Making Trayvon’s Skittles and Ice Tea Criminally Suspect
This came to my attention via Wonkette, so credit is due for that, and also for her explanation of sizzurp, which is something I’m clueless about.
NB: I have included links for purpose of citation. I do not recommend going to any of them, except Wonkette.
As per an article released the 17th, Gateway Pundit is now circulating speculation that Trayvon Martin’s purchases—Skittles and Arizona-brand fruit juice—were to be used to create “lean” — aka sizzurp, purple drank. His source is American Thinker, which claims that a 2011 Facebook interaction between Martin and a friend included the former requesting a hook-up for codeine, to make drank. Recall that Martin’s Facebook contents are public because a white supremacist name Klancannon hacked it to assist in creating a smear campaign against Martin, which makes the information not only fruit of a poison tree, but also of dubious veracity…as the same neo-nazi sources also presented photos of several young men as “photos of Trayvon Martin being a thug.”
Hoft links to an article on the same “speculation” on white nationalist site TheNewsCommenter.
Both Hoft and NewsCommenter also supply an imbedded video entitled Trayvon Martin Sizzurp, which is a video still of the four ingredients they claim are in the narcotic mixture…which are inaccurate, since it’s Jolly Ranchers, not Skittles—the latter won’t dissolve…and 41 seconds of hip hop music. The video is the creation of a YouTube user bigDADDDY45, who as well as being an enthusiastic supporter of George Zimmerman defends him with statements such as:
You’re blaming the victim, fuckballs.
George didn’t start the fight and he did nothing wrong. YOU are sympathizing with the n****rs… YOU obviously NEVER went to a black school or lived in a black neighborhood. N****RS ONLY understand violence as a resolution to all problems.
Basically go fuck yourself if you’re going to defend Martin in ANY way.
A quick perusal of his videos and comments generates a picture of a man obsessed with (1) firearms, (2) the need to defend against black people, (3) the idea that liberals, blacks, and women are manipulating white men in the USA.
With each iteration of the process of blaming Trayvon Martin for his own death, the wingnuts are moving further and further into reliance on racist tropes. I can no longer perceive what the resting depth of this descent will be, as this most recent speculation has achieved oceanic-trench levels of stupid.
And what’s amazing is that all of this is in-graciousness in victory: it is not enough that there was a Not Guilty verdict. They cannot bear that the Trayvon Martin shooting could be the product of misunderstanding, nor that there be a lingering question of Martin’s right to defend himself against a stranger following him. Rather the vocalizations about the inherent guilt of Martin — that he could only be criminal and suspicious — have gotten louder.