Christian Science Monitor Writer Comes Close to Journalistic Balance on Trayvon Martin Hoax

 
George Zimmerman's bloody head wounds, February 26, 2012, 7:19 p.m., three minutes after shooting Trayvon Martin dead
 

Trayvon Martin: George Zimmerman was to be his first kill, but things didn't go quite the way Martin expected
 

Racial backlash feared in wake of Trayvon Martin, Tulsa killings
By Brad Knickerbocker
April 8, 2012
The Christian Science Monitor
Running commentary by Nicholas Stix

There are points along the historical continuum of social and political dialogue in America where race flashes forth, usually emitting more heat than light.

The Trayvon Martin case seems to be one of those. Coincidence or not, it comes at a time when authorities are sorting through another incident in which deadly violence may have been racial in nature, this one in Tulsa, Okla. [How can it be a “coincidence”? The Tulsa spree shooting of blacks came five weeks later. Meanwhile, there were surely thousands of racially-motivated, black-on-white attacks in the interim.]

On Feb. 26 in Sanford, Fla., neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman (who is white-Hispanic [sic]) shot and killed black unarmed [!] teenager Martin under disputed circumstances.

There may or may not have been a struggle, and if so it’s unclear who initiated it.
It’s unclear whether Zimmerman was hurt, which might be used as a self-defense legal argument. From 911 recordings and the recollection of some neighbors in the area, it’s also unclear who cried out in fear before a shot was heard, although two experts in sound analysis have ruled out Zimmerman.

[Actually, by the time Knickerbocker wrote this, it was clear that Martin had attacked, and almost murdered Zimmerman, that he had seriously wounded Zimmerman, and that the only eyewitness to the attack said that it was Zimmerman crying out to him.]

Six weeks after the event, authorities have yet to decide whether Zimmerman should be charged with a crime – a source of particular frustration to Martin’s family and supporters conducting daily rallies and vigils around the country. It’s also prompted reexamination of “Stand Your Ground” laws in Florida and some two dozen other states under which citizens may use deadly force rather than retreat when they think they're in danger. [The case has not “prompted reexamination of ‘Stand Your Ground’ laws”; it has been used as a pretext to dishonestly get them repealed, in favor of black thugs. The case has nothing to do with “Stand Your Ground,” as Trayvon Martin hunted down George Zimmerman, and was in the process of murdering him, when Zimmerman shot him to death.]

Meanwhile, Zimmerman’s family and supporters likewise are preparing for any prosecution that might result, building a defense case in a series of media interviews.

[Whoa! What about the frustration of Zimmerman, and his family and supporters? And what about Zimmerman and his family’s need to go into hiding, following death threats, including the various public solicitations to murder and kidnapping made by the Nation of Islam’s New Black Panther Party.]

Like thousands of bloggers and other online commenters, many Monitor readers have weighed in over stories about race and the Martin-Zimmerman case, either in the comments section of csmonitor.com or in emails to reporters.

One common theme here: Frustration over repeated coverage of civil rights activists Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton, seen as primarily self-promotional.
Another: The failure by the media to point out black-on-white violence that might be classified as “hate crimes” or to note that most violence done to blacks is committed by blacks.

The racial divide in the Martin-Zimmerman case also can be seen in who is paying attention and what they believe about the case.

Blacks, younger people, women, Democrats, and those of modest means [Wrong; this is just a veiled reference to blacks, who were already counted; he is not talking about poor whites.] are more likely to see race as an important factor. Blacks and Democrats also are much more likely to be following the story than whites or Republicans, the Pew Research Center finds in a public opinion survey, and whites and Republicans are much more likely to say there’s been too much coverage of Martin’s death.

The mainstream media feels the heat generated by racial issues.

NBC News this week fired a producer responsible for editing audio clips that made it sound as if George Zimmerman’s following Trayvon Martin was racially motivated when in fact Zimmerman made no reference to Martin’s race until a 911 dispatcher asked him about it.

On Sunday, National Review editor Rich Lowry fired longtime columnist John Derbyshire for a webzine article in which whites were advised that “before voting for a black politician, scrutinize his/her character much more carefully than you would a white” and to “not act the Good Samaritan to blacks in apparent distress.”
(In his own column, Lowry points to a 2005 FBI report stating that in 93 percent of the cases in which blacks are homicide victims, the killer was black.)

Meanwhile, early Sunday morning in Tulsa, Okla., police arrested two white men [Wrong! It had already been reported by the Council of Conservative Citizens that the alleged shooter was a Cherokee Indian.] in connection with the killing of three black people and the shooting of two others – apparently randomly-selected victims. It was a jarring blow to a city that in 1921 had seen a major race riot in which dozens of blacks were killed and a well-to-do black area of the city burned to the ground. [But that was 91 years ago. Tulsa has seen no fewer than four racist, black-on-white murders since last fall alone!]

One of those arrested Sunday had written on his Facebook page that his father had been shot to death on April 5, 2010, by a black man who is now serving a prison sentence for the crime, the Wall Street Journal reported. [The black man is not in prison for murder.] He recently made several references to the anniversary of his father's death on Facebook, using racial slurs to describe his father's killer.

The men now in custody are expected to be charged with three counts of first-degree murder and two counts of shooting with intent to kill in the spate of shootings early Friday. Police officials said it was too soon to attribute the attacks to race, but community leaders expressed concern about the motivation for the shootings, as well as the possibility that they would provoke a vigilante response, the Associated Press reported.

But there’s also a sense of relief that the alleged killers have been apprehended.
“The community once again can go about its business without fear of there being a shooter on the streets today, on Easter morning,” said Rev. Warren Blakney Sr., president of the Tulsa NAACP.

 
[From WEJB/NSU’s Trayvon Martin Hoax files:

“Sanford, Florida: Black ‘Little Boy,’Trayvon Martin 17, Beat White ‘Vigilante’ George Zimmerman Bloody; Zimmerman Shot Martin Dead; Now Black WFTV ‘Reporter,’ Daralene Jones, Black Supremacists, and White Aunt Jemima Earwitness Demand That Zimmerman be Arrested”;

“Trayvon Martin: ABC ‘News’ Gets on Bandwagon, Acting as Martin’s Family Mouthpiece; Family Lawyer Refuses to Release All Information about Teen’s Last Phone Call to Girlfriend, but Insists That It Requires That George Zimmerman be Arrested ‘Right Now’”;

“Arrest First, Investigate Later: Press Conference by Lawyer Benjamin Crump, of Trayvon Martin’s Family, Seeks Through Violation of Due Process… to Railroad George Zimmerman”;

“News Coverage of the Trayvon Martin Case Keeps Getting Worse: New York Daily News Passes Off ABC News Hearsay as ‘Interview,’ While Changing the Hearsay!”;

“USA Today: ‘In wake of black teen Trayvon Martin's death, USA is soul-searching’; McPaper Invokes Jena 6, Quotes Al Sharpton, Self-Described ‘ThugNiggaIntellectual’ Mark Neal, and Jena Attacker Theo Shaw as Moral Authorities”;

“Why the Secret ‘Interview’ with Trayvon Martin’s Secret Girlfriend is Bogus, and His Alleged Last Cell Phone Call is Insignificant”;

“Another Trayvon Martin Supporter: Florida Atlantic U. Hate Crime Attacker Jonatha Carr Had Just been Interviewed about the Jena Six/Nuremberg-Style Rally She’s been Organizing; CBS12 News Tries to Rationalize Her Crimes”;

“Trayvon Martin’s Parents Attend New York City Riot Held on Their Behalf”;

“Associated Press and Penn Live: Arrest George Zimmerman for Killing Trayvon Martin, the Law be Damned! Let Zimmerman Prove His Innocence in Court!”

“National Review ‘Conservative’ Rich Lowry Goes to Bat for Al Sharpton in Trayvon Martin Case, Ignoring or Misrepresenting Facts of the Case”;

“Trayvon Martin Case: Real Eyewitness Supports Zimmerman’s Story, as Opposed to Lynch Mob’s Fake Eyewitnesses”;

“Barack Obama: Because Trayvon Martin was Black, and Vaguely Resembled Me, ‘All of Us Have to Do Some Soul-Searching’”;

“Federale on the Trayvon Martin Hoax: National Review’s Rich Lowry and Robert VerBruggen Seek Street Cred with Black Supremacists by Sacrificing George Zimmerman; America Needs More Zimmermans, and Fewer Lowries and VerBruggens”;

“The Trayvon Martin Hoax: Business Insider Joins Mob Seeking to Lynch George Zimmerman”;

“The Trayvon Martin Hoax: Geraldo Rivera Finally Does the Right Thing!”;

“Black Supremacist Spike Lee (‘Tawana Told the Truth!’) is Trying to Get George Zimmerman Murdered, by Tweeting His Address: The Trayvon Martin Hoax”;

“Hoax Starts to Unravel: Trayvon Martin Started Fight, and was Going to Kill George Zimmerman”;

“George Zimmerman’s Lawyer and Friend Defend Him Against Trayvon Martin Hoax, While ABC News Soldiers on, Repeating Refuted Claims”;

“First Report on Trayvon Martin’s Death One Month Ago Already Included Eyewitness Description of Martin Beating George Zimmerman, and Zimmerman Yelling ‘Help Me!’”;

“George Zimmerman: Trayvon Martin was Trying to Murder Me (Orlando Sentinel)”;

“Jesse Jackson Called for Riots on Behalf of Trayvon Martin, and North Miami Beach Senior HS Students Came Through, Ransacking a Walgreen’s”;

“Another ‘Honor Student’: Trayvon Martin was a Thug, Vandal, Burglar, Pothead and/or Drug Dealer, and Had been Suspended from School at Least 3 Times”;

“The Nation of Islam’s New Black Panther Party Offers $10,000 Bounty for the Kidnapping (or Murder?) of George Zimmerman, for Shooting Trayvon Martin”;

“Walter Williams on Profiling and the Trayvon Martin Case”;

“Barack Obama’s Ally, the Genocidal Nation of Islam’s New Black Panther Party, Calls for the Murder of George Zimmerman”;

“Trayvon Martin: Racist Terrorist Rep. Bobby Rush (Race-Chicago/Black Panthers), is Thrown Off House Floor for Donning a Hoodie, and Denouncing ‘Racial Profiling’; CBS ‘News’ Soldiers on with Race Hoax”;

“Heather MacDonald Goes Halfway on the Trayvon Martin Case, Race, and the Media”;

“I Guess Everybody Would Have Preferred George be Beaten to Death; My Son being Shot”: Video of George Zimmerman’s Father’s Exclusive Miami Herald Interview”;

“Trayvon Martin FAQ”;

“Elderly Couple Terrorized by Spike Lee Hires Attorney; Lee Simulates Humility and Humanity, in Order to Avoid Losing Millions in Court”;

“Vichycon David Frum to MSM: I’ll Support Your Trayvon Martin Hoax, if You’ll Continue Supporting Me as a ‘Conservative’”;

“Cartoonist Stephanie Eisner Gets Fired for Excessive Honesty in Racial Fairy Tale Pic Depicting Trayvon Martin Hoax”;

“Petition Demands That Suppressed UT Cartoonist Stephanie Eisner, Victim of the Racist Trayvon Martin Witch Hunt, be Reinstated!”;

“Sherlock Holmes on the Curious Case of Trayvon Martin, the State of the Legal Mechanisms in ‘the Colonies,’ and the Value of Even a Corrupt Press”;

“A Washington State Reader Writes on the Trayvon Martin Hoax, a Raceless Shooter, Readers Who Do Reporters’ Work for Them, and Seattle’s Northgate Mall”;

“Relative of George Zimmerman: George Stepped Up for Black Homeless Beating Victim Sherman Ware, When the Black Community Ignored Ware, but the Same Black Community, Including Ware’s Sister, Now Denounces Him as a ‘Racist’”;

“The Orlando Sentinel Provides a Non-Explanatory Map of the Shooting of Trayvon Martin, Highly Censored Comments, and One Typical, Black Racist Post”;

“Racist, Black L.A. Times Columnist Sandy Banks Goes to Plan B: Trayvon Martin Case ‘Transcends the issue of race’”;

“George Zimmerman's Father: My Son is Not Racist, Did Not Confront Trayvon Martin”;

“Populist Outrage, or Racist Astroturfing? New NPR Cover Story for Trayvon Martin Hoax Lawyer Covers Up How He Really Works”;

“Federale on Trayvon Martin and the Second Amendment: Gun Nuts Looking to Trade Freedom for Security on Race Will Find They Lose Their Guns, in the Bargain”;

And Then They Came for John Derbyshire: Racial Socialists Organize High-Tech Lynching Over Trayvon Martin Column, with White “Conservatives” Begging, ‘Please Let Us Join in the Fun!’;

“Kapo Con Rich Lowry Fires John Derbyshire, Continues No Comments Policy at National Review”;

“The Atlantic, Trayvon Martin, and John Derbyshire: Fake “Discussion Thread” for Ta-Nehisi Coates is a Rigged, Affirmative Action Echo Chamber”;

“Is Peter Brimelow Next on Racial Socialists’ list, or was He Just Temporarily Bumped?”;

“At National Review, Mark Steyn Tells Rich Lowry, ‘You were Wrong and Hypocritical to Fire John Derbyshire, and You Bought Yourself No Peace from the Racist Left’”;

“6 Shots Fired into Police Cruiser Parked Outside of George Zimmerman’s Home, Presumably by Racist Black Supporter of Trayvon Martin; 3 Florida Counties Expect Hurricane-Like Black Race Riots”;

“Did Trayvon Martin Supporters Re-Program a Roadside Sign in Michigan to Call Martin a ‘Nigger’?”;

“George Zimmerman's (Former?) Attorney, Hal Uhrig, Explains Why Zimmerman was Not Guilty of Committing Any Crime Against Trayvon Martin”;

“George Zimmerman to be Charged Today, in Trayvon Martin Case; Should He Flee the Country?”;

“George Zimmerman, Political Prisoner: Florida Special Prosecutor Angela Corey Charges Zimmerman with Second Degree Murder for Killing Trayvon Martin”;

“Unamusement Park: To Kill a Mockingbird, er, NO_LIMIT_NIGGA: Authorities Arrest “an Honorary Member of the Same Race as Hitler”;

“Illinois Reader Called for George Zimmerman to Flee to Peru Back on March 23; I Should Have Posted His Advice Then!”;

“Paul Mulshine: National Review Goes Politically Correct”;

“Grieving Parents with a Thirst for Justice, or Racist Grifters? Trayvon Martin’s Parents are Using Change.org to Mass Mail Letters, as Part of Their Campaign to Get Rich Off of Their Thug Son’s Death”;

“Special Prosecutor Angela Corey Announces the Charges Against George Zimmerman in the Trayvon Martin Death (Video)”;

“Racist Black Time Columnist, ‘Touré,’ Asserts That There Has been a Wave of White-on-Black Violence, but Has no Stats, and Even His Anecdotes”;

“Alan Dershowitz: Facts Stated in Angela Corey’s Affidavit, Charging George Zimmerman with Murder Two, All Support Zimmerman on Self-Defense; Affi ‘Doesn’t Even Make It to Probable Cause,’ and is ‘Irresponsible,’ ‘Unethical’”;

“I'm George Zimmerman! I'm George Zimmerman! I'm George Zimmerman!”;

“Video of George Zimmerman’s First Court Appearance; Formal Arraignment Set for May 29th”;

“Chief of Staff Michelle Williams of the Genocidal Nation of Islam’s New Black Panther Party Calls for the Murder of George Zimmerman, Then Lies and Denies Having Done So; Makes a Non-Apology; Wants a National ‘Dialogue’ on Race; Sees Herself as a Rosa Parks for Justice”;

“Federale: ‘Threats of Rioting are Not Probable Cause That George Zimmerman Committed a Crime,’ and the Downward Spiral of National Review”;

“Trayvon Martin Hate Crime Cover-Up in Grand Rapids, Michigan; Give the Local Media Hell! (Contact Info)”;

“National Review Still Employs a Notoriously Noxious Racist!”;

“Nation of Islam Leader, Min. Louis Farrakhan, Threatens Racial Holocaust, if Whites Do Not Surrender”;

“AP’s Suzette Laboy Promotes Racial Fairy Tale of Initial Failure to Charge George Zimmerman ‘Inflaming Racial Tensions’ in Sanford, FL, in Trayvon Martin Hoax”;

“It’s Trayvon Martin’s World: Sanford, FL Police Throw SYG and Self-Defense Out the Window; Black Perp Shouts Racial Slur at, Pistol-Whips Bloody from Behind, and Points Gun at White Vic; Vic Shoots Perp, Gets Book Thrown at Him”;

“Min. Louis Farrakhan, Leader of the Murderous Nation of Islam and New Black Panther Party, Calls for Racist Murders on Behalf of Trayvon Martin”;

“Black Supremacist Daily Beast Writer Threatens Rodney King-Style Riots, Unless George Zimmerman Permits Himself to be Sacrificed”;

The Photograph: George Zimmerman, Crime Victim;

“Finally: Accurate, Objective, Up-to-the-Minute Pictures of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman”;

“‘Now, That’s Justice for Trayvon!’: In Mobile, Alabama, 20 Racist Blacks Beat One White Man into ICU, on His Own Property, for … Nothing”;

“‘Mr. Owens is the Problem… I Don’t Think No Black Kids are Bad”: Black Neighbor and Kids in Mobile Explain That Mob of Blacks That Beat White Matthew Owens Almost to Death are the Real Victims, Owens the Oppressor”;

“Terry Rawls and Lemika (aka Lemica) Whisenhunt: The Figures at the Center of the Mobile, AL, ‘Justice for Trayvon’ Lynching of Matthew Owens; Mayor, Police, Media, Join Battle Against Victim”; and

“Nazi Ethics: Another Trayvon Attack, This Time in Oak Park, Il.”]