A Twinkie-type verdict in the Florida jury verdict of George Zimmerman?

One positive thing to be said for those people who will get worked up over the return Monday of Twinkie-brand snack cakes to the supermarkets – they’re probably not all worked up over the verdict related to George Zimmerman.


Add the Zimmerman verdict to the list of causes for which people protested in the shadow of the Picasso statue. Photograph by Gregory Tejeda

As you likely know by now, the neighborhood watch volunteer who killed a black teenager in a Florida residential complex was found not guilty late Saturday of all criminal charges. The jury seemed to believe he was defending himself to the point that not even lesser criminal charges were applicable.

SO ZIMMERMAN GOES free (for the time being). There are countless protests taking place across the country about the concept that a teenage boy could be shot to death without it in any way being considered criminal in nature.

Even the NY Post "gets" it

Locally, we had the noon-hour rally Sunday at the Daley Plaza, with another later at the Taste of Chicago – where the angry masses likely encountered an equally-large mass of people whose only concern was scarfing down as many overpriced samples of food as they could afford (those tickets aren’t cheap).

Personally, I’m not as worked up – largely because I anticipated this kind of verdict even before one bit of testimony was heard. And also, I didn’t bother to watch a single second of the trial – despite its being carried live (with constant repeats) on various cable news channels.

The local (and Chicago-owned) view

This was a case where way too many people made up their minds in advance. Nothing was going to sway the way they perceive this situation.

BE HONEST. IF Zimmerman had been convicted of even the lesser charges, we’d have a batch of southern, rural-mentality individuals inclined to want to take up this case as a crusade of their own.

We’d still have protests. Just different, less-melanin-affected, individuals taking part in them!

There still would be way too much nonsense talk filling the air these days.

As I already stated, I didn’t watch the trial at all. I really didn’t even read too much of the news coverage until right before trying to write this commentary.

SO I AM, to a degree, required to trust the judgment of the jury that actually sat through all of the testimony -- which is pretty much what President Barack Obama said Sunday. And as the Reuters wire service reported, one of the six jurors was a Latina who originally came from Chicago.

I’m sure she has her reasons for going along with all the other jurors (white women, if I comprehend correctly) in returning a “not guilty” verdict.

All I know is that it seems like from the very beginning of this case, the people who were most eager to defend Zimmerman were ones who were desperate to believe that, somehow, the black kid did something to bring his death upon himself.

Whether it’s some belief that the concept of “stand your ground” is something sacred (instead of something antiquated and obsolete), or perhaps just simple bigotry or ignorance, it seemed a bit off.

They're back!!!

TO THE POINT where I would hope those people have enough sense not to gloat. Because gloating over a dead teenager (which is the bottom line here) is just wrong. There is no real winner here – particularly if Zimmerman does wind up having to confront federal charges on the grounds that by killing him, he deprived  Trayvon Martin of his civil right to life!

Somehow, I don’t think the “pro-life” people (who really could care less about “life”) will be ready to take up this particular case. Although I wonder if the Statehouse types who last year tried pushing for a Florida-style law in Illinois will feel emboldened enough to try again come '14. Because I think most of us side with Gov, Pat Quinn, who on Sunday while appearing on CNN's Sunday morning "State of the Union" show, "We don't have it, and we don't want it."

I'd hope not. Because it would come across as gloating. And that's just tacky.

Almost as much as as those people who think that the return of Twinkies is some sort of big deal. As though we haven’t had an ample selection of junk food snack cakes to choose from during the few months that the Hostess brands were out of commission!

  -30-

Do protests do more than peeve people off? Do some deserve to be peeved?

Throughout the nearly three decades that I have been a reporter-type person, I have encountered many protest marches.



Not just a Noo Yawk thing

They are cheap, easy stories to cover, and they give the impression that one is taking interest in an issue – even though from the news organization’s perspective, the most important “issue” is “How many people got arrested?”

IN FACT, A part of me has always wondered if protest marches accomplish little. They are usually a collection of people who are already converted to the cause, and rarely have I ever seen anyone whose views on the issue get swayed.

Many people who don’t care much either way wind up getting offended at what they see as an inconvenience – particularly if traffic gets blocked.

And those people who oppose the views of the protesters take great offense that anyone would speak out in opposition to themselves.

In short, they get ticked off.

THEN AGAIN, THERE are many instances where these people are pushing views that, in and of themselves, are offensive. Which makes me think that they deserve to be ticked off!

Perhaps the real purpose of a protest march isn’t so much to “convert” anyone (if they are, they’re about as effective as the Spanish Inquisition was at swaying Jewish people to Christianity).

It’s about getting in the faces, so to speak, of the people who would rather ignore a problem.

So it is in that context that I couldn’t help but notice the two major protest marches that took place on Sunday in the Chicago-area. If there were other issues that aroused the passion of certain activists on Sunday, then so be it.

BECAUSE IN THE morning hours (when I’m sure many of the people who were opposed to this issue were in church saying prayers and acting sanctimonious), we had Chicagoans once again joining the masses (along with another group Saturday afternoon in suburban Naperville) across the nation in expressing disgust with what happened to Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Fla.

For those of you who are going out of your way to ignore this issue (a recent Pew study indicates that while black people are following this issue with great intensity, white people are much less intrigued by the matter), Martin is that teenager who got shot to death by a neighborhood-watch type who didn’t like his look hanging around the complex where he was “on duty.”

Some people (including my very own member of Congress) have tried to make an issue of the “hoodie” he was wearing at the time, while others have pointed out that his “weapon” turned out to be nothing more than a package of Skittles-brand candy. Although I think focusing on those images trivializes the moment.

Because the real issue at stake here is the idea that someone in an official capacity (even if you disregard the neighborhood-watch guy as a “cop wannabe” or a “rent-a-cop”) had so much discretion that he thinks he can justify the taking of a teenaged life.

AFTER ALL, THE man in question isn’t denying what happened. He wants to claim he was justified, and the local law enforcement officials (ie., the state’s attorney down there) is willing to go along with that line of logic.

It also is why I am astounded by the mindset of state Rep. Richard Morthland, R-Cordova, who is willing to push for the same legal standards used in Florida to try to justify the shooting death to be applied in Illinois. I’m hopeful that Illinois’ legislative leadership will stand its ground to the “Stand Your Ground” legal standard that we don’t need here.

But the fact that some are willing to talk like this is what ticks off activists enough to give up a Sunday morning to march (the Greater St. John Bible Church in the Humboldt Park neighborhood coordinated this effort) or a Saturday afternoon in suburban Naperville in hopes that they can arouse some anger.

Perhaps the fact that more people aren’t outraged is the real outrage that we ought to be protesting against. Yet that isn’t even the only offense being committed these days that has people angry enough to march.

TAKE IMMIGRATION REFORM. It has so many ways to upset people on all sides of the political spectrum.

That is why there were activists in the Little Village neighborhood who on Friday began a protest march headed south for suburban Crete. That community is where the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency would like to see a detention center built to hold people facing violations of federal immigration law.

Those people wound up in Crete on Sunday, where they protested at the proposed site (which now is a farm field located near the Balmoral Race Course) along with local residents who hate the idea of a detention facility because, quite frankly, they don’t want anything quite so “icky” being built near their homes. Which the Illinois Senate seems to agree with -- they recently passed a bill that would outlaw detention centers anywhere in Illinois.

Reading the news accounts in recent days revealed moments where people watching the marchers insisted on shouting taunts. Those people like the idea of indefinite incarceration for people facing those immigration violations (which, by and large, are not felony offenses).

WHICH MAKES ME think that a protest that passed through such places as the Beverly neighborhood, along with suburban Blue Island and Chicago Heights en route to Crete, is offensive to the people whose sensibilities need to be bothered.

Because having the masses look the other way, all too often, is the reason why bad things can slip past us, unnoticed.

  -30-

Chicago will have its say over Trayvon

The slaying in Florida of a teenage boy considered suspicious by a neighborhood watch-type has Chicagoans ticked off.

JACKSON: Martin his new cause?

A few hundred of us gathered in the shadow of the Picasso statue in Daley Plaza to express our outrage, while two of our most outspoken pastors (Revs. Jesse Jackson and Michael Pfleger) felt the need to add their thoughts to the mix.

YET THE MOMENT that most caught my attention was the one from Jackson’s namesake son, as the member of Congress from Chicago’s far South Side and surrounding suburbs made his intentions known about possible government intervention.

The issue at stake with regards to the death of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin are the “Stand Your Ground” laws that exist in certain states – including Florida. They were the legal basis for local prosecutors to decide that the local security guy had justification to feel threatened by Martin.

Threatened enough that he could shoot him to death; without being considered worthy of a charge of murder. The idea that federal prosecutors may seek a "civil rights violation" against the man seems so minor, by comparison.

Those laws date back to the days of the “Wild West,” and that old cowboy-like spirit that would think a man ought to have the right to gun down someone who’s getting in his face.

IT’S AN OUTDATED sentiment, and not something that we should be proud ever existed in our society. It reiterates my belief that the ideologues who are critical these days of Martin’s conduct are really just trying to hold us in the past.

So what’s so special about Jackson, Junior?

MARTIN: This week's 'cause'



He says he plans to push in Congress for a federal law that would strike down all of those “Stand Your Ground” laws. Which you just know will manage to tick off the ideologues (the ones who scream "Obamacare!" until after their throats go hoarse) of our nation.

But Jackson has a point. These statutes that exist from state to state (and don’t exist in many states with common sense) create a potential for disaster – which we see in this very incident. Unless you consider the shooting of a young man armed with a package of Skittles-brand candy to be acceptable – in which case, you have a serious problem.

PERHAPS THIS IS one of those incidents where we need the federal government to intervene to create a unified vision of what self-defense really means. And anybody who claims that “Stand Your Ground” laws are about common sense ought to realize that they really go far beyond protecting oneself.

Now I’m not under any delusion that the Congress of the United States of America is going to unite behind any measure put forth by Jackson on this issue.

In fact, I am pretty sure that the conservative ideologues to whom the Republican caucuses in Congress feels indebted to these days will go out of their way to ensure that any bill sponsored by Jackson (or anyone else) on this issue will get stalled in the process.

But I think their actions would say more about their own mindsets than anything bad about the possible bill itself. For only the biggest ideologue would seriously believe that there is anything acceptable about the Florida situation – which has managed to tick people off from coast-to-coast and even inspired the Miami Heat professional basketball team last week to wear “hoodie” sweatshirts in tribute to Martin.

THEN AGAIN, THE ideologues like to live in a world of their own mental making – one in which they’re the only ones who matter and how everyone not like them needs to learn to be subservient.

Perhaps that was Martin’s real “crime,” not being sufficiently subservient? It doesn’t sound to me like something worthy of a “death” sentence – which is what Martin got in this case.

It is the reason that Jackson, the congressman (although his father and brother, Jonathan, were also vocal about the matter this weekend), was going around using such rhetoric as “wannabe cop” to describe the neighborhood watch-type who shot Martin and ‘wannabe police brutality” to describe his behavior.

It also is the reason we had people feeling the need to gather at Daley Plaza on Saturday to protest a Florida shooting death.

BECAUSE I COULDN’T help but notice the reports coming from downtown Chicago that among the protesters were relatives of a suburban Calumet City teenager diagnosed with a form of autism who was shot to death last month by local police.

There are those who believe that shooting by two officers will ultimately be ruled “justified” by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. But that fact does not mute the anger felt by others who merely see a dead boy and aren’t as concerned about the specifics.

The fact that some states would seem to have laws meant to erase the specifics of any given incident to try to justify such acts only adds to the confusion.

Which means that perhaps we ought to be hoping that a Jackson-inspired measure ought to become a part of federal law. Perhaps what our nation most needs is a bit of Chicago-inspired sense when it comes to what is justice.

  -30-

Ideologues trying to pit Latinos against black people with Trayvon slaying?

There are those who are trying to downplay the possibility of racial tensions in the Florida shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin by pointing out the fact that the man accused of his shooting (with no criminal charges as of now pending against him) was Latino.

It is true enough (on his mother’s side of the family). But it really seems the only people who bring that up are the ones who want to turn this situation into a brawl between black and Latino – rather than one involving the death of an unarmed teenager.

WHICH PROBABLY SAYS more about the mentality of the kind of people who are critical of Martin than it does about the boy himself.

Those wishing to know more about this angle (and Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.’s rhetoric on the issue) should read the commentary published at this weblog’s sister site, The South Chicagoan.

  -30-