistered and existed only in the heads of two or three people. And, might I add, it was certainly not "official".

When a person forms a neighborhood watch, it might be important to take into account the community that they live in. What if the community doesn't want a neighborhood watch program? What if they do, but they feel they don't want you representing them, as some people in Zimmerman's community clearly felt?

The fact is that Zimmmerman's self-appointed title carried no legitimacy at all. If my friend Cletus and I want to call ourselves the neighborhood watch, we can. I can call myself "secretary treasurer" and he can call himself "supreme overlord". But it has no more meaning than when my friend Nick and I get together and call ourselves a "fourteenth level archer", and "Nargok, the dwarven battlemage" (respectively). Only, in the case of the neighborhood watch titles, one must consider the community they are attempting to represent. This is why most watch programs (like the one you linked to) register themselves with the National Sheriff's Association, or some other organization.

2. "Oh and I documented a procedure for neighborhood watches to arrest people and a simple google search will correct you of the idea that the watch should not carry guns."

What you documented on the "City of Oxnard, Police Department" website was that citizen watch volunteers (who are registered) are encouraged to make arrests when they have seen a crime being committed, in particular, when they see someone committing the crime of vandalism. All US citizens have the right to make a citizen's arrest, but no one has the right to arrest or detain anyone for "suspicious behavior", even if that person is walking down the street wearing a hoodie, and looking skeptically at the person following them.

As to the gun, the same Oxnard website you linked to, on the same page, advises that no one carry a weapon at all, except for a heavy-duty flashlight that might be used to defend one's self in an emergency. Unfortunately, a Google search relating to neighborhood watch organizations carrying guns is inundated with articles and polls regarding this tragic case. The fox news polls indicate that a minority of people questioned think neighborhood watch members should carry guns, but those people do not reflect the views of any actual organization (that exists outside of its member's heads) that I know of.

I'd like to refer you to the response to the NY Times from Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels. The Angels are one of the most prolific watch organizations in history, with chapters all over the world. They were founded in the late seventies in NYC when the areas they patrolled were considered wastelands. Despite several attempts on the founder's life, and the loss of a few of its members over the years, they still do not advise carrying guns.

3. "...why do you insist on saying martin was an unarmed child? This is absurd."

I say it for two reasons: the first is that Martin was unarmed. There are no eyewitness reports, or even statements from Zimmerman that I've heard, that indicate that Martin attempted to use his bag of Skittles or his can of iced-tea as a weapon. The second reason I say it is that according to the US legal system, Martin was still a child at the time of his death. If he were in the "Child Protective Services' program, he wouldn't have gotten out until he was eighteen, which is the age that US citizens officially become adults (unless they're insane). Some children are tried as adults in the US, but child-victims are never represented as adults.

I understand if you think it's more appropriate to refer to Martin as a teenager, or possibly an adolescent, or even a young adult. But I don't think so, and I'll tell you why: I'm thirty-one years old. I'm not much older by comparison, but when I see a seventeen-year-old kid, I rarely think to myself, "he's got everything figured out". In fact, I rarely think that about most adults. Sure, I think most kids are smarter than people give them credit for, but I don't think Martin was mature enough to know the law and develop an appropriate response to being pursued for no reason by a man armed with a gun. And the US legal system hasn't made a determination in his case yet anyway.

>> ^bobknight33:

Quit your raciest rants. Just the guy is non black does not give anyone a free pass out of jail.
You don't know what happened so keep you shit to yourself.
Maybe the guy though he had a gun I don't know, you don't know and we don't know. Time will tell.
Being 1/2 the size don't mean jack. An 8 year old with a gun is just as deadly as a 17 or 35 year old.
>> ^Drax:
>> ^bobknight33:
Both left and right smear facts when its convenient and both side are smearing this story for all its worth.
I don't think all the facts are in. I don't know who is right or wrong. All I know is that sadly there is a grieving family who lost their son.
Hopefully ideology won't get in the way of facts.

Yeah, it's certainly a fact that an unarmed teenage boy of his size needed to be shot in the chest with a gun in order to be dealt with.
So many in fact that there's no reason to detain the non-black person at all. Yeah.



If by gun you mean skittles. Shitbird.

>> ^Sagemind:

I'm thinking we should go with the day-glow orange - then maybe people Americans will stop killing us with "Friendly Fire"


Fixed that for ya'. Frankly, I have a hard time figuring why they keep doing that, after all we're (mostly) not black, and we're not carrying Skittles.

Also, I'd make a joke about overweight, out of shape Yankees at this point, but that would just be rubbing salt on it.

http://newsone.com/nation/tjstarr/trayvon-martin-skittles/

http://newsone.com/nation/tjstarr/trayvon-martin-skittles/

>> ^longde:

The fact that a skittles-toting teen was killed and the fact that the murderer has not been arrested is totally about race.


I'm not disagreeing that race played a heavy role in the shooting. I'm just saying that had that NOT been in a gated community, this wouldn't have happened.

But because it was in a gated community, shit like racism is ALLOWED to fester so that Zimmerman probably built himself up into thinking that he is the law of that particular corner of the universe and the kid had the "audacity" to be an unknown element in Zimmerman's universe.

In any other typical neighborhood that isn't blocked off from the rest of the world, you get used to the idea of people who look different walking by every so often. The guy would still probably be a racist asshole, but he wouldn't have felt empowered to "lay down the law" to the poor kid.

Also, if it wasn't in a gated community, I guarantee you that he would have been arrested.

How do you think racism starts in the first place? The unknown is feared. The rest of the world eventually has to face that unknown, but when you're gated off, you never have to, and racism is allowed to happen.

The fact that a skittles-toting teen was killed and the fact that the murderer has not been arrested is totally about race.

>> ^AdrianBlack:

dead


Thanks and fixed.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Skittles-Taste-the-Rainbow

I got you covered...
>> ^dag:

Not a single Facebook like. No one wants to share with their mom. Maybe this is why Facebook will fail.

*isdupe>> ^SlipperyPete:

dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/Skittles-Taste-the-Rainbow