Or at least we shouldn’t be.
As I’ve been pouring through right wing and left wing media for the past few weeks, it occurs to me that something strange (stranger than usual) is happening. For the purpose of this post, I’m going to limit my observations of strangeness to the issue of the shooting of Trayvon Martin. I’m stunned by how divergent the coverage has been between the two party ideologies.
The left wing is, for the most party, crying out for justice. Let me speak for my personally; I want justice, not to be confused with wanting a guilty verdict. I want justice in the form of a trial, which looked like it wasn’t going to happen, were it not for the public demand for justice. The right wing seems to think that the public outcry is for a conviction. The right is incensed that the court of public opinion has already convicted Zimmerman.
What the fuck do you expect, right wing? George Zimmerman hasn’t presented his side of the story. After the shooting, he ran like a scared little girl, leaving everybody else to compile bits and pieces of information surrounding the circumstances of the shooting. There is no defense of George Zimmerman at this stage of the story because he hasn’t presented one.
Anyone that defends George Zimmerman at this point, does so from a purely visceral perspective. They want for him not to be a murder. I won’t speculate as to what the motivations of Zimmerman’s supporters are because I’m trying to stick to the facts. And the fact is that George Zimmerman hasn’t given his defenders a reason to defend him, which is why they should be on my side. They should be elated that there is going to be a trial.
A trial will force Zimmerman to do what the has so far been unwilling to do voluntarily; present a defense. Why aren’t the right and left on the same side on this one? Don’t we all want for the facts to come out? Don’t his defenders want to be able to defend him based on actual facts, rather than being accused of being racist? Don’t they want tangible reasons that they can point to in order to justify the homicide of a 17 year old boy? Don’t we all want to know every single fucking detail that leads to something like this happening?
I literally can’t understand why there are “sides” to be taken here. I’m totally open to hearing Zimmerman’s side of the story when he finally presents it. If you’re on Zimmerman’s side, you shouldn’t be afraid of the facts coming out. You should be eager to be proven right. And that’s simply not going to happen without a trial. Can’t we all just fucking agree that a trial needs to happen? Are we so fractured that we can’t agree that when a teenager is shot we, as a society, must demand all the facts?
