re: #1 Targetpractice

I get the racial aspects of this case, but still believe that they should be secondary to the reality that this law has made murder legal, so long as you can think of a good enough lie to claim “self-defense” and the only other witness is dead.

The discussion about self-defense laws is interesting in itself, but it’s also a distraction from this tragic case.

The real problem is what Targetpractice says above. Until I heard about this case, the police would have been the last people in the world I would have expected to look the other way, when confronted with murder. The police didn’t even bother to run a background check on George Zimmerman before they let him go.

Until this week, if I heard the phrase “to protect and serve white people”, I would have considered it insane left-wing hyperbole. Now, as the tragedy of Trayvon pulls at my heartstrings, there’s also the nagging incredulity that for some police departments, apparently “to protect and serve white people” is not far from the truth.

I’m not African American. But neither am I a blue-eyed white Christian. This may be the first time in my entire life that I can relate, if only a little, to the feeling that there are many places in America that it’s not safe for me to visit.