"If I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon."

[Conan71]

She planned and executed an Antebellum Southern Wedding for her brother complete with an entirely black staff waiting on her white family and presumably at least mostly white friends. And this wasn't 20 or 30 years ago, this was in 2007. She was play acting like her staff were slaves. Some fun, huh?

She isn't just accused of doing this, she admitted to this in a deposition from a lawsuit where she is being sued for discrimination by a black employee.

According to the deposition you posted, she didn't end up having the "slave" wait staff.

What's the statute of limitations on admitting you were a doosh in the past?  Why would it make any more of a difference to you if it were 20-30 years ago vs. 6 years.  It's in the past either way.  Neither you nor I know the content of what is in her heart.  They even had several of her black employees on one of the entertainment shows last night defending Paula. 

Regardless, I still don't think what she has said in the past is worth destroying someone over which is what is happening.  How are any of us any better by taking glee in watching someone like Paula Deen being taken down?  I wouldn't want my entire life judged by my stupid past decisions or things I've said that I now regret. 

[Red Arrow]

So can we stop now with equating Paula Deen as being unfairly treated when compared to a dead kid that may or may not have used the word Cracker to describe the man that killed him.

No.

Travon Martin did not deserve to die for those words.  Paula Deen does not deserve to have her live destroyed either.  It just shows that racism is still a diode.

[patric]

You would think the Trayvon Martin trial would dissuade police from citing "wearing a hoodie" as reason to stop a pedestrian, but Tahlequah has always been behind the curve:

http://www.fox23.com/news/local/story/Man-arrested-charged-with-making-terroristic/miijwVxEnU66OfWfjYHBDQ.cspx

Funny part is, the suspect and cop know each other, but that didnt stop the PD from charging the man with terrorism when he joked that he was an Al-Qaeda sleeper agent.

[heironymouspasparagus]

She planned and executed an Antebellum Southern Wedding for her brother complete with an entirely black staff waiting on her white family and presumably at least mostly white friends. And this wasn't 20 or 30 years ago, this was in 2007. She was play acting like her staff were slaves. Some fun, huh?

She isn't just accused of doing this, she admitted to this in a deposition from a lawsuit where she is being sued for discrimination by a black employee.

Does anyone really care about Paula Deen?

I wonder if Joni and Marvin are racists, since they wanted a "southern style wedding"...?  In a big ole Baton Rouge Plantation house.
http://www.theknot.com/weddings/album/joni-and-marvin-a-southern-style-wedding-in-baton-rouge-la-48164

Or Ida and DuWayne?
http://www.theknot.com/contests/my-real-wedding/photo/161290/our-southern-style-wedding

Perhaps they changed it all around and had all white waiters...?

Seems to be a whole lot of interest in southern style weddings... in the south.  Paula - I don't care one way or the other about her - she is irrelevant in my world...just does not impinge into my reality (I already know how to make fried chicken - and I use lard when cooking it!!)   

[swake]

Does anyone really care about Paula Deen?

I wonder if Joni and Marvin are racists, since they wanted a "southern style wedding"...?  In a big ole Baton Rouge Plantation house.
http://www.theknot.com/weddings/album/joni-and-marvin-a-southern-style-wedding-in-baton-rouge-la-48164

Or Ida and DuWayne?
http://www.theknot.com/contests/my-real-wedding/photo/161290/our-southern-style-wedding

Perhaps they changed it all around and had all white waiters...?

Seems to be a whole lot of interest in southern style weddings... in the south.  Paula - I don't care one way or the other about her - she is irrelevant in my world...just does not impinge into my reality (I already know how to make fried chicken - and I use lard when cooking it!!)   

If you think that "Southern Style" is the same thing as having black employees pretend to be slaves serving your family you have issues.

[carltonplace]

Paula Deen is a privileged white woman (yes she has worked hard for what she has) that doesn't know when to shut her mouth. She doesn't deserve to be destroyed because she admitted to making a dispicable slur while under oath, but she needs to stop making her case worse. But it was the slur that caused her downfall. 

Trayvon Martin is dead, and the jury will decide if he was murdered because of his race or in self defense...he was not killed because of the slur.

[DolfanBob]

No response from the peanut gallery? 

I'm still amazed at what gets National attention while other more tragic crimes go unnoticed.
Four women tied up and shot execution style, and two innocent ORU joggers shot and killed. But.....
Were they racially motivated? or just crimes in the hood?

Or is it the perception that only white people profile other people of color?
I am still not sure why this one incident drew the media attention that it did.
And I will never understand the kind of passion that it takes to spend so much time demonstrating for something that has no direct bearing on you're own personal life. But hey, that's just me. If you feel that you're one lone face in a crowd with a sign makes all the difference. Then by all means go for it! what the hell do I know?

[swake]

No response from the peanut gallery? 

I'm still amazed at what gets National attention while other more tragic crimes go unnoticed.
Four women tied up and shot execution style, and two innocent ORU joggers shot and killed. But.....
Were they racially motivated? or just crimes in the hood?

Or is it the perception that only white people profile other people of color?
I am still not sure why this one incident drew the media attention that it did.
And I will never understand the kind of passion that it takes to spend so much time demonstrating for something that has no direct bearing on you're own personal life. But hey, that's just me. If you feel that you're one lone face in a crowd with a sign makes all the difference. Then by all means go for it! what the hell do I know?

Killing with impunity is different than street crime. People certainly are overly scared of crimes like murder overall but the thing that scares people most is that the innocent might be killed and the killer faces no consequences.

People know that you can lower your chances of being a victim of murder by living in a decent area and by not doing hard drugs or living with people that are violent. People in Oklahoma don't like to hear this but also not having guns in the house lowers your chances of being a victim of gun crime by half or more.

Trayvon's parents did that, they lived in a nice area. Trayvon was a normal kid, he had never been in any real trouble other than smoking some pot and skipping classes. Did you ever smoke pot or skip class in high school? When he did get in what little trouble he was getting in he was relocated. His parents were working to keep him safe, and he was killed anyway and his killer got away with it.

The killers in the two shootings you mentioned are not getting away with anything. The two joggers were very tragic and that was very sad, another case of random crime reaching people not doing anything. The four women, while still sad, lived in a terrible area and were doing and dealing meth.

[Conan71]

Dolfan, very good points.  When white joggers are thrill-killed by a couple of black teens, there's not a hint of it being racially-motivated.  When four white women are slain by one or more black men, it's not ginned up as a hate crime.

If Zimmerman had been black, or Martin were Hispanic or white, we would not have heard about this incident.

This was an attempt by those who profit off racial strife and the media which profits off the voyeurism created by sensationalizing tragedies like this, to simply make more money and gain more clout in minority communities.  Nothing more, nothing less.  Even more shameful is the Presidential administration and DOJ's use of the event as a political tool and to continue to widen the racial divide in this country.  Obama's record as a unifier is absolutely dismal.

The media successfully convicted Zimmerman in the court of public opinion.  The media manipulated evidence.  They introduced the terms: "white Hispanic" and "self-proclaimed Hispanic" in an attempt to keep the white vs. black angle going.  Does everyone remember how NBC's Miami Bureau edited Zimmerman's 911 call, to make it sound like he was profiling and a racist?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/us/florida-zimmerman-nbc-lawsuit

He was acquitted in the court which had the ultimate jurisdiction.  It really pisses me off to see the comments on Facebook and elsewhere that justice was not served.  The women who served as jurors likely also had to try to block the filter of being a mother and what it would have been like to have lost their own son, yet they still found in favor of the defendant.  I had suspected all along that an all woman jury was a sure conviction, I'm sure the prosecution believed that as well.  It pains me for people to deride the work of this jury without being in the courtroom and being allowed to hear what the jurors could and could not consider in weighing the merits of this case.  

The jury did the job they were charged with, yet millions still say Zimmerman was incorrectly acquitted.  Being on the jury in a murder trial is a very stressful life event, I've been through it and hope to never have to do it again.  I sure as hell don't want my best judgement called into question if I'm a juror.

Being "in the virtual jury" watching CNN when Nancy Grace or some other talking head is the prosecutor, it's really easy to come up with a bias without considering the accused does have rights which will be examined in a real court of law.

People want to change "stand your ground" laws or do away with them completely without realizing those very laws may make it possible for them to defend themselves in the event of an attack without having to go through a long, painful, and costly prosecution process.

Zimmerman had two choices that night: stay in his vehicle and monitor the suspicious individual or get out of the safety of his vehicle to pursue the subject on foot.  Obviously he made a mistake in judgement by getting out of his vehicle.  Keep in mind though, he had no legal obligation to remain in his vehicle.  

Martin had two choices that night: Respectfully ask why he was being followed and continue to his father's house or, as it appears happened, respond in a provocative and aggressive manner by attacking Zimmerman.

Both men made poor choices (IMO) and one of them wound up dead.

If Martin were approached by Zimmerman with his gun drawn, he had every right to defend himself.  If that's the way it went down, Zimmerman will have to face ultimate judgement some day.  Physical evidence suggests Zimmerman was in the process of getting a vicious beating when he shot Martin.  I can't say I wouldn't have reacted the same way if I were armed and stunned from having my nose broken and my head being slammed into the pavement.  I can honestly say my first reaction to being tailed would not be to jump my pursuer.  I can't speak to why Martin would have reacted the way he did if it went down the way Zimmerman claims.

One immutable fact remains about this case: none of us know for certain what happened that night.  Aside from bits and pieces of eyewitness accounts on a dark night, only two men truly know the sequence of events and one of them is dead.  Just because the deceased is black doesn't mean it was racially motivated nor is that a good reason to believe a guilty man was allowed to walk free.

[rebound]

Both men made poor choices (IMO) and one of them wound up dead.

Holding aside the racial (or not) overtones, I think it is the aspect of supposed aggression on the part of Zimmerman that makes this seem different than other similar crimes/occurrences.  I don't think anybody doubts that had Zimmerman not had a gun, he would not have gotten out of the car and pursued Martin.   "Stand Your Ground" and similar laws were (IMO) intended to protect a person when they defend themselves when attacked,  not to empower an individual to intentionally put themselves in harms way and then claim self defense. 

No doubt the jury made the correct decision based on the current law, but that doesn't make it seem right emotionally. 

[swake]

The only person that is saying that Martin started the fight is Zimmerman, problem is that no one else saw it start and reasonable doubt is easily reached.

Zimmerman had a history of choosing black men as being suspicious when doing the neighborhood watch. His neighbors had complained to neighborhood association and the police about his being too aggressive when he was patrolling. He has a documented legal history of violence with him making a plea to a charge of resisting arrest with violence and a restraining order granted to a former girlfriend. He lost a job as a bouncer for being "overly aggressive" and had a complaint filed against him at another job for racism.

I am not saying the jury did anything wrong, but Zimmerman's story sounds stupid and fake and he has a well documented history of violence and lying and probably racism. But all he had to do was prove that it could reasonably be true.

He's going down in flames in any civil lawsuit where the standard is only a preponderance of the evidence.

[Conan71]

Holding aside the racial (or not) overtones, I think it is the aspect of supposed aggression on the part of Zimmerman that makes this seem different than other similar crimes/occurrences.  I don't think anybody doubts that had Zimmerman not had a gun, he would not have gotten out of the car and pursued Martin.   "Stand Your Ground" and similar laws were (IMO) intended to protect a person when they defend themselves when attacked,  not to empower an individual to intentionally put themselves in harms way and then claim self defense. 

No doubt the jury made the correct decision based on the current law, but that doesn't make it seem right emotionally. 

That's by far the most rational distillation I've read or heard so far about the reaction to the verdict.

We can argue for decades as to whether Zimmerman getting out of his vehicle was what provoked the incident or whether that in itself constitutes aggressive behavior.  Unless Zimmerman took a swing at Martin or pointed his gun at him, there was no reason for Martin to charge or take a swing at Zimmerman in the first place.

[Conan71]

Zimmerman had a history of choosing black men as being suspicious when doing the neighborhood watch.

If predominantly black suspects were involved in the burglaries and theft in the neighborhood, that's hardly something of his creation.

Were you equally aware of Zimmerman's reputed history of tutoring minority children in his home?  Were you aware his great-grandfather is reportedly black?  Were you aware his date to the prom was black?  According to Zimmerman's father many of his son's closest friends and associates are black.

[RecycleMichael]

Let it go.

I don't live in Florida...don't know any of the people involved...don't own a hoodie or walk around with a gun...

Don't think about it. Ain't nuthin you can do about this case.

Let it go.

[AquaMan]

that is why there has been little comment around here and in Tulsa generally. We all feel like its wasted breath. It will happen here, then we'll be vested.

Curious reasoning people use to justify a murder. Like Conan says, just turn the tables. What if this had been a black man tailing a white guy along the street where skaters and skin heads had been stealing and called him out. The white guy responds with attitude, they fight and the black guy shoots the unarmed white guy through the heart. The only difference is that Conan has it wrong. The guy wouldn't be free, armed and writing a book.

Bottom line....don't go into gated neighborhoods unless you look like everyone else there, act like them and are carrying a weapon. They are just as dangerous as the hood.