He hunted down a child and killed him, and you're telling me this is somehow legal?

[attackfish]

George Zimmerman was found Not Guilty.  I feel like I'm going to throw up.  I have never been so ashamed of the state of my birth.

Please sign the NAACP's petition to the U.S. Department of justice to try George Zimmerman for violation of Trayvon Martin's Civil Rights

Comments

[meganinhiding.livejournal.com]

Well I signed the petition; I can't imagine what his parents must be going through. My mother, who has five grandsons, was fairly devastated and had been keeping track of the trial.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

My parents and grandmother and I just started sobbing. These people had to listen to that man call their son a thug in open court after he murdered him, and he got away with it. I watched his stepfather crying in the gallery throughout the trial. That poor family.

[lalunatique.livejournal.com]

Can't get more articulate than this tonight.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I don't have words. I actually don't have words.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

I couldn't have said it better myself. BTW, how did you manage to get this posted in your comment? I've tried but for some reason it doesn't let me.

[lalunatique.livejournal.com]

I used the HTML img tag after uploading the pic to my postimage account. Because some gifs are worth going the extra mile for.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I imagine that's a gif you get a lot of mileage out of.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Ah, well it certainly worth it. Great pic!!

[lokifan]

This is horrific.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Incredibly so.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

If you want something that really turns your stomach, not that this doesn't, but add it to what I posted on my LJ and you won't be doing much sleeping tonight.

http://water-soter.livejournal.com/38493.html

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I'll sleep fine. I had something a great deal like that already happen to me a few years ago. I picked up my friend from her house near campus, and I was driving her home around 9:00 PM for a sleepover, and the cops stopped us. I had forgotten to turn on my lights, because the campus was lit up like a Christmas tree. They directed me to turn down a dark alley and stop in front of a deserted store front. Then, they told me I had to be drunk, and started harassing me and my friend. First they demanded to see my license registration and insurance, then refused to allow my friend to open the glove compartment (where everybody keeps their registration and proof of insurance, I mean, come on) because there could be a gun! Then they spent an hour berating us for being uncooperative, refusing to allow us to call home, and telling me I was going to go to jail. I refused a breathalyzer, because I'm allergic to alcohol, and didn't want any traces of it left on the breathalyzer to be inhaled, but I was anxious, and when I'm anxious, I use very big words and perfect diction. I was pretty clearly sober. About halfway through, they decided, yes, I was sober, but I was clearly too young to be driving after dark, or with an unlicensed person in the car (eighteen years) and that my license which listed me as 20 was fake. I asked again to call my mother to have her confirm my age and my alcohol allergy. I was panicking so badly I stopped being able to breathe and needed my inhaler and oxygen, and they wouldn't let me get either out of my back seat. My best friend lectured them about bullying a disabled girl while they shouted at us, shined flashlights in our faces, and told us we were going to jail. Finally, I had enough. Wheezing, and terrified I was going to die, that I wouldn't be able to get out of there before my brain ran out of oxygen, or that the cops were going to rape us and kill us, I said that they had three choices. They could let me call my mother and have her confirm my age, arrest us, and give us our phone call, whereupon I would call my mother and confirm my age, or let us go. If they didn't do one of those three things, I would sue them for false imprisonment. They let us go. My friend and I were too terrified to leave my car until I was home. My friend crawled into the back seat to get my oxygen rather than open the door. The whole time they were yelling at us and shining their flashlights in our eyes, and holding us hostage in my car, I could see the pleasure on their faces.

This isn't moving towards a police state. That would suggest that this is new.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Oi! Yeah, I had something more minor happen to me. I was driving through a school zone and once I passed it I passed a scooter. Then a cop comes out from nowhere and he tickets me even though I was out of the school zone. For passing in a school zone. We went to court, I presented my case. I could tell that the judge believed me, but she asked the cop if he was sure that it was in the school zone and he said yes. I left there nearly bawling my eyes out from the frustration and anger. It's not the same thing, but jeez, these people.

I'm sorry this happened to you. I'm sorry this happens to anyone. These cops take advantage that we are young, or were at the time in my case, and they can scare us into submission. I'm going to do a documentary on this. Seriously, and now this kid is dead because of a law that means that anyone can shot anyone else as long as they feel that their life is in danger. Right.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I have a whole set of long and depressing stories of my interactions with cops going back to when I was still in the single digits in age. I've never once committed a crime. I'm a middle class white girl. If it's this bad for me, how is it for people who aren't middle class white girls? I am constantly amazed to learn that most middle class white mothers tell their kids the cops were there to protect me. My mother instead told me to keep my head down and smile no matter what the cops did or said. I am constantly surprised how many other middle class white people make it out of childhood trusting cops so that when they find out about crap like this, they feel betrayed.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm not middle class nor white. I'm Mexican-American, whatever the hell that means. I was raised in Mexico but was born in the US and let me tell you, the border patrol make these cops look like puppies. Cute, fluffy puppies. Especially if they're hispanic or white women. They treat people crossing the border like dirt. If you're Mexican, even worse. Not to mention the cops in El Paso, the hispanic ones. They are horrible toward Mexican people.

I'm lucky that I look white and speak English fairly well. My dad was half white and half black and they always checked his ID and passport. Also, since all three of us, my siblings and I look very white, they would ask for ours passports all the time when crossing with him. My mom's whiter and looks more Spanish than Mexican, but one time, when she was younger, her car died in a gas station and the guy all but accused her of being a terrorist and called the cops. One came, but he was hispanic and treated my mom like dirt, threatening her until my mom was finally able to restart her car and drive off.

When I was born, the doctors left a piece of placenta in her. When she complained that she felt sick, this was in El Paso, they just placed her in an empty room because she was boing "difficult". When my dad went to look for her and she told him what had happened, he tore into them. When they finally took the placenta out, they did it without any anesthesia.

For myself, I'm really tall so most people don't mess with me. But after September 11th, I was telling the sigh language head, I was studying sign language at the time, that they should hunt those bastards down and take them out. I made the sigh for kill for emphasis. The next day, she took me out of class and had me wait in the hallway for campus cops to escort me off campus. I was shocked. I didn't know what was happening. I was so scared. Two weeks later, when I went to meet with the Vice President of student services and I explained what happened, he was like, WTF, but of course they let the suspension stand since I had been out two weeks and wouldn't be able to recover. So I lost that semester, and because I had financial aid, I had to repay that. I lost the entire year. That woman was white and blond.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I had a cop stand on my front yard and scream at the house with a bullhorn, threatening my family if they didn't tell them where my brother was hiding. He was wanted for felony burglary and conspiracy, for a thirty dollar dine and ditch. My brother and his friends got drunk and went to a restaurant, and everybody thought everybody else was paying. My brother went home and had my mother call with her credit card number. However, the restaurant had already called the cops before my brother had gotten home. Now, the restaurant did not want to press charges, but my family was known as a trouble making family. My brother had some behavioral issues (i.e. he was a defiant little shit, end enjoyed antagonizing authority figures) and I was severely and violently disabled. Worse, my mother was high up in a campaign to keep a powerful developer from doubling the size of our town. We lived in a small town with way too many cops per capita. So the DA pressed charges anyway. My brother, being my brother, fled the state. My parents didn't know where he was, and if they did, they wouldn't have told the cops anyway. So the cops pulled crap like that. They also waited until they knew no one was home but me and my babysitter and then made harassing phone calls. To a ten year old girl with some pretty stiff cognitive disabilities. The DARE cops also harassed me at school, telling my teachers and all of the other kids that I was obviously a drug user and violent. I was this geeky little kid who never got in any trouble except when I was having a seizure. It took them two years and my father getting appointed to the city planning commission for them to stop.

That teacher, dear God. I can't ay I'm surprised. I've talked before about my experiences in the education system, but what I might not have mentioned was the number of times I've been suspended or punished because I was inconvenient. There was the time I was suspended because a girl threw a textbook at my face. And the sheer volume of times I was suspended because I had a seizure, or the time I was suspended and kicked out of class because a teacher lied and said I threw a ring at her, when the entire class backed me up and said they saw me throw it at the floor. I have absolutely no faith in systems and institutions.

There is something special about the cops in the southwest. I'm from Albuquerque, and if they couldn't get money out of it or harass Hispanics with it, it wasn't worth their time. My brother caught someone committing check fraud with his checks and turned them over to the police with enough evidence to convict. They let him go, because they didn't give a fuck.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Ah, the wonderful world of "the man". I'm so doing a documentary on this, though what I can do documentaries on could probably fill a building.

We've been fortunate not to have had that many problems. I tend to intimidate people so they usually don't mess with me. But yeah, I tend to know my rights and don't tend to sit down and let them do anything. But there's not a lot what you can do when they have the power and you don't.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I would love to see that documentary.

I'm tiny. And frequently on oxygen. People mess with me all the freaking time. Fortunately criminology and law classes in college have left me with a thorough understanding of my rights and police procedure. And I have a scary smile.

But there's not a lot what you can do when they have the power and you don't.

That's the thing. That's why I was so scared in the car that time. I knew the cops were holding me illegally, so what else were they willing to do?

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

I'm 6'3" and have a mean streak a mile wide. I tend to make a point of being nice and friendly but I have an air about me. I grew up in Juarez, Mx and we were considered upper middle class or lower high class. Class is very important in Mexico, so we were pretty well off. So we have that air, I guess. I have no idea. I try to be nice and not intimidate people, but I'm pretty straight forward and blunt, so that tends to make people . . . er, wary? And smart, apparently, at least that's what they tell me. So I have the opposite problem in a way. People tend to avoid me so I'm extra nice and polite to balance it out. Crazy, huh?


##That's the thing. That's why I was so scared in the car that time. I knew the cops were holding me illegally, so what else were they willing to do?##

Yeah, I so get you. I grew up in Juarez but the local cops don't mess with people of my "class". But the federales, those scare the crap our of me.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

4'11". And until recently, I had blonde hair down past my hips. Now it's dyed red and in a pixie cut. I have big green eyes. I looked like Disney's Rapunzel. I am about as physically intimidating as it is possible for an adult human to be. And I'm freaking gorgeous. This isn't bragging, it's the truth. I'm very good looking. Because of this, I've learned how to make myself intimidating, but it's a bluff, and I'm always terrified someone will call it.

The thing is, I have class privilege up the wazoo. Somehow I'm the exception to the rule that cops leave white upper middle class girls whose parents are in local government alone. Seriously, you usually can't get the cops to go after white upper middle class girls whose parents are in local government who are actually committing crimes. Not me. It's a gift.

I speak Arabic, Hebrew, and Russian, so while I was in college, I had every letter agency trying to recruit me. Those guys are scary.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

LOL!!! Well, those languages are very wanted, especially right now and three, wow. I speak two, English and Spanish. I know some Japanese, Sign Language but that's about it. Spanish is my main language, but I can write, read, speak and translate from one to the other. I spent seventeen years learning to write in English well enough to be able to right a novel.

I'm pretty too. I have dark brown hair that's wavy, it's in the Victoria Beckham cut, short in the back and long in the front. It's about shoulder length. I have green eyes that change color depending on my clothing. I'm white, skin color that is. Sometimes I'm surprised by how white I look.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

With my blonde/red hair, green eyes, and extremely pale skin, no one would ever mistake me for anything but white, however, through some weird quirk of Jewish genetics, I look like an Arab that got bleached. I didn't realize it until I was in college and hanging around Arabs all the time and kept having to explain that I wasn't actually half Arab. I've got the nose, cheekbones, face shape, eye shape, but I'm really pale. One girl took a black headscarf and did my hair up and took a picture to prove it to me once. Once you take my light hair out of the equation... My half brother also looks very Arab. He's half Jewish, half southern Italian. Airports are fun. Someday I need to tell you about the time they made me unpack my bags, because they were "suspicious." They were full of clothes, sheet music, and a flute, which they said they thought was a pipe bomb.

My primary motivation for learning Russian was to read all my favorite Russian novels in the original. Then I found out half of them were written in French.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Man, people are jerkoffs. Yeah, it's funny because once my brother gets a tan, he looks Arab too. In fact, I look like I'm from India if I do my make-up a certain way. Like with heavy, dark eyeliner, it's freaky!

Heh, my Grandfather was Jewish and so was my uncle. I don't know what happened to my Uncle but my brother hinted that he may have been a criminal. And of course, considering the times, WWII, I'm thinking he helped Nazis. I haven't asked or investigated, but I don't know, it just feels like that kind of thing. My Grandfather and Uncle both changed their last names so I have no idea.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

I'm a natural blonde with thick black freaking eyebrows. Genetics is freaky stuff.

Extended families always seem to have the worst things buried in them. My mom's cousin I'm pretty sure is a pedophile, and my step-grandfather's father was a bonafide Nazi. My dad's family claims to be part Choctaw, but Dad and I took a good long look at as much of the genealogy as we could figure out, and are pretty sure it's just a cover for Jewish ancestry, especially since I almost certainly inherited two Ashkenazi Jewish diseases from him (mom's family is well documented and has no history of one, and the other needs two parents with it), which means I've got it on both sides. Given that Dad's family is virulently anti-Semetic, I find this hilarious. It' really weird and a little frightening just how many Nazis and serious anti-Semites I have in my nice Jewish family tree.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Most of the really horrible things my family members have done are stories their victims (who are also mostly family) would like to be kept private, but suffice it to say that sexual and non-sexual violence has shown up repeatedly in my mother's side of the family. And there was the time my grandfather's mother chased my grandmother around the house with a kitchen knife, screaming about how she was going to kill her, while my grandmother cradled my baby mother in her arms. There's also a lot of drug addiction, which I prefer to keep private, because several of my family members are working incredibly hard on their sobriety and would not appreciate me telling the world about their struggles. On my father's side, my father's mother and my father's sister are both extremely abusive to their children. I haven't dug further, because I'm terrified to find out.

A big part of the reluctance of many people to acknowledge the racism of their ancestors, and how they benefited from the exploitation of others is that they want to think of those ancestors as good people. Since I already know that this great uncle over here, and this great great grandfather over here, and this great grandmother over here were horrible, evil people, thinking of them as racist causes me no pain.

Remember how I mentioned I'm allergic to alchohol? Inebriation isn't even an option! *sobs*

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Heh, I think it also has to do with the whole, runs in the family mentality. If you have evil people in your family, it means that there's something wrong with all of you. I have no problem knowing the horrible past of my family or acknowledging it because I don't really care. I just want to know for knowing's sake, not really for any other reason. I see a lot of stories where one kid murders another and all the comment, well most of the comments people make have to do with what sort of people his family are, or what kind of parents would raise such a child. I remember hearing about serial killers' families and how they had to change their names and move away to get any peace. Somehow people forget that people make their *own* choices and they could have the best family in the world, the best parents and still turn out . . . well, not bad necessarily, but their actions certainly leaving you a little chilly.

Heh, I don't drink. Not because I can't, but because I chose not to. It has more to do with the fact that I hate losing control. I'm a control freak and I don't like waking up and not knowing where I am. Also, it just doesn't appeal to me. I like fruity drinks, though, but alcohol is yucky (:-P) tasting and so is beer. I like things that taste good, if they don't, unless they have some physical benefit for me, I ain't going near it.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I've known bullies who were taught to be that way by their families, and racists who were taught to be that way by their families, and abuse victims who grew up to be wonderful people with deep wells of trauma, and the loving tolerant children of horrible people. And I've known horrible people from great families. The one thing I've found though, is that family always has an effect. I've talked about before, for example, how my first stalker's warped family helped enable and encourage her behavior (though I think she still would have been a psychopath without her enabling family), and I may have mentioned a girl who helped drive me out of my elementary school, but whose mother found out, and worked on her behavior and sense of ethics, and two years later, we went to middle school together, and she had become a lovely human being. I never blame a family unless I know a whole lot about what went on, but it always has an effect.

I have never met a mind altering substance I liked. I have similar issues to you with regards to control, multiplied, probably, by my seizure disorder and how out of control my brain was for most of my childhood. Loss of control over my brain is frightening and deeply unpleasant. Doesn't mean every so often I'm like "seriously? Seriously? Nobody should handle this shit without alcohol."

Okay, that's not true. I liked my antidepressants until hey started giving me seizures, but that's a little different.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Oh don't get me wrong, I completely agree that family always has some affect on the person, just that they should not be held accountable for the actions of the individual unless it's proven that they in fact enabled that kind of behavior. But most families are immediately judged and held accountable and that I find unjust as well as unfair. Some though, deserve their share of the blame at least.

I suffered from bad depression. I mean, extreme as in cutting, wanting to die sort of depression for years, and I had no control over my emotions through most of my youth, it was horrible. Not to mention feeling stupid because of my dyslexia and social incompetence. I just didn't get people and didn't know how to behave around them so I went around imitating others' behavior and I annoyed people a lot because of that. So yeah, control is a major issue for me, but yeah, I so get what you're saying.

Jeez, I was so clueless about everything around me and lived mostly in my head so I didn't notice a lot of things when I was younger, so I guess I lucked out because if someone was bullying me, I didn't notice at all. I just thought they were jerks.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

And it goes the other way too. "He's awful because of his family. Don't punish him, feel sorry for him!" I'm sorry. If he's awful, and his family taught him how to be awful, there's blame enough for all. I agree that many innocent families are also blamed unfairly. I think it's one more aplication of the "just world" fallacy. "I'm good, my family is good, therefor, non of my children will ever end up like that." The favorite thought process of victim-blamers and bigots everywhere.

(by the way, your family affects you, it has an effect. Weird English language crap FTW)

I'm sorry. I never cut, but I almost became an agoraphobe, and had myself convinced of my general worthlessness for several years. I spent a lot of time with my mom or dad sleeping in bed with me so that they could be sure I wouldn't get up in the middle of the night to kill myself. It's a horrible feeling, and I hope you're in a better place mentally now.

I'm not the most socially aware person either, and at the time, I was dealing with really severe cognitive issues, but being grabbed and held down by a gang of kids while they shoved sand in my mouth and tried to choke me made me realize really quickly what was happening.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

###"I'm good, my family is good, therefor, non of my children will ever end up like that." The favorite thought process of victim-blamers and bigots everywhere.###

Indeed. In Mexico class matters a lot and there's lines people don't cross, it's just not done, but when someone does cross that line all hell breaks loose.

I so wish people would stop blaming their actions on others things and people and just accept responsibility for their actions. But of course not, because poor them, they had bad childhoods or parents that didn't love them or they were high/drunk . . . nope, sorry, no excuse!

Yeah, accept and except, I always get those two confused, thanks for the heads up!

People didn't mess with me physically, since that's not the sort of thing that is acceptable in Mexico. If someone's being a bully, in public school at least, they freeze them out until they either break down or apologize. In private that's a completely different environment, but I never saw anyone mess with someone physically and certainly not me. Everything else was fair game.

I wasn't as bad as that, but I felt like I didn't deserve anything, and my family thought that if they were hard on me, I would get mad and be all like, you know what, I'm going to stop with the pity party and be better at everything just to show them. Yeah, that didn't work out so well.

I am mentally much better. I probably wouldn't recognize myself from then, I'm very different. I don't let people walk all over me anymore and I've learned to like myself and not freak out every time I make a mistake or social or otherwise. I used to go over it in my head constantly until I convinced myself what a worthless person I was, but now, I'm like, okay, I made a mistake, learn from it and move on.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

*hugs* I'm so glad!

Physical bullying is tolerated in US schools to a ridiculous extent. Emotional bullying is barely acknowledged as real. People are only just starting to cotton onto the fact that maybe bullying is not some cute little rite of passage.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Yeah. It's incredible how many times a day I hear people excuse bullying as part of growing up. But it's like people need to torture one another to make themselves feel good about themselves. And they don't let up. I honestly don't know what schools can do about this when parents and teachers and administrators just stand back and do nothing. What can be done?

Thanks, I do feel so much more mature. My accident also helped me gained perspective. Life is funny that way.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Yeah, bullying is part of growing up for so many of us, but you know, not that long ago, polio was a part of growing up.

[water-soter.livejournal.com]

Snort, yeah, that is so very true. It's a plague on our society on every level. Sigh, takes a shot in your honor.

[lalunatique.livejournal.com]

What the... these stories are horrific. Is America turning into a third-world country or what? Oh yeah, highest incarceration rate in the world. Nevermind.

[attackfish.livejournal.com]

Turning into. Ahahahahaha!

Highest wealth gap too. *smiles brightly*