Oh, this is rich:
MrScorpio (50,040 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
George Zimmerman is all-American
We are a nation of immigrants and descendants of immigrants from different parts of the globe.
As such, a blurring of the color lines is only a natural outcome away from the established norms of racial and ethnic identity.
Those issues of race and ethnicity should eventually become less relevant, even if the issues of wealth and class are still tied somewhat to the older, more well defined definitions of racial identity.
As more people of non-specific racial backgrounds intermingle across familial and social confines, the degree to which any strict adherence to any specific definition would be diminished... Theoretically, of course.
However, in spite of the persistence of maintaining those older and less relevant definitions of race and identity, we must insist on classifying ourselves solely on the basis of individual national origin.
No matter our name, or race, or skin color, or the origin of our parents, we must insist on calling ourselves as nothing more than "Americans".
In a way, that should be our only racial identity.
However, the classication of those first and foremost who must change the dynamic are the people who are in the position of the majority. Namely, the almagamation of national origins identified as "white people".
In spite of the fact that class and wealth, as well as definitions of established norms are still entwined with racial and ethnic identity in this country, we need to reassess the importance of this way that we identify ourselves. For you see, demographics are quickly changing.
Who we identify as a the standard of Americaness today and in the future will look and sound nothing like what we've known in the past.
In the future, people of varied and non-specific racial and ethnic indentity, like Zimmerman will find themselves as the new "white". Except for the fact it really doesn't mean anything and has no basis in reality. It's all made up and thus anyone can be called white if we play that game.
But regardless of such a faulty assessment, we all must insist that purity is a myth. It always has been. This interchange of race and ethnicity has always been the norm. Especially in open societies of almagamation like ours.
It's time to define who we are, in spite of what we look like, as merely "American".
That's how the rest of the world looks at us.
We need to do the same for ourselves.
libodem (8,096 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
1. Sounds like the calm voice of reason
Well thought out and well put. Makes me a little ashamed of hatin' on Zimmerman.
We are all some delightful blend or another. That is part of what makes this a great country.
MrScorpio (50,040 posts) Profile Journal Send DU Mail Ignore
2. Basically, I don't give a damn what Zimmerman's own "race" is supposed to be
What matters are his own motives and actions.
If he chose to racially profile someone and then shoot that person to death, then he's the one in the wrong here.
How he self-identifies, in spite of his own actual ethnicity is more an issue for him than it is me.
If he lives a life where he defines himself in a faulty way (i.e., anything other than solely "American"), yet insists on focusing on the definition of others (Black-American and otherwise)… To me, that makes him wrong.
It doesn't matter what he actually is, it matters what he thinks he is… And he should have been thinking of himself and of others only in terms of being "American".
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002614395Yeah, such racism is just what you'd expect from a white hispanic.
This is a delightful little technique. The sum totality of Zimmerman's guilt has been based on the fact he's white. He's white so obviously he chased down Martin and executed and he chased down Martin and executed him because he's white.
Every other argument they have is based on refuting exculpatory evidence: the denial of blood stains, the assumption that his heavy breathing was him chasing Martin instead of returning to his vehicle, the doctored audio tape. All of it is supposed to prove Zimmerman is a racist. There is no evidence--zip, zero, zilch--to affirmatively prove that Zimmerman stalked and killed Martin out of a fit of racist pique. That Martin is dead at Zimmerman's hand has never been in dispute; however, the left wants to assign motive with nothing but emotional speculation.
Why?
Because he's not black.
Now we are treated to the high dudgeon that we--and by "we" he means "not him"--are too race conscious. You who were guilty of being racist enough to kill and now guilty of not being color blind; you who chafe at Affirmative Action and school admission quotas. You who asked that the evidence be borne-out before relinquishing the Hangman's hood to Al Sharpton. You, who abviously would except health care mandates had a Caucasian Kiucinich imposed them rather than the black Barack.
You're to blame for the hyper-racial sensitivites paralyzing the nation.
Mr. heres-O thought you should know that we--and by "we" he means "you"--need to do better.
