Why does everyone keep bringing this up as if the FBI or the Police are the holy grail of judging things that are subjective at best.
People bring up the FBI report because they are not independent. The FBI is the Dept. of Justice representative tasked with finding racial bias.
It still doesn't make it okay that a man would be suspected to be a criminal, and consequently shot, based on the way he dresses and the fact that he was "loitering." Neither of these is explicitly racist, but because of societal expectations and norms, certain races and their cultural habits are at a disadvantage.
Strangely racist of you here; there are no cultural habits that I am aware of in black culture that makes blacks wander in the rain. Your ascribing cultural significance to specific behavior: like saying blacks go jogging in jeans and timberland boots that?s why police don't understand why they are running from the police, they are just jogging. You're either being naive or attempting to overcompensate for perceived racist tendencies.
I use quotation marks because as we discussed earlier, loitering is not considered a crime. The "fact" that Martin looked suspicious is what we are debating. His mannerisms and behavior apparently made him so. Are they strictly guided by his race? Probably not entirely, but we are all in some way guided by our own race and cultural upbringing.
True, I agree that there are racial and cultural guidestones that we subscribe to mostly without knowing. However, I don't think that Trayvon Martin was displaying any, other than a propensity for watermelon, when loitering in the area. W.E.B. Dubois called it "second sight" the ability to "see" what whites see of blacks but also what whites see in themselves. I always think of this in these incidents there is a wave of "burden of white non-racism" comes out. In white culture there are examples of ?the imaginary better me? Fight Club, American Beauty, Up In The Air. That deep down whites are fine that there is a system that actually forces us to be the oppressor.
That given the opportunity the white ?imaginary better me? can be made manifest by white outrage on behalf of blacks. From time to time the white culture serves up a testament to our non-racism. An aggrieved entitlement inherited from brutality thus I must demonstrate my value by apology. Such examples like Mississippi Burning then after the movie we dragged out that old racist murder like a little gift.
I clip your quote for space but you mentioned white shooters which is interesting. Black shooters are often said to suffer from ?socio-economic problems? culture, environment, economy. In Chicago a dozen or so people were shot, one died in front of a club, the shooters are thought to be gang related. The thought is that white culture has oppressed black culture creating a second society that, economically disadvantaged, must turn to crimes such as murder.
White shooters are often said to suffer from mental illness; that the problem was specific to them, and not us. Do we ignore the idea that black shooters are mentally ill because their community is broken through racism? Or are we ignoring social issues in white culture by claiming mentally illness, thus escaping community vilification?