Apparently, The O’Reilly Factor is not to be undone in the “we’ll race bait anything in the George Zimmerman trial” department. Just one day after the Hannity show used Rev. Al Sharpton’s calls for peace and calm in Florida to race bait against him and other African Americans, substitute O'Reilly host Laura Ingraham did the same thing last night when she sneered at a tweet from Jesse Jackson urging calm. Only on Fox News would calls for restraint be used to racially hate monger.
Before getting to Jackson, Ingraham took a racial swipe at President Obama over the Zimmerman case. Why? Because he offered sympathy for Trayvon Martin’s parents by saying, “When I think about this boy, I think about my own kids. …You know, if I had a son, he’d look like Trayvon.”
That’s Fox code for: He’s not on the side of whites. Ingraham didn't bother to point out that Obama's remark was in response to a question while the case was swirling in the headlines, not part of some speech.
But then Ingraham made her race baiting a little more explicit. After complaining about the politicization and racializing of the trial, she proved that there was nothing too trivial to politicize herself. Speaking to guest and Fox News host Judge Jeanine Pirro, Ingraham said:
Judge, I don’t know if you saw Jesse Jackson’s tweet… We’ll show our viewers what he tweeted about this trial. He said, "If Zimmerman is not convicted, avoid violence because it only leads to more tragedies. Self-destruction is not the road to reconstruction.”
Just like Sean Hannity before her, instead of praising the call for calm (which, just like Hannity, she’d surely condemn if Jackson hadn’t), Ingraham used the tweet to portray Jackson as some kind of racial hypocrite because the year before he had called Martin a “martyr,” said that African Americans should be “going to war” instead of just demonstrating and that there’s “power in Trayvon’s blood.” Obviously, Jackson was speaking metaphorically but Ingraham didn’t care. She said, “What’s your take of that part of this, this element of race and racism and so forth?”
To her credit, Pirro didn’t go there. She said, “If Jesse Jackson was trying to incite people… last year, we at least should give him benefit at this point, a year later, for saying, ‘You know what? Whatever the verdict is, let’s not riot, let’s not have a problem?’” Is it credible? I have no reason to believe it isn’t credible.”
And then Pirro immediately launched into a racialized attack on Obama. “The president got involved in a local case that he had absolutely no involvement in - it was not a national issue - because of the race issue and he was in the middle of a campaign, contentious campaign, for president.”
Go f*ck yourself with a prickly cactus.
Like any rational person will, I accept the verdict of this jury. These 6 people were not able to see around the various smokescreens of doubt that a skilled (and well-financed) defense team was able to raise. I accept this verdict in the same way that I accepted the verdict in the O.J. Simpson trial, and the Casey Anthony trial, and the Twilight Zone trial, and the Ramos & Compean trial. Because that is the nature of our judicial system. I wonder if the right wing pundits who are currently celebrating did so in any of the cases I just mentioned.
The facts of the situation remain unchanged. George Zimmerman will spend the rest of his days living with his behavior – both in the killing of an unarmed 17 year old and in the various untruths he told in the aftermath of his actions.
The facts have not changed that George Zimmerman profiled Trayvon Martin, followed him, stalked him after being told not to do so, confronted him, and killed him. The facts remain that Zimmerman was unable to explain how Trayvon Martin could have been hiding in bushes that didn’t exist, how Martin could have instantly attacked him when the neighbors heard their argument, how Martin could have been holding a hand over his nose and mouth when there was no DNA or blood on Martin’s hands, or how Martin could have seen and reached for a gun that was underneath Zimmerman and out of Martin’s ability to see. And the fact remains that Zimmerman’s refusal to testify to explain any of this left the jury without any way to resolve any of their questions.
Sadly, the jury in this case was left only with the testimony of the person who pulled the trigger, augmented only by the opinions of people who only saw or heard bits of what was happening.
In the case of Oscar Grant, there was irrefutable proof in the form of multiple digital videos taken of Meserle shooting Grant on the BART station floor. In that case, the jury was able to find him guilty of manslaughter, since they could see the exact sequence of events. In this case, the jury was left only with the version of events presented by Zimmerman, with nothing else other than people’s opinions and the background noises in a couple of 911 calls.
I don’t foresee any of the riots that the right wing seems to want to foment at the current time. I do see a situation where more people will despair about how one man can profile, follow, stalk, confront and kill another person, and essentially walk away.
However keep in mind just last week Fox Nation was talking about the possibility of revolution. So there you have it, to riot is evil, to have a revolution is patriotic.