Trayvon Martin Case

Trayvon Martin was dead nearly a full month before Al Sharpton and others got involved. I'm no Sharpton apologist by a long shot, but this was very much a grass roots movement via social media that brought attention to this murder case. It wasn't any one personality or media figure that got the ball rolling, anyone following the case closely would know that. As a matter fact, it was a white guy that works for Russell Simmons )(forget his name) who was one of the first to shine a national spotlight on it until the media would started asking the right questions.

As far as black on black crime is concerned, *sigh* that's a completely different conversation and has nothing to do with Trayvon Martin or this particular incident.

Where do Sharpton and Jackson actually preach? I remember years ago Sharpton use to be a good preacher. I have not heard him in awhile. It seems like all they want now is money and publicity. I have heard Jackson going up to NASCAR and saying to give the rainbow coalition money or else he will go public about being racist. Its a shame that they dont want to live the dream of the Martin Luther King Jr. speech.

You should follow Sharpton on Twitter if you have an account. He preaches a couple of times a month at a church in NY. He announces it.

I may be off, but some of you seem to have a problem with the fact that black leaders stood up and beat the drums of justice for Trayvon and his family.

Preach as in the gospel?

12th said it, but I was just saying if I didn't know any better I'd swear he doesn't actually preach in a church anymore. Not suprisingly I was wrong about that.

I may be off, but some of you seem to have a problem with the fact that black leaders stood up and beat the drums of justice for Trayvon and his family.

Some of you aka me? I just feel like they get involved in it because it suits their cause. Do they have more intimate knowledge of the case than we do? No. I feel they should withhold judgement on the situation until all the facts are known. Instead they jump in as soon as the story goes national and get everybody riled up over it. As far as I'm concerned, they should just be lumped in with the national media that has their own agenda behind the story.

Mooby, with all due respefct you're wrong friend. They didn't jump as soon as the story went national. It took the national media a while to respond and get involved. But the parents had to air their grievance to someone, didn't they? Off the top of my head, I could name a half dozen celebs, including the Miami Heat basketball team and Ray Lewis, and a few others who have been involved one way or another. So to make this about Al Sharpton is grossly unfair an frankly inaccurate. Ben Jealous and many other civil rights leaders have pushed for an arrest. To my knowledge, I've seen Jesse Jackson appear either on TV or with the family maybe twice. That's it.

But Al Sharpton is a red herring. This story is about the Martin family, a murdered teenager, and the Sanford community rallying to their side calling for an arrest. No one's calling for Zimmerman's head or publicly pronounced him guilty.

And since we're talking about due process and justice. Let's flip the coin for a second. The system has failed George Zimmerman horribly. Instead of collecting all the facts and properly detaining him, they allowed him to walk for a 40+ days and be prosecuted in the court of public opinion. The case, the evidence, and the possibility of this young man receiving a fair trial is now seriously in question. Whether he's ultimately convicted or not, he'll never ever have a normal life again. And that is a tragedy.

I agree is that the optics of Sharpton and Jackson didn't help, gave people pause, and the focus on race became magnified.

Mooby, with all due respefct you're wrong friend. They didn't jump as soon as the story went national. It took the national media a while to respond and get involved. But the parents had to air their grievance to someone, didn't they? Off the top of my head, I could name a half dozen celebs, including the Miami Heat basketball team and Ray Lewis, and a few others who have been involved one way or another. So to make this about Al Sharpton is grossly unfair an frankly inaccurate. Ben Jealous and many other civil rights leaders have pushed for an arrest. To my knowledge, I've seen Jesse Jackson appear either on TV or with the family maybe twice. That's it.

But Al Sharpton is a red herring. This story is about the Martin family, a murdered teenager, and the Sanford community rallying to their side calling for an arrest. No one's calling for Zimmerman's head or publicly pronounced him guilty.

And since we're talking about due process and justice. Let's flip the coin for a second. The system has failed George Zimmerman horribly. Instead of collecting all the facts and properly detaining him, they allowed him to walk for a 40+ days and be prosecuted in the court of public opinion. The case, the evidence, and the possibility of this young man receiving a fair trial is now seriously in question. Whether he's ultimately convicted or not, he'll never ever have a normal life again. And that is a tragedy.

12th, same respect to you as you are someone whose opinions I value on these boards. With that said, I don't want to make it seem like I'm singling out Jesse/Al for their involvement with this, because the story blew up without their help, and it was only natural they get involved with it once it happened. You are right in that they aren't the only high-profile people to get involved with this, because I am aware of plenty of people trying to bring attention to the cause (the Heat wearing hoodies to the game, the politicians wearing hoodies to work and subsequently getting kicked out for it, etc.) I'm just saying that I'm lumping in Al/Jesse with everyone else already saying Zimmerman should be locked up for murder because everybody else have already made their own conclusions before all facts have been revealed, and they have done the same thing.

The popular opinion is most definitely not to withhold judgement until all facts are known, and it's like you are saying (in your last paragraph, which I completely agree with), guilty or not the rest of Zimmerman's life will be horribly stressful on him as a result of all the hate coming in his direction. Now if he is guilty of racial profiling and intentionally murdering Trayvon it's an entirely different story, but I don't think it's as one-sided as the media is portraying it.

As far as "no one's calling for Zimmerman's head" well I beg to differ. A 10k bounty for a citizen's arrest and distributing leaflets advertising Zimmerman as wanted dead or alive (http://www.mediaite.com/tv/cnn-reports-black-panthers-offering-bounty-on-trayvon-killer-george-zimmerman/) sounds like the NBPP calling for Zimmerman's head. Now sure, maybe they started calling for a citizen's arrest once they realized putting a bounty on someone through the press isn't a smart move, but the intention remains the same. I highly doubt they were doing anything besides trying to incite violence against Zimmerman.

Moob, nothing but love for ya man.

The Black Panther cats are majorly upsetting and I believe it's like a total of six of them.

I may be off, but some of you seem to have a problem with the fact that black leaders stood up and beat the drums of justice for Trayvon and his family.


That isn't the issue at all. They seem to stand up ONLY when those crimes are committed by white or in this case hispanic races. If this guy is guilty, great, throw his sorry ass in jail. But they have basically publically tried him all ready. Remember when the last time they stood up regarding a crime. It was against a bunch of white kids from Duke, basically condeming them before facts came out. Calling them rich silver spoon fed white boys. And that came back wrong.

What I am trying to say, as pointed out in a previous statement of mine, 85% of black men that are killed are killed by other black men. I dont recall seeing their faces all over the news asking for the justice of those individuals.