Comments

1. Bob Nunz 03/28/2012 - 12:45 pm

   Did someone complain about race in the POTUS’s re,arks on Trayvon Martin?
   Of course, race is never a consideration for my pure friends on the right.

2. David Pasinski 03/28/2012 - 1:48 pm  subscriber

   This ad is so ludicrous that you have to think that it was a parody. But the again, much of the race and Rick Santorum’s comments have appered to be a parody. Maybe the REAL primaries are takng place in alternate univese.

3. Joe McFaul 03/28/2012 - 1:51 pm

   Silly, everybody knows that black people live over in District 11.

4. Jeanne Follman 03/28/2012 - 2:20 pm  subscriber

   Can’t help but think that Obamaville would look so much better today if it weren’t for that trillion dollar war and all those tax cuts. But hey, that would mean assuming reality was both “determinate and knowable,” as as Harry G. Frankfurt says in his book On Bullshit. How much more fun to go about “offering a description of a certain state of affairs without genuinely submitting to the constraints which the endeavor to provide an accurate representation of reality imposes.”

5. Jeff Landry 03/28/2012 - 4:46 pm

   It’s all STILL W’s fault, huh Jeanne?

6. Bob Nunz 03/28/2012 - 6:38 pm

   Jeff, what;s yourt point? Poor pld conservatives mocked again?
   Santorums not a nut case>

7. Bill Spoja 03/28/2012 - 7:56 pm  subscriber

   Jeff, not everything’s Dubya’s fault. Just the deficit and the assault on civil liberties.

8. Mark Proska 03/28/2012 - 8:04 pm  subscriber

   So, should we count the number of white people on an NBA team, and enforce proportional representation? I thought, in 2012, we were past counting people based on race. :::sigh:::

9. Jeanne Follman 03/28/2012 - 10:06 pm  subscriber

   Jeff, he was the president who racked up the debt we still live with. Them’s the facts. It took WWII to get the country out of the depression. Effects of actions don’t just disappear because the guy in the White House changes.

10. Jeff Landry 03/28/2012 - 10:54 pm

    “Jeff, not everything’s Dubya’s fault. Just the deficit and the assault on civil liberties.”

    That’s funny since President Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, Guantonmo remains open, he has launched more drone attacks than in the previous 8 years and Pres. Obama has claimed authority to assassinate American citizens – something never claimed by the Bush administration. Oh and he’s tripled the deficit in 4 years. While its certainly true that the effects don’t disappear, it is also true you can make those (lamentable) effects worse.

11. unagidon 03/29/2012 - 6:25 am  contributor

    “Oh and he’s tripled the deficit in 4 years.”

    Really?

12. Luke Hill 03/29/2012 - 6:34 am  subscriber

    @Mark Proska (3/28, 8:04 pm) Given that just about every American with a black male teenager under their care has spent time in the past couple of weeks reinforcing the survival skills necessary for young black men to live past adolescence, I’m surprised at your comment.

    http://articles.boston.com/2012-03-29/metro/31250267_1_police-officer-eldest-son-young-black-men

13. Mark Proska 03/29/2012 - 7:30 am  subscriber

    Luke–

    I’m surprised at your comment as well–what does it have to do with quotas?

14. Luke Hill 03/29/2012 - 8:28 am  subscriber

    I guess I was trying to make the point that not paying attention to race is, in our society, a luxury to which not all people have access. Does that help?

15. Luke Hill 03/29/2012 - 10:08 am  subscriber

    A more general point: one might reasonably hope, even expect, that the presidential campaigns of Catholics would be notable for their racial and ethnic inclusivity—even to the point of it being a routine feature of their advertising. That this is not the case is no small sorrow.

16. Bob Nunz 03/29/2012 - 10:54 am

    An ugly thread now dragged down in the uusal partisan hazari.

17. Mark Proska 03/29/2012 - 12:44 pm  subscriber

    “Does that help?”

    A little, yes. I imagine many Hispanic parents are having survival skill conversations with their children too, though most likely from a different perspective. It is sad, but I think that the counting-by-race theme that opened the thread only exacerbates the situation we lament.

18. Luke Hill 03/29/2012 - 1:47 pm  subscriber

    @Mark Proska (3/29, 12:44 pm) Thanks.

    I’ve always appreciated Dionne Ferris’ song, “Human” for its approach to this issue:

    “Before I am black
    Before I am woman
    Before I am short
    Before I am young
    Before I am African
    I am Human

    Because I am black
    Because I am woman
    Because I am short
    Because I am young
    Because I am African
    I am Human”*

    This goes, I think, deeper than “counting-by-race”. Anyone who wants to be president of this country today (and certainly any Catholic who wants to be president) who is running ads like the one above from Sen. Santorum’s campaign, ought to (in my view) stop and check themselves.

    P.S. Just curious—what survival skills conversations do you imagine Hispanic parents are having?

    *Here’s a clip of some DeKalb students dancing to “Human”. http://youtu.be/E22bE0rlTnU

    **Continuing in a musical vein, here’s Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band performing “American Skin (41 Shots)” in Tampa last week. http://brucespringsteen.net/ The song was written in the aftermath of Amadou Diallo’s death. The second verse is about “survival skills”.

    “(41 shots) Lena gets her son ready for school;
    She says ‘On these streets, Charles, you’ve got to understand the rules.
    If an officer stops you, promise me you’ll always be polite;
    That you’ll never ever run away, and promise Mama you’ll keep your hands in sight.’”

19. Mark Proska 03/29/2012 - 5:43 pm  subscriber

    Luke–

    Thanks for those lyrics, I found them poignant and think they hit just the right “note.” I sensed no counting by race in them. As far as what Hispanic parents are telling their sons, let me pose these questions.

    If Mr. Zimmerman were black, do you think:

    That the president would have said the person Zimmerman was defending himself from reminded him of what his son would look like? Do you think Zimmerman’s Hispanic parent would have felt excluded/isolated by that comment from the head of the Executive branch of the US government?

    That there would be a bounty on his head?

    That a black man would have tweeted, with bad intent, what he thought was Zimmerman’s home address?

    That the heretofore judicious mayor of Philadelphia would have called the incident an assassination?

    That there would have been all these rush to judgments? And, what’s worse, with no subsequent apologies?

    I think these questions and others like them, understandably, are informing the discussions Hispanic mothers and fathers are having with their children.

20. Mark Proska 03/29/2012 - 9:58 pm  subscriber

    Live by the sword, die by the sword.

21. Luke Hill 03/30/2012 - 9:15 am  subscriber

    @Mark Proska (3/29, 5:43 pm) Thanks for your response (even though it doesn’t answer the question—at least not directly).

    From my perspective, hypothetical questions about what would have happened if Mr. Zimmerman were black do more (at least at this point) to muddy, than to clarify the waters we find ourselves in.

    A young black man, armed only with Skittles and iced tea, talking on the phone to his girlfriend, walking back from the store to his father’s house was stopped for no apparent reason and ended up shot to death.

    That’s the reality we’re dealing with.

22. Studebaker 03/30/2012 - 9:29 am

    Luke — we don’t know all the facts yet. According to one witness, Trayvon had Zimmerman pinned to the ground and was beating him. http://www.myfoxorlando.com/dpp/news/seminole_news/022712-man-shot-and-killed-in-neighborhood-altercation#ixzz1phFMGCu4 Whether that turns out to be true or not, the widespread impulse to bash Zimmerman without knowing all of the facts is imprudent.

23. Luke Hill 03/30/2012 - 10:34 am  subscriber

    @Studebaker (3/30, 9:29 am) True, we don’t have all the facts yet. (Given how the police dept. appears to have handled this case, we may never have all the facts.) However, the evidence we do have from 911 tapes, and from Martin’s phone conversation with his girlfriend both (and independently) support what I said.

    The larger social issue is that this is a daily reality that most African-Americans live with, and have lived with, in one form or another, for centuries.

    Again, the song lyrics I posted above (3/29, 1:47 pm) say it better than I can. Dionne Ferris’ “Human” makes the point that “because I am African, I am human”. That assertion gets made, in part, because of the widespread reality in America today that those who are of African descent are treated differently—simply because they are African—from most humans in this country.

    In Bruce Springsteen’s “American Skin (41 Shots)”, Lena is teaching a life-and-death lesson to her son. Not included in the song is the fact that most US parents with children of European descent do not have to teach this lesson to their sons.

    I agree with your statement about the imprudence of attacking Zimmerman without knowing all the facts. I haven’t been doing that. I’ve been among those trying to keep the focus on the death of Trayvon Martin, the apparent mishandling (at best) of the case by the local law enforcement officals, and the injustice inherent in the “Stand Your Ground” law.

24. Mark Proska 03/30/2012 - 1:17 pm  subscriber

    Sometimes things are not as clear cut as they are initially portrayed:

    http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/30/justice/florida-teen-shooting/index.html

25. Luke Hill 03/30/2012 - 3:07 pm  subscriber

    @Mark Proska (3/30, 1:17 pm) Thanks for that. I apologize for being repetitive, but again, we have good evidence, from multiple, independent sources for the following:

    A young black man, armed only with Skittles and iced tea, talking on the phone to his girlfriend, walking back from the store to his father’s house was stopped for no apparent reason and ended up shot to death.

    There remain numerous unanswered questions about the incident and the death of Trayvon Martin. But we at least know that. We also know that African-Americans live with this kind of threat to life and liberty, and have for centuries.

    We can take the conversation in lots of directions from there. But we can at least agree on that as a starting point, yes?

26. Mark Proska 03/31/2012 - 12:49 pm  subscriber

    “But we can at least agree on that as a starting point, yes?”

    Yes, Luke, pretty much. But my point is that I think we can agree on many more facts as a starting point, including, but not limited to:

    • Mr. Zimmerman has claimed he acted in self-defense, that he was struck in the nose, from behind, and that the young man he was defending himself from was banging Mr. Zimmerman’s head against the sidewalk.

    • An independent witness has corroborated key portions of his account of the incident and contradicted none of them.

    • The screams on the 911 tape came from someone who was in extreme distress (I’m assuming you’ve heard the tape), Mr. Zimmerman said it was him, an independent witness at the scene confirmed this, and Mr. Martin’s father acknowledged that it was not his son’s voice on the tape.

    • The police department took Mr. Zimmerman into custody, questioned him, investigated, and did not charge him with a crime.

    • The initial portrayal of Mr. Martin was such that he was of a character that could not have done anything that would have necessitated his being shot in self-defense. Understandably, his supporters felt this relevant. Subsequently, we have learned that he’s been suspended from school 3 times, was under suspension at the time of the incident for suspected marijuana use, was previously suspended for writing graffiti (implied obscenity) on a school locker, was found to have rings and jewelry in his backpack along with a screwdriver that was described as a burglary tool by a school staffer (though this was not the reason for his suspension). Mr. Zimmerman had one prior arrest, and the charges were later dropped. If, because of conflicting accounts as to what actually occurred that tragic evening, the facts speaking to character are relevant, then all the facts that speak to character are relevant.

    I think if the conversation is to move forward profitably, these unmentioned facts need to be agreed to as well.

27. Luke Hill 03/31/2012 - 3:35 pm  subscriber

    @Mark Proska (3/31, 12:49 pm) Thanks for following this conversation through. I’m glad we have a common starting point.

28. Jimmy Mac 04/01/2012 - 3:58 pm  subscriber

    ” — that he was struck in the nose, from behind, –”

    Interesting trick, that.

29. Jimmy Mac 04/01/2012 - 4:07 pm  subscriber

    That Zimmerman was screaming is questionable:

    http://usnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/04/01/10963191-trayvon-martin-case-911-call-screams-not-george-zimmermans-2-experts-say?preview=true

    What is known/what isn’t known about Trayvon Martin’s death:

    http://www.miamiherald.com/reg-bin/int.cgi?mode=register

30. Jimmy Mac 04/01/2012 - 6:19 pm  subscriber

    How Psychology Explains the Slander of Trayvon Martin

    http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/04/01/how-a-mix-of-racism-and-our-need-to-see-the-world-as-just-is-slandering-trayvon-martin.html

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