This
week has seen the culmination of a trial in Florida which has, well, not
exactly gripped the nation. In fact, beyond a few news stories here and there,
and the occasional blog, it's actually been pretty quiet – mainly because this
is the kind of story that is happening increasingly often in the USA, and it's
becoming increasingly difficult to work up the level of shock and anger it
deserves. The case involves a white man named Michael Dunn who stopped off at a
gas station with his girlfriend on the way to a hotel. The car next to his was
full of black teenagers who were playing loud music. Dunn apparently told his
girlfriend how much he hated 'thug' music, and when she went inside to buy some
groceries and pay for the fuel, he confronted the kids in the car. They refused
to turn the music down, and things took a turn for the worse.
Dunn
claims one of the teenagers flashed a gun at him (although no gun has ever been
found), and he responded by shooting the boy, and then firing more shots into
the car as it sped away. By the time the shooting victim could receive medical
attention, it was too late – he was dead. Dunn, meanwhile, simply drove to his
hotel and ordered a pizza. Now a jury in Florida has found Dunn guilty of
attempted murder – for shooting at the other three inhabitants of the car as it
drove away – but delivered a hung verdict on whether he killed Jordan Davis,
the dead teen. Yes, somehow they were sure that he was trying to kill three of
the teenagers he shot at, but not sure whether he was responsible for killing
the one that he actually hit with a bullet. Dunn faces decades in prison
anyway, and there will be a retrial on the hung verdict, but the case has still
angered many who see it as another example of a white man killing a young black
person and getting away with it.
That's
right - another one, because this is starting to happen with alarming
regularity in the US. There is, of course, the famous case of Trayvon Martin,
who was walking home from a local shop with a bag of Skittles when a
neighbourhood watch officer, George Zimmerman started following him, and
eventually shot him dead. Zimmerman claimed self-defence, and was acquitted. In
other parts of the country, similar events have taken place. Near Detroit, a
young black woman got into a car accident, and knocked on a nearby house to ask
for assistance. Instead, she received a shotgun blast to the head. The shooter
has been charged with murder, with the trial set for June, but it took days of
concerted publicity for the case before the police acted. An almost identical
event took place a few months before, this time in Charlotte, North Carolina,
when a black man who had been in a car accident knocked on a door for help. The
homeowners called the police, and when the police turned up and the man ran
towards them, they shot him several times. He also died. The officer in
question has been charged with 'voluntary manslaughter', meaning the shooting
is considered self-defence. Self-defence against an unarmed man who had just
crashed his car.
Essentially,
in large parts of the US it seems to be almost legal to shoot black people who
are found in the wrong place at the wrong time. You might be charged with
murder, but it's rare to be convicted – remember, even Michael Dunn has not
been found guilty of actually killing a black teenager, only of trying to kill
them. Black youths are seen as lesser people, as people who need to stay in
their place, and as people who are inherently threatening to the white
community. And, of course, this verdict comes at the same time that the
American media is relentlessly attacking Russia for its treatment of gay people
– a treatment which is almost exactly the same as America's treatment of black
people. Both countries are treating a portion of their population as second
class citizens and as less-than-human – but only one of them is being openly
hypocritical about it.
[ Michael
Dunn, Jordan Davis, Trayvon Martin, George Zimmerman, shotgun blast to head,
using gun, killing black people, American media, treatment of gay people ]
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