OBAMA, THE MEDIA, AND THE HUMPTY DUMPTY METHOD OF RACE MANIPULATION

          My previous post examined how the Obama-Holder Justice Department has reacted to the Zimmerman-Martin case as the champion and advocate of the interests of Black Americans rather than as representatives of the Nation as a whole. 

         No sooner had that piece been posted than Obama emphatically validated its theme by delivering a "surprise" Friday afternoon television soliloquy in which he repeated the same hackneyed and bogus canards regarding alleged black victimization which have been the stock-in-trade of American race hustlers for over half a century.  He continued the Administration's race-based exploitation of the Zimmerman case by invoking it as a pretext for the repeal of the numerous state Stand-Your-Ground (SYG) laws, which rightly uphold the time-honored right of Americans to defend themselves against violent predators, and by perpetuating the fallacy that the wildly disproportionate share of violent crimes committed by young blacks is somehow the fault and responsibility of the citizenry as a whole.  Obama's call for repeal of SYG laws was especially audacious, since the alternative to strengthening self-defense capacity in today's America is to place blind reliance in the protection of government law enforcement typified by Obama's politically and racially biased Justice Department.  Good luck with that.

         Obama also repeated various outright racial falsehoods in his speech, such as the claim that the death penalty is discriminatorily imposed on blacks, when in fact (as detailed in a previous post on this blog, "Two Generations of Racial Preference -- and America Still Sleeps," www.splashingrocks.blogspot.com) the opposite is true -- white murderers are far more likely to receive the death penalty than their black counterparts, as demonstrated by the annual statistics published by the Justice Department's own Bureau of Justice Statistics.   Indeed, the casual assertion of out-and-out racial falsehoods as though they were well-established truths is a specialty of this president.  As but one example, he blithely asserted that "[t]here are very few African American men in this country who haven't had the experience of being followed when they were shopping in a department store."  To which I respond:  Nonsense.  Where is the evidence for this wildly hyperbolic assertion?  He doesn't have it.  Anyone with the slightest knowledge of realities in contemporary America knows that retail and other store proprietors are so paranoid about the prospect of being charged with racial harassment for even the slightest perceived insensitivity that they bend over backward to avoid any appearance of discriminatory behavior towards blacks.  This and other similar cavalier assertions in his manipulative speech are nothing more than incendiary canards.  But, of course, no one in the mainstream media has the slightest inclination to examine the truth of such assertions, much less to call him on them.

                                                                    

          Like Humpty Dumpty, Obama and the media make race language mean whatever they choose.                                
          
           As much as people prefer to avoid the issue, it can no longer be realistically denied that Obama and Holder demonstrate a glaring pro-black bias when they persist in their obsessive preoccupation with the defensive killing of Trayvon Martin, while they callously ignore far more atrocious murders of whites by black criminals, such as the previously noted point-blank murder of a one-year-old baby in Brunswick, Georgia.  Further, their failure to give similar attention to the countless far more culpable and malicious murders of blacks by other blacks, should leave no doubt as to the race-based discrimination in their approach to criminal justice and public policy.  The obvious reason for the administration to seize upon and dramatize the comparatively rare incidence of a black being killed by a non-black (Mr. Zimmerman), while studiously avoiding any public outrage against the thousands of blacks who murder other blacks, is to perpetuate and exploit  the myth of alleged white racism in America.

 

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              Although the Administration's manipulative role in the Zimmerman case bears much responsibility for the division and discord that it has generated, no discussion of the affair would be complete without citing the equally insidious part played by the television, print, and electronic mainstream media in turning a routine local crime story into a veritable bonfire of racial agitation.  I will not duplicate the considerable commentary on this issue in other conservative sources, but will confine my observations to the media's grotesque manipulation of terminology to obscure truth and appeal to passion and prejudice.

 

               The media's insidious malpractice in the Zimmerman-Martin affair has included some of the most shameful misreporting ever perpetrated in American journalism.  The shorthand descriptions used to fix the gullible public's perception of the two protagonists have been especially egregious in their duplicity.  Like the perverse philosopher Humpty Dumpty in Alice in Wonderland, the leftist media has twisted the language describing the case to convey whatever distorted racial message they "choose it to mean -- neither more nor less."

                Both TV and newspaper poltroons, for example, have repeatedly and shamelessly misrepresented the altercation between Zimmerman and Martin as an armed man's attack on a "child."  Putting aside the fallacy of  calling Zimmerman's jury-validated self-defense as an unprovoked attack, the portrayal of the strapping 17-year-old Martin as a "child" is not only grossly deceptive and deliberately inflammatory, but an insult to the legions of 17-year-old (and younger) men who have served honorably and effectively as warriors in the U.S. Armed Forces. 

                Both the Navy and Marine Corps accepted enlistments from 17-year-olds in World War II (and still do), and many thousands of these teenagers (including my Father-in-Law, who was a UDT Navy diver) played crucial combat and support roles in the defeat of the Axis Powers.  Indeed, the legendary Marine Jacklyn ("Jack") Lucas – who had actually enlisted at the age of 14 without his parents' permission, claiming to be 17 – won the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism at Iwo Jima when he was still only 17 years old.  Military history alone – even putting aside such teenage freaks as Alexander the Great – confirms that 17-year-olds are indeed men, especially with regard to physical fighting capacity.  So spare us the lugubrious portrayal of Martin as some vulnerable "child."  Martin was not a child, but a physically fit young man, more than capable of defending himself and inflicting mayhem on others.  Yet the media outlets and the race-baiters deliberately perpetrated the fallacy of Martin as some kind of vulnerable waif.

                The media's Orwellian distortion of Zimmerman's racial or ethnic status has been equally  duplicitous.  From the start, the media and the race-baiters were frothing at the mouth to portray the killing as a white-on-black crime.  White-on-black murders are so relatively rare (especially in comparison to black-on-white), and yet so crucial to the left's false narrative of allegedly persistent white racism, that the media and the black political agitators were united in their determination to portray Mr. Zimmerman as a non-minority "white." 

                Yet by the standards each of those cohorts generally employ in racial or ethnic matters Zimmerman would normally have been classified as an Hispanic minority.  His mother is a Peruvian Latina, while his father is apparently a non-minority Caucasian.  Because liberal civil rights and political policy relentlessly seek to expand the "minority" community – and because it is often legally, economically, and politically advantageous to be classified as a minority – persons of such divided parentage are typically classified on the minority side. 

              President Obama, who is 50% white, emphatically and insistently portrays himself as black – but Obama is mathematically no more "black" than Zimmerman is "white."  Similarly, the extremely diverse ethnicity of Tiger Woods is considerably less than 50% black – his mother has no black ancestry and his father is a mixed-race black -- but the liberal media has always emphasized Tiger's purported blackness because that portrayal suits its narrative purposes. 

             In telling contrast, however, the liberal media (led by the duplicitous N.Y. Times) has persistently described Zimmerman with the contrived label of "White Hispanic," and deliberately disregarded his actual minority status.  Had the media honestly recognized Zimmerman's status as a Hispanic-American minority from the outset, their incendiary narrative of a white man's murder of a black "child" would have been confused and diluted.  But there is little room for such honesty when liberal journalists are on the scent of a story that can be shaped to fit their obsessive narrative of white racism.

           If Zimmerman is a "White Hispanic," then Obama is a "White Black."  Neither label makes much sense, but the media, the racial agitators, and the Administration perpetuate the distortion of Zimmerman's actual ethnicity in order to exploit the racial elements of the story.

HOLDER'S DEPARTMENT OF MOB JUSTICE

          SR regrets the absence of posts over the past few weeks, owing to two distinct reasons.  An invigorating beach vacation with a lively three-generation family, and reasonably decent body-surfing waves at Sea Isle City, NJ, accounts for the first portion of the break.  But my blog-silence was prolonged by less pleasant factors:  the accumulation of appalling developments in the news during this interlude, including the U.S. Supreme Court's constitutionally incoherent de facto endorsement of the unnatural oxymoron of same-sex marriage, temporarily rendered me speechless with astonishment.  Only now am I beginning to regain what passes for equanimity in my rock-splashing state of mind.  I plan to first address some of the deeply disturbing racial issues raised in the wake of the clearly valid acquittal in the  George Zimmerman case.  Later, I expect to examine the distortion of young children's natural values and perceptions that are likely to follow from the mindless and indiscriminate acceptance of the homosexual agenda by an increasingly large portion of the American public, which is likely to expand further yet in the wake of the Supreme Court's incoherent rulings. 

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                 Following the acquittal of George Zimmerman for the self-defense killing of Trayvon Martin, the Obama Administration has reacted in a manner that further confirms a racially biased approach to justice and law enforcement policy that has long been evident but which has been overlooked by both the media and what passes for a Republican opposition. 

                While Obama, Attorney General Eric Holder, and other Administration hacks studiously ignore outrageous incidents of black-on-white crime that would appall even the most hardened observer – like the almost unbelievable recent point-blank shooting and murder of a 13-month-old white infant by two black teenage thugs in Brunswick, Georgia – they deliberately distort and exploit the jury-validated self-defense killing of a young black man by a Hispanic man in a manner intended to perpetuate the canard that white racism pervades the American justice system.  From these and other episodes (like the notorious New Black Panther voter intimidation case), it is becoming increasingly clear that the administration of justice under Obama and Holder is infected by a strong element of pro-black  bias.

                Promptly after the killing of Mr. Martin, Obama helped to sensationalize and elevate the case with his gratuitous observation that if he had a son, he would look like Martin.  The obvious purpose of this statement was to place the presidential imprimatur on Martin's status as an icon of black victimization, while its obvious result was to further inflame public and media outrage against Zimmerman. Obama hadn't the slightest knowledge of what actually happened in the tragic confrontation in Florida, or whether legitimate self-defense was involved, yet he chose to use the presidential bully pulpit to help transform a routine local law enforcement matter into a racially inflammatory media circus that would seriously undermine the nation's race relations.

           
                Meanwhile, Eric Holder's Justice Department sent its so-called Community Relations Service to Florida, where (at taxpayer expense) it joined with race-baiting black and so-called civil rights organizations in organizing rallies, marches, and protests that further inflamed racial antagonism against Zimmerman and anyone supporting or defending him in connection with the Martin confrontation.  Rather than seeking to cool racial passions and encourage dispassionate compliance with the rule of law, the Justice Department stoked the frenzy to convict Zimmerman in the court of public opinion before a jury could fairly determine his guilt or innocence based on the actual evidence.

                                                           

  Media Justice for Mr. Zimmerman -- Sentence First, Verdict Afterwards

                 Notwithstanding the fanatic, relentless prosecution by a band of ruthless special prosecutors -- cheered on by a grotesquely biased liberal media baying for the defendant's head like the Queen of Hearts -- Zimmerman was acquitted by the jury on all counts.  The integrity and objectivity of the jury's verdict is emphatically underscored by an especially compelling circumstance:  a contrary verdict would have spared them the menacing threats, insults, calumnies, and genuine dangers to themselves and their families that resulted from their conscientious decision.  They followed the evidence where it led them, and took the heat.  But future jurors in similar cases might not be so courageous after observing what a dangerous and thankless task it is to reach a verdict that does not conform to the angry demands of the media-driven mobs.

                 Although the Administration itself had contributed to the racially incendiary nature of the Zimmerman case, Obama issued a statement after the verdict stating that although the case had elicited strong passions, "we are a nation of laws and a jury has spoken."  The statement signaled that the jury's verdict should be respected and that the nation should move on to the task of preventing "future tragedies." 

                But hardly had the President's statement faded from the airwaves before his insufferable Attorney General was on the racial stump, assuring the various black groups and agitators that the case was far from closed, notwithstanding the President's admonition that "a jury has spoken."  He declared that, notwithstanding Zimmerman's full acquittal, the Justice Department would forge ahead with its aggressive investigation into a possible second criminal prosecution of Zimmerman on federal civil rights charges.  The Justice Department even solicited the submission of any additional "evidence" that citizens might have to a DOJ website, even setting up a public e-mail address to receive "tips" from civil rights groups and the like. 

                Holder and his feckless DOJ minions must be aware that they have no legal basis for bringing any federal criminal charges against Zimmerman.  The FBI's report of its own investigation of the matter reveals that there is no evidence of racial bias motivating Zimmerman's actions, which would be essential to the federal civil rights charges that Holder insists are still on the table.  Moreover, fundamental principles of double jeopardy militate against such a second prosecution, even if the Department could establish technical grounds for evading the double jeopardy bar under a contrived theory of separate sovereignty.  Rather, it is clear that the Department's persistence in pursuing Mr. Zimmerman is motivated by race-based pandering to black political organizations, racial agitators, and baying mobs in the streets.

                Holder took his pandering and distortion to new levels in a speech to the NAACP further stoking the flames of the Zimmerman case.  He shamefully described the rabid rioting and marauding by mobs angered by the jury's verdict as "peaceful protests . . . designed to inspire responsible debate."  In fact, the protests were violent and radical, such as the reported attack on a Hispanic man in Baltimore where the black "protesters" shouted, "This is for Trayvon."  And while Holder falsely depicted mob violence as peaceful protest, the internet reverberated with countless threats against not only Mr. Zimmerman himself, but his family and the trial jury, including numerous menacing tweats (some by celebrities and famous athletes) that were reported in the media. 

                The race-based violence of the Zimmerman rioters and the race-based Zimmerman-related threats on the internet, Twitter, and elsewhere implicate genuine federal crimes and civil rights offenses that the Justice Department should be forcefully pursuing.  So too, of course, did the unspeakable hate crime committed by the black teenagers who shot the one-year-old white infant in Georgia.  In the same vein, the graphically documented voter intimidation by the New Black Panther Party thugs at Philadelphia polling places in the 2008 elections presented one of the most egregious violations of the Voting Rights Act in this century.

                Yet Holder's Justice Department ignores or simply refuses to pursue these and countless similar outrages, even while it persists in pursuing the persecution of a man who has just been acquitted of all charges by an honest jury in a vigorously and relentlessly prosecuted case involving apparent self-defense.

                The Holder Justice Department's disparate approach to these matters provides persuasive evidence of a racially biased administration of justice.  Holder and Obama, both black, are in full control of federal law enforcement in today's America, and both are closely associated with, and committed to, the political and legal agenda advanced by black interest groups like the NAACP, the Rainbow Push Coalition, and others like them.  The persecution of the so-called "White Hispanic" neighborhood watchman George Zimmerman is part of that legal agenda, while the pursuit of the black teenage killers in Georgia, the black voter intimidators in Philadelphia, and those who bandy violent threats against Mr. Zimmerman and the jurors who acquitted him is not. 

                There is a deeply disturbing pattern here, and the refusal to acknowledge and challenge it will only perpetuate the problem until it reaches more critical levels. 

                Next SR will address the obscenely distorted presentation of the Zimmerman case by what passes for the "news media" in a nation that seems increasingly indifferent to fair and accurate reporting of the difficult issues that affect its welfare.