When I turned on the radio this morning one of the first things I learned is that George Zimmerman had been acquitted. I was not surprised. Long ago I learned that criminal law -- either prosecutorial or defensive -- has little to do with ethics. I was about to say justice but even that term is loaded.
After have read a few of the past days' postings and the subsequent comments I stopped. There is very, very little more to be learned from the immediate commentary and too many people commenting think they know 1) exactly what happened and 2) that they passed the Florida bar and are qualified to practice law. But here are a few, I'll call them psychosocial, thoughts:
After have read a few of the past days' postings and the subsequent comments I stopped. There is very, very little more to be learned from the immediate commentary and too many people commenting think they know 1) exactly what happened and 2) that they passed the Florida bar and are qualified to practice law. But here are a few, I'll call them psychosocial, thoughts:
- Males fight. And fights escalate. The presence of a knife or a gun changes the dynamic and it allows one of the fighters to become more aggressive, or at the very least turn defense into disproportionate offense. When that occurs, 2 things happen: a) one of the aggressors de-escalates so much so that both parties internal "threat" switch is turned off, or b) extraordinary physical harm and/or death happens to the unarmed fighter.
- Black males are the King-Kong of the American landscape. And we all know it. Charles Stuart knew it. Susan Smith knew it. Both used that knowledge to great effect. Extreme examples, I know, but there was little or no initial skepticism of their claims in each instance that black men had been the perpetrators of the crime because it seemed so plausible.
- A 17 year old kid is dead. With an acquittal of the man who killed him, how do you possibly square that circle in a moral universe?
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