Robert A. George's ruminations on politics, race, pop culture, sports, comic books & various other sundry temptations of the human condition. Yes, he writes for the New York Post, but the views here are solely his own.
Racially charged frenzy around shooting death already hampers justice
By Robert A. GeorgeMonday, April 2, 2012
PHOTO:David Manning/Reuters
The Rev. Al Sharpton at a Trayvon Martin rally.
The statue outside many courthouses around the country is of a woman blindfolded with scales in one hand (and often a sword in the other).
Justice is to be blind to the circumstances of the supplicants before it. Its main goal must be to strike a balance. And if there is to be retribution, that role should be reserved solely for justice itself — not individuals. For that to occur, a certain level of public accounting must take place.
The Trayvon Martin case has become a textbook example of what happens when the scales of justice are not balanced. An initial tragedy — an unarmed teenager shot dead on his way home — rightly generated anger and frustration over the seeming inability of Florida’s justice system to hold the admitted shooter accountable.
But now there is a danger that the tragedy will be compounded by a uniquely modern circumstance — a media-political spectacle that could impair George Zimmerman’s own constitutional rights. This would destroy any possibility of justice being delivered.
How did we get to this point?
Anger didn’t arise just because George Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin on Feb. 26 as Martin returned to his father’s house after picking up Skittles and an iced tea. Zimmerman was on the phone with 911; The operator urged him not to pursue Martin. What created the grounds for outrage was the shooter’s release after his claim of self-defense was seemingly accepted at face value by the authorities. The Sanford police pointed to Florida’s self-defense statute, as limiting their actions. Could this be true? America wondered.
In fact, the “Stand Your Ground” law almost invites the system to turn what otherwise might be a “he said-he said” situation into a “he said-he dead” — with the tie breaker going to the survivor.
The law grants immunity from arrest and prosecution to those asserting a self-defense claim. Thus, even though the initial police investigator, Chris Serino, reportedly didn’t believe Zimmerman’s account of events and urged manslaughter charges be brought, the state attorney apparently didn’t believe there was enough evidence to win a prosecution.
It took three weeks for heightened media focus to force 1) the U.S. Justice Department to open an inquiry and 2) a state grand jury to be empaneled. At that point, officially speaking, the public accounting began. True, Zimmerman has yet to be arrested, but that proves nothing. The wheels of justice were moving, slowly, but there was some form of balance at work.
And almost immediately, it started to tip the other way.
The Rev. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson got involved, two men with histories — to say the least — of stoking racial controversy. More significantly, both are liberal Democratic politicians. When such individuals become the face of a cause, it’s no surprise that the brief apolitical consensus on the nature of the tragedy began to dissipate.
The March 23 10,000-person rally in Sanford was understandable. But, a day before, Trayvon’s parents were flown up to New York City for a huge rally, their private pain practically hijacked by the already-in-place Occupy Wall Street movement.
From the rallies, the parents were next brought to Washington, D.C., for an ad hoc congressional hearing.
And then the media exploded — unhelpfully aided by Sharpton, who continued to organize rallies while covering them as an MSNBC host.
Supporters of Martin and Zimmerman began selectively leaking to the media, with differing anonymous “witnesses” appearing, and videos that may or may not prove whether Zimmerman was injured in his physical altercation with Martin. The dead teenager’s privacy was violated with the hacking of his Twitter account — trying to suggest that he had violent tendencies.
And, speaking of social media, an address wrongly attributed to Zimmerman was repeatedly distributed on Twitter — including by filmmaker Spike Lee. The elderly couple who actually lived at the residence were harassed.
The mantra most associated with Sharpton’s National Action Network is, “No justice, no peace.” But for the American judicial system to work effectively, that should be turned around — no peace, no justice. Justice can’t operate in a chaotic, reality-show environment.
An accused — who, it should be noted, doesn’t yet exist — has a constitutional right to a fair trial. But is it too late for that? With not just Sanford, but all of Florida in the eye of a media hurricane, any prospective jury is already tainted. If Zimmerman is charged, can his lawyers declare that it’s impossible to get a fair trial? Even if he were convicted, would the media spectacle be enough to get a conviction overturned on appeal?
It’s sad to even consider such a prospect, but one must. And were that to happen, then it would be a tragedy triply compounded: a needless death, followed by the impotence of local authorities and, finally, a poisoning of the well by national media and political elites. More people than George Zimmerman would be responsible for that betrayal of justice.
Robert A. Georgeis a New York Post editorial writer.
The WSJ's Jason Riley and I continue our chat on the developing Trayvon Martin story. This time, we address the leaking of George Zimmerman's police testimony, President Obama's statement and the media hotdogging of Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson helping to poison the national atmosphere around the case:
Some trenchant further commentary on the saga -- an excellent post by Julian Sanchez, trying to look at events from Martin and Zimmerman's perspectives -- and notes the inability of reality to conform to the human need for clear narratives.
On the other hand, this satirical outlet delivers with Onionesque accuracy. Best line: "Sharpton, who has long championed taking black women as mistresses, said that today’s black athletes need to stop neglecting black women when it comes to extramarital affairs, and should follow the examples of positive black role models such as Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom cheated on their wives with black women."
This line also has a painful "truth-in-comedy" aspect to it as well: "Sharpton also stressed that cheating with African-American women would help the black community financially by giving black girls the chance to sell their stories to tabloids and gossip magazines."
On a slightly related (in the Tiger category), I was at a "holiday" (sorry, Mr. O'Reilly) party last night and a soon-to-be-married guy observed, "One lesson to be seen in this is that for a married person, it's very stupid to cheat with people who have far less to lose than yourself." Actually, that holds true for any successful individual in a supposedly "committed" relationship. This could explain why Derek Jeter is pretty smart to date fairly well-known female celebrities -- actresses, models, singers, etc. Even when they break up, it's rare to hear any of them trash him in the gossip pages. Maybe it's because he's a gentleman; maybe it's because there's an unspoken MAD (mutually-assured-destruction) understanding between exes.
So, financially and socially-successful cheaters, caveat emptor: Try to engage in SAF -- Status Appropriate F*****!!! Another way of saying this is, "The easiest way to f***-up your life is to f*** down."
Perhaps the Jewish people have it right: When a person dies, they are dead -- and gone. Above ground is for the living. Thus, burial is within 24 hours if possible. The dead are returned to earth. Dust to dust, ashes to ashes.
The alternative seems better, considering that it took 12 days to finally lay Michael Jackson to rest. While Jackson is something of a unique case, he does prove a point: The longer the dead remain among us, the easier it is for unseemly debate to break out on the "truth" the deceased represented. Mark Anthony's assertion that, "The evil men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones," can barely sustain the scrutiny of the modern-day spin cycle.
Had Jackson been buried a week ago, perhaps Rep. Peter King's weekend rant on Jackson being a "pervert, child molester and pedophile" wouldn't have been quite so off-putting. For that matter, perhaps King wouldn't have even said it, as it seemed to have come from a place of frustration over the the amount of time that Jackson was consuming the news cycles. Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty had a point in saying that it had gone on too long. And this is hardly a partisan issue: Many congressional Democrats are squirming with the idea of overly praising Jackson's lifestyle.)
Conversely, with the dead still "with" us, the temptation exists also for the living admirers to find still more superlatives with which to praise them.
It wasn't enough that Michael Jackson managed to bring black and white musical styles together. No, in his eulogy, Rev. Al Sharpton had to declare him the racial barrier-breaking precursor to Barack Obama. And let's not forget that, as good as Jackson's "Thriller" videos were, if it wasn't for the corporate power of CBS threatening to pull all their videos off MTV, that racial barrier might not have fallen either.
(The president's carefully worded statements about the King of Pop suggests that the father of two in the White House also instinctively recognizes Jackson's problematic dual nature.)
For Sharpton, it wasn't enough for "We Are The World" to be a good song and ultra-successful charity single. No, Michael had to be responsible for discovering famine in Africa"before Live-Aid," Sharpton gushed.
In fact, Jackson and Lionel Richie were inspired by Bob Geldof's Band-Aid single, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" which was a huge worldwide hit over the holidays in 1984. The duo wrote WATW in time for the '84 American Music Awards, gathered the talent -- and the rest is history.
Did WATW's success enable Geldof to put on a Live-Aid far greater than he could have ever imagined (in Philadelphia. AND London, for example)? Absolutely. But the fact remains Jackson followed Geldof's example, just as he and the Jacksons built upon the music of earlier cross-racial trailblazers -- many of whom recorded for Motown.
Point is: Michael Jackson was an amazing talent -- with more than a few emotional "issues," as the saying goes. But why the need to pump him up even higher than his own prodigious efforts already did? If anything helped contribute to Jackson's fall in later life, it was his own perfectionism that made it impossible for him to live up to the monstrous talent that he had created.
Like all people, Jackson wasn't a saint. Like all of us, he was a sinner. But to the extent that Pete King states? That's still a question that will linger for many a year. But, he's not quite the demon King wants to make him.
But amazing as he was, he wasn't the deity Sharpton wants to portray either. Superbly talented, yes, but stunningly haunted and tortured as well, with afflictions which led him to certainly harm himself -- and possibly others as well.
But again, that is for historians to decide. Perhaps the one thing that was truly worth waiting for in Tuesday's memorial was Jackson's 11-year old daughter Paris speaking in public for the first time, "Ever since I was born, Daddy has been the best father you could ever imagine. And I just wanted to say I love him — so much."
That was, the appropriate poignant coda to a too-long public mourning. At a certain point, grief must become personal, owned by those who knew the deceased best. That moment has at last been reached.
For now, finally, it can be said: Michael Jackson, R.I.P.
The articles and personal testimonials are all very nice, but i's the pictures that make one's blood boil. When you look at the cherubic little black boy with eyes alternately showing irrepressible joy and a hint of shyness (almost sadness) and then see the more recent pictures of him, the question screams out -- "HOW!?? How could this have happened to this person?" Even when putting the ugly molestation stuff aside, just look at Michael Jackson and one realizes how things went terribly terribly wrong.
Yes, taking note of the ridiculous excesses of Neverland and everything else, a lot of this deterioration falls on Jackson's own head: He had all this talent and allowed his own ego and narcissism to drive himself hundreds of millions into debt.
But then again, if you've turned on the television of the last few days -- or checked the stories on the Internet -- you realize that with Michael Jackson, whatever he did to himself, there were at least a half-dozen people never too far away to help him ease on down the road to damnation.
It's as vivid in the barely a week since death as it was in his life. Joe Jackson, the so-called "patriarch" of the family who, in his 80's can't let a media opportunity pass without shilling his new record company or some garbage that is being released on Blu-Ray disc. Goodness knows, if Billy Mays hadn't died a couple of days after Michael, you know Joe would have hired him to do the evening infomercial selling the memorabilia.
As horrible a man as Joe Jackson has been reported to be as a father -- the severe beatings when recording sessions didn't go right, for example -- one is tempted to give him a modicum of slack. As a 40-something black man, I'm uncomfortable judging the choices made by a man several decades my senior who -- growing up in an America with many states having Jim Crow laws -- saw the talent within his children and wanted to harness it in the best way possible to rise the entire family out of poverty. He played the hand dealt him -- and it was not done pretty.
That said, after decades of success, when he helped produce the biggest star in the world, someone who made himself and his family millionaires many times over (nearly all of which was squandered), is it really the case that his son's death is seen as just another hook with which he can gain one more buck in his dotage? His son essentially had his soul squeezed out of him -- left as a walking drained husk well before his heart gave out -- and this is the best Joe Jackson can do before his son is even buried in the ground? Just squeeze still more blood from a stone.
But this is why Michael Jackson is dead -- because those in his orbit, even those tangentially, can never subsume their own personal dramas for their supposedly beloved relative or friend. And, standing front and center, right by the rapacious Joe -- the political ministers of black America, Revs. Jesse Jackson (no relation, as much as it galls him) and Al Sharpton.
Michael's death has renewed the simmering rivalry between the political ministers and one-time presidential candidates. Did they step in to try and provide some order to the growing chaotic circus around all things Jackson? Hah! They had to become part of the show, of course! Thus, Jesse was zooming to Los Angeles within 24 hours of Michael's death to emerge as yet another spokesman to declare that the family wasn't satisfied with the first autopsy and requested another one.
Meanwhile, Sharpton held court in New York, rushing to the Apollo Theatre to take the lead in East Coast mourning. Sharpton, of course, has practice at this: He orchestrated the James Brown viewing and wake at the Apollo three years ago. In fairness, he and Brown truly were close: Sharpton's once signature pompadour hairstyle was directly modeled after the Godfather of Soul's. While he may have known Michael for 35 years, he was never quite as much an intimate of the King of Pop. Regardless, Sharpton was in California Monday before zooming back to the Big Apple to lead a cheering, dancing mini-revival memorial back at the Apollo.
For his part, Jesse Jackson knows something about gaining some personal prestige by being in the right place at the right time when a legend known as a "King" passes in untimely fashion. A late-era member of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s entourage, Jackson notoriously kept wearing a sweater stained with King's blood for days after the April 4, 1968 assassination. How the blood even got on the sweater was a point of mystery itself -- a fact that Sharpton didn't mind reminding media of some years back, when a reporter brought up Tawana Brawley between the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. Regardless, Jesse has also made himself available to record a public service message to prevent overzealous fans from killing themselves over their idol's death.
It's sad. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson have become famous themselves, controversial though their methods may be. But are they so starved for attention that they must bask in the reflected glory of a truly tragic entertainment figure? To ask the question is to answer it.
No wonder Jesse and Al needed to rush to be in front of microphones by Joe Jackson's side. Birds of a feather flock together. And vultures love to share in a tasty meal.
Madscribe: My final word (well, almost) on the whole Vick-dogfighting thing. I find it amusing that two African-Americans (just so's y'all don't think I just beat up on white folk) that have made their fortunes by basically treating black people like dogs through cultural pollution, have joined forces with PETA and are jumping on the anti-Vick bandwagon.
Of course, jack legs like Sharpton and Simmons are thankfully on the decline thanks to the presence of men like BarakObama, Cory Booker, Patrick Deval and others. I like how Sharpton has gone from black nationalist race hustler to ... multicultural race hustler by jumping on the PETA bandwagon ("Coming this fall to ABC, Al Sharpton starring in the new western, 'Have Camera, Will Travel'"). A progressive!!
No-talents like Sharpton and Simmons realize that black thought has surpassed (and is too diverse to ultimately submit to) the skin-fascist appeals of Sharpton types. Of course, the pimping game has gotten so tough that even Sharpton's brother-in-fascist-alms, Louis Farrakhan, is letting white people join his Nation of Islam (guess black folks got tired of being the only ones paying for the luxury cars and homes of Screwy Louis and his family).
All that to say, this is Vick's Maurice Clarett moment. The Virginia Code is explicit on dogfighting as an infraction, and there's allegedly too much evidence for Vick to play dumb about the whole matter (a felony in that state). The law is the law, no matter how stupid we think any state or federal law is (and laws protecting animals outside of a private property context are massively stupid to me).
Hopefully, in addition to good defense counsel and unlike Clarett, Vick stays the hell away from Jim Brown types and has a parent or morally significant other to whack him over the head for continuing to associate with bad crowds after finding professional success.
Advice to Vick: Do the white Democratic-Republican politician thing, give back the "dirty" money you made to a "clean" charity, go to "rehab" where you find Jesus, Buddha, Muhammad, or Deepak Chopra; convert to vegetarianism, and tell the world you "changed." The American people love the publicly penitent, even if most Americans are moral hypocrites in their own damned private lives.
Finally, in response to those who thought I was too harsh in calling PETA (exactly what it is) an enabler of domestic terrorism (go look up the legal definition of "terrorism" in just about any federal or state code), I'll let you enjoy this little expose below from my favorite atheist, libertarian, meat-eating (but drug free) raconteur. Teach on, my white brothers!
That's not to give Sharpton undue credit, but his presence as Giuliani's, ahem, bete noire, is an historical fact. Furthermore, author Perry Bacon overlooks that the relationship between the mayor and New York blacks began to deteriorate less than a month after Giuliani took office partly due to Sharpton's orchestrated outrage over a police confrontation outside of a Harlem mosque.
This was perceived at the time as Sharpton and Co.'s initial "testing" of the mayor. Giuliani refused to take the bait and continued to keep Sharpton at arm's length. That was the right thing to do. Of course, as the article suggests, Giuliani's error was in his relations -- or lack thereof -- with other, far more moderate, black leaders.
Some Pander, Please, With A Side Dish of Conspiracy
How wonderful that Democratic presidential candidates treate black audiences with such maturity and intelligence, as evidenced here by Joe Biden's Thursday address at Al Sharpton's National Action Network conference:
Joe Biden, who followed the former president to the podium, jokingly thanked him for warming up the audience and said he'd also "warmed up the presidency" for him.
Biden, the Senate Foreign Relations committee chairman, called for military action to resolve the killing in Darfur and promoted his plan for peace in Iraq that would divide the country along ethnic lines.
He said Republicans - from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich to President Bush and White House political adviser Karl Rove - had "wallowed in the politics of polarization."
"I would argue, since 1994 with the Gingrich revolution, just take a look at Iraq, Venezuela, Katrina, what's gone down at Virginia Tech, Darfur, Imus. Take a look. This didn't happen accidentally, all these things," he said.
Oh, really? So the administration intentionally whipped up Hurricane Katrina?...gave Cho the weapons and mental sickness to go kill 30-some people...encouraged Sudan Muslims to go slaughter the blacks in Darfur?
And how many administration officials went on Imus -- as opposed to Democratic Senators, including Joe Biden?
Speaking of 1994, does Biden also think that the Rwanda genocide -- which Bill Clinton did nothing to stop that year -- also "didn't happen accidentally"?
(Thanks to long-time RT observer ERA for the heads-up.)
Madscribe quietly fuming: Well, I don't know about RAG, but this is my absolute last word on the phony Imus affair (fingers crossed!). By way of blogosphere regurgitation, I recommend Jason Whitlock's column on the whole mess, which I came across on BookerRising (I still like Shay's site, even if she goes bonkers and Sharpton-like on the issue of Harold Ford, Jr., black men and interracial dating).
It's nice to know that I'm not the only black male in America that thinks this mess was much Hairdo about nothing, and see it for what it really was: a way for poverty pimp Al Sharpton to demonstrate his meager talent of racial huckstering, enabled by white journalists and media folk whose only concept of black leadership is limited to Sharpton and Jesse Jackson; as well as for talentless black journalists that have nothing better to write or research in terms of important (or UNCOVERED) black news and issues, go for the easy, meaningless water cooler talk of cable news networks. I haven't felt the need to renew my membership in the National Association of Black Journalists, and this whole stinking, anti-First Amendment episode (guess journalists of all backgrounds have forgotten what THAT is) isn't going to make me reach for my check book.
Update: Okay, SECOND to last word (told you that I had to cross my fingers). Justine Nicholas at LewRockwell.com makes a pointed libertarian-economic case on why attempts to silence people like Imus will ultimately fail at improving race relations. An English professor at City University of New York, Ms. Nicholas also makes an interesting distinction between two common words in the lexicon of modern black thugs, which have been (unfortunately) much discussed in the past week.
Consider the articles of Nicolas and Whitlock to be the perfect bookends on a very stupid episode in the national dialogue.
Updated Update: Imus Fights Back.I knew this was coming. Sharpton claims we need to "have a discussion on what is appropriate on the airwaves." I can't wait to see what an unchained Imus, coupled with Opie and Anthony, and a host of others who are starting to feel their Wheaties, will do to confront Herr Sharpton and his Hair-Raising Hordes.
Mother of All Updates: "Well, Don, when I got fired it took me a whole roll of LifeSavers to get over it ... " If it helps to cheer folks up, here's a classic slice of Al Sharpton at work. Looking back, all I could think was that the Good Reverend looks like Prince's bass player from the early 1980s after an airhose was shoved up his butt.
