Quote:
Originally Posted by Riot
Because the only thing Zimmerman knew about Trayvon, when he telephoned the police about the kid being suspicious, was that he was male, and black. He wasn't doing anything. Pick the "suspicious" thing out of those facts. Must have been because a male was walking down the street! Gasp!
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The truth of the matter is we don't know whether Zimmerman would have called the police if Trayvon was Latino. If you think there is a chance that he would have, then you can't say that he only called because Trayvon was black.
I do agree with you that Trayvon being a male was probably a factor in Zimmerman calling the police. I doubt he would have been following the person or calling the police if it had been a 65 year old woman (of any race). Young and male is obviously going to be perceived by most people to be a bigger threat than old and female. I guess that makes people sexist and ageist. Is there a such word as ageist?
Have you ever seen a person who you thought was up to no good? I would find it extremely hard to believe that in your whole life, you never saw a person that you were either afraid of or thought was up to no good, even though the person wasn't doing anything. I know I have seen people that I thought were up to no good. It had nothing to do with their race. It was simply their body language. They hadn't committed a crime yet but their body language looked like they were waiting to do something. I'm sure I was dead wrong in some of the cases. But in some of the cases I know I was right because a couple of times the police arrested the person a short time later. You could say the person was doing nothing. That is true. I hadn't seen them commit a crime. They were either just standing there or walking down the street but there was something in their body language that made me suspicious. Some of the people were white, some were black, and some were Latino. Race wasn't the issue.
I live in Los Angeles and there are a lot of homeless people here. Some of them are really nice. Most of them are harmless. But some of them are paranoid schizophrenics and they can lash out at you at any time. You need to be somewhat careful and you need to keep your eyes open. You need to watch their body language and rely on your instincts. Even if you have great instincts, you're not going to be right every time. You could get attacked by a person who looks harmless. By the same token, a person who looks menacing may turn out to be no threat.
In a big city there is a lot of crime and you need to keep your eyes open or you are going to end up being a crime victim. The main thing I look at is body language. I will obviously also consider age and gender. I obviously usually don't get too worried if I see a 65 year old woman coming towards me or if I see a 70 year old man walking his dog.
As neighborhood watch captain, I'm sure Zimmerman watched people's body language. I think we all do.
By the way, not a single black person has come forward and said that they had a bad experience with Zimmerman. If he was such a racist, I would think there would be some history of racist behavior on his part. Instead we have seen the opposite. Several black people have come forward and said what a nice guy Zimmerman was and that he showed no signs of being prejudice.